Using OpenBios to boot Mac OS on CHRP?

[H S]

Hello everyone,

I have an RS/6000 7025-F50. It is a CHRP machine from
late �98 and it has an awesome open firmware
implementation. It even has a great GUI for the usual
system configuration. The only thing it seems to be
missing is an xcoff-loader package. Thus I am unable
to load Apple�s Mac OS X bootloader, BootX. I
researched for a time the possibility of an elf
version of BootX, but it was beyond me and I could not
find anyone interested in helping me. There is not
much PowerPC development over at Open Darwin since
most people already using PowerPC machines are using
Macs, and Apple has already taken care of everything
for them.

Well I have been following the work with PearPC to
bring it OpenBios support, and I got to thinking would
it be possible to load OpenBios from my open firmware,
which then could load BootX? Something like Open
firmware --> OpenBios --> BootX. Plus, my Open
firmware has limited Mac-Parts and Mac-Files packages
similar to Old World Macs, so it can�t browse HFS+
partitions, which is necessary to locate BootX.
OpenBios could kill 2 birds with one stone; locate the
bootloader and load it.

Without kernel extensions for my hardware, I am not
sure how far along it would get. With RTAS maybe it
could boot in some sort of �safe mode� with minimal
support? Well, even if it kernel panics I would still
consider it a victory to see the grey Apple as BootX
loads.

You can find some information on the F50 at a little
site I made about it.
http://www.geocities.com/hokutogreatbear/index.htm

Hopefully this makes sense to someone!

Thanks,
Hanns

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