Enable multiple OSX boot option and intellegent labels?

[Jim Harris]

See in-line

 

(I sure wish I knew how to make it so that every time I type in a punctuation character in Outlook, it would not come up as Egyptian Hieroglyphics within the post!)

 

From: Jackoverfull [mailto:jackoverfull at gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2012 8:06 PM
To: Jim Harris
Cc: yaboot-users at lists.ozlabs.org
Subject: Re: Enable multiple OSX boot option and intellegent labels?

 

 

Il giorno 03/feb/2012, alle ore 20.25, Jim Harris ha scritto:





Success!

 

Jack,  I followed your advice and edited the ofboot.b file directly and re-saved it in the bootstrap partition.  Then, with fear and trepidation, I changed the ‘boot-dev’ Open Firmware variable to point directly to the ofboot.b file.  (Did I type in enough zeros?  Did I forget some weird punctuation somewhere?  Will this even work or did I just bork my machine??)

 

p.s.  I saved a copy of both the original ofboot.b and the new ofboot.b on my desktop – and I’m going to write them to a thumb-drive too.

 

After correcting a couple of typos in the boot file, I am now getting a menu with both OSX partitions represented, with sane labels.  Though, as I am sure you agree, I hate ugly hacks like this.

 

Glad to be reading this!

>>Jim

You aren’t the only one! ( :grin: )

<<Jim



Next question:  Does anyone know how to make that boot menu in a larger typeface?  These ol eyes have not been 20 years old for a LOOONG time, and the text in that menu is pretty darn small. . . .  ( :grin: )

 

Easiest solution: lower Open Firmware resolution. Open Firmware boots with the latest resolution used by Mac OS (Linux ignores the boot resolution), so you'll need to change it right before shutting down and changing it back on startup.

 

>>Jim

???  Huh?  How do you do that?

The closest thing I could find is screen-#rows and screen-#columns (I hope I got those right)

“printenv” shows screen-#columns as 100 and screen-#rows as 40.  I tried “setenv screen-#columns 80” – which command it took, and it printed back wonderfully on a subsequent “printenv” – but there was no change in the Open Firmware screen resolution, not even after a hard reboot (i.e. a full shutdown and cold-start)

 

After I did all of that, I executed what I will call the Macintosh “four-finger salute”: OPT-CMD-O-F  to return to the Open Firmware editor – and the resolution was unchanged.  Continuing the boot into OSX (or Linux) did not appear to be affected.

<<Jim

 

You could use this small command-line utility, calling it while booting and  while shutting down: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090413120929454

>>Jim

This utility is for the terminal window *within* the running context of OSX – not the Open Firmware.

<<Jim

 

For the boot you have multiple options (create a service, move it in a .app package to start it at login, edit the rc.common file) haven't done enough tests to see if all of those are viable, to shut down I would probably generate a service for launchd or use a logouthook (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2420?viewlocale=en_US).

>>Jim

Again, this is within the running OSX context, not the Open Firmware display.

What I am trying to do is – somehow – make the Open Firmware text look more like 640x480 than 1024x768

<<Jim

 

There should be a way to edit the resolution from open firmware (so you can put a command directly in ofboot.b), but I don't know it and suspect it requires a reboot to see the changes anyway.

>>Jim

You would think so, wouldn’t you?  I went all over the Internet trying to find this stuff – got some really nice command-lists, etc. but nothing that looked like what I needed, except the screen-#columns / #rows which seemed to do no good at all.

 

(Hmmm. . . .  Maybe I should try those commands within the ofboot.b file?  Can I issue “setenv” commands there?

<<Jim

The other straightforward solution is…

 __,  _,  _, ___   _  _ _ ___ _,_    _,  _,  _, _ _    _, __, ___ ,
 |_) / \ / \  |    |  | |  |  |_|   / \ (_  / ` | |   / \ |_)  |  |
 |_) \ / \ /  |    |/\| |  |  | |   |~| , ) \ , | |   |~| | \  |  |
 ~    ~   ~   ~    ~  ~ ~  ~  ~ ~   ~ ~  ~   ~  ~ ~   ~ ~ ~ ~  ~  .

>>Jim

*YOU* try it first on YOUR machine, and post the script here.  (or the video of your machine smoking out of both ears on YouTube!) ( :laughing: )

<<Jim

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/yaboot-users/attachments/20120204/39cefbe9/attachment-0001.html>