rEFIt Boot Disk...

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lstar
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:20 pm

rEFIt Boot Disk...

#1 Post by lstar » Thu Apr 07, 2011 4:49 pm

rEFIt is an open source project.
[url=http://refit.sourceforge.net/]

They have a bootable CD based on HFS file system.

I made an iso of this CD and have used the usual lines in menu.lst to boot this .iso

Since Grub4Dos does not support HFS at this time,

perhaps there is an intermediate step(s) like a bootloader to call up first that then points to this .iso

I have tried tboot using:

title rEFIt
find --set-root /ubcd/custom/rEFIt0.14.iso
map /ubcd/custom/rEFIt0.14.iso (hd32)
map --hook
kernel /memdisk
initrd=/boot/tboot

Also, chainloader /boot/tboot

no luck yet. I'm doing this in Virtual Box but also have burn a CD to test directly on a mac.

Ideas welcomed indeed...thank you.

Icecube
Posts: 1278
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 2:52 pm
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Re: rEFIt Boot Disk...

#2 Post by Icecube » Thu Apr 07, 2011 5:22 pm

It is not possible to boot rEFIt with MEMDISK or grub4dos.
The rEFIt ISO is not a BIOS bootable Eltorito CD (which format is understood by MEMDISK and grub4dos), but a CD format only bootable on a Mac which uses EFI (the CD has hfsplus as filesystem).
Download Ultimate Boot CD v5.0: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
Use Parted Magic for handling all partitioning task: http://partedmagic.com/

ady
Posts: 832
Joined: Sat May 08, 2010 5:26 am

Re: rEFIt Boot Disk...

#3 Post by ady » Thu Apr 07, 2011 8:44 pm

lstar wrote:They have a bootable CD based on HFS file system. I made an iso of this CD and have used the usual lines in menu.lst to boot this .iso
Although this is not the most adecuate section of the forum for this topic... :roll:

That CD comes not only for MACs, but also as an ISO download, so you don't need to make a new ISO. Just download the ISO from their site.
Since Grub4Dos does not support HFS at this time,

perhaps there is an intermediate step(s) like a bootloader to call up first that then points to this .iso
Your problem is not so much HFS(plus), but (U)EFI. The "rEFIT" tool is NOT for BIOS-based systems.
From http://refit.sourceforge.net/
rEFIt is a boot menu and maintenance toolkit for EFI-based machines like the Intel Macs.
That means, at least in theory, (U)EFI and no need of a special bootloader.
no luck yet. I'm doing this in Virtual Box but also have burn a CD to test directly on a mac.
Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Ex ... on_support

In addition, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible ... ot_manager
Boot manager: An EFI boot manager is also used to select and load the operating system, removing the need for a dedicated boot loader mechanism (the OS boot loader is an EFI application).
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible ... ng_systems
Linux has been able to use EFI at boot time since early 2000, using the elilo EFI boot loader or, more recently, EFI versions of GRUB.
Apple uses EFI for its line of Intel-based Macs. Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger for Intel and Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard support EFI v1.10 in 32-bit mode, even on 64-bit CPUs (newer Macs have 64-bit EFI).
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elilo#elilo
elilo is likely to be the standard bootloader on any version of Linux running on Intel-based Apple Macintosh hardware
GRUB version for EFI: http://packages.debian.org/sid/grub-efi

HTH.

lstar
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:20 pm

Re: rEFIt Boot Disk...

#4 Post by lstar » Thu Apr 07, 2011 10:10 pm

Thank you very much for input and links. I actually did down load their iso. Just to be clear.
So this is interesting indeed. I had wondered about linux booting EFI. I will study this. Thanks again.

lstar
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:20 pm

Re: rEFIt Boot Disk...

#5 Post by lstar » Thu Apr 07, 2011 11:13 pm

Ok, so if I wanted to do this, I would need to extract the file/folder tree from the iso and put it in the root of the boot CD build. Then I could start it from isolinux via a call to the .efi boot file.

ady
Posts: 832
Joined: Sat May 08, 2010 5:26 am

Re: rEFIt Boot Disk...

#6 Post by ady » Thu Apr 07, 2011 11:27 pm

lstar wrote:Ok, so if I wanted to do this, I would need to extract the file/folder tree from the iso and put it in the root of the boot CD build. Then I could start it from isolinux via a call to the .efi boot file.
Are you asking? Or are you stating that your described method actually works?

lstar
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:20 pm

Re: rEFIt Boot Disk...

#7 Post by lstar » Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:37 am

Hello Ady,

I'm thinking out loud on. However, how would you go about this?

I was thinking it would be better not to have to lay out the entire directory from this iso into the root of the CD. What about extracting the iso into memory, and then executing it from there? Or re-compressing the image into a format Linux understands, so it can be executed once called.



Thanks.

ady
Posts: 832
Joined: Sat May 08, 2010 5:26 am

Re: rEFIt Boot Disk...

#8 Post by ady » Fri Apr 08, 2011 8:17 am

I think you need to read the rEFIt documentation (from 2007) at their website. It is supposed to be much simpler than that. The docs include install from CD, booting either the CD or another already-installed OS, and so on. So, no need to extract/expand the ISO.

The key here is to understand what is (U)EFI, which already includes a boot loader. There are several boot managers somehow compatible, and I already posted links to them.

So to test this in VirtualBox, you MUST set your VM to use EFI (in the "system" properties of your VM), and to understand that the OS needs to be EFI-aware.

The links I already provided state several examples of Apple-based OSs that should work with EFI, in addition to some links to Fedora, Gentoo and Debian (and even some versions of Windows).

The CD of rEFIt is supposed to be added to the boot menu, and the rEFIt documentation also explains how to display the boot menu (command key related).

Just take all the links I posted, and read.

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