Mac OS 9 booting on: Mac mini G4 (Detailed Posts)

[ELN]

I2SAudioPlugin looks up these OF properties:

Code: [Select]

driver-ist
AAPL,address
i2s-serial-format
mclk-sample-rate-ratio

BTW, any chance we could sticky this thread?

[RossDarker]

Think you should only have the Custom Happy Mac on the bootable CD, keeping the installed system a generic happy mac. By the way will the ROM from post #267 work with the CPU plugins, does the thing just go in the Multiprocessing folder in Extensions? Also are the CPU plugins from post #286? I could use your latest ROM on the CD, and ROM from 267 in the System you install. I can update the CD iso again with these things.

[ELN]

RossDarker that's a fair point. But I still think that it makes better sense to attach a visible mark to all the code that we have substantially modified, and to leave everything else alone.

As a rule, I can only vouch for the latest file that I have posted. I try to work on one patch branch at a time (currently "aggressive-mini-power-mgt" in powermac-rom and "mini-pmu-fix" in newworld-rom). For posterity I keep old branches and archive old releases, but I forget about these very quickly. Don't use them!

The latest ROM *is* compatible with a *stock* Apple CPU Plugins file. Apple's "Core99Plugin" freezes when trying to read the nonexistent THRM registers on a 7450-family CPU, but I work around this with a NanoKernel patch. Without the Apple CPU Plugins file, the CPU will be unable to take brief "naps" when the OS is idle, so the mini will run hot, causing the fans to spin up and make a racket.

[RossDarker]

Okay, so I will change the ROM in both the CD and the Base System. Just to clarify, should I just use the CPU plugins from a generic apple install (or from the standard Unsupported G4's CD), or your hacked up ones for the mini (from #286)?

[RossDarker]

I think this was mentioned with an earlier ROM too, but your latest ROM can put the Mac mini to sleep, with the screen going off, but the Sleep light does not pulse and you can still hear stuff going on inside the mini. And then can't wake up.

[ELN]

Use a stock Apple CPU Plugins file. With the NanoKernel patches in the ROM, hacks to the CPU Plugins file are no longer needed.

And use this ROM file! It will not be automatically booted on non-mini machines, lest the prim-info patch muck something up.

Until we get sleep working, perhaps tweak the installed Energy Saver preferences to disable automatic sleep?

[RossDarker]

Ok I am using am using CPU plugins from my TiBook, where the version has a Z in (4.0, Copyright Apple Computer, Inc. 1994-2002 Mac OS CPU Software Z-5.6). (attached) This seem to go well with the latest ROM for fan behaviour. Like if I run Bugdom, the fans will get louder, and when I quit, they go back quiet. I think Bugdom is always a good test because it uses Sound, requires QD3D, Hardware acceleration, and will make fans run faster, so you get an idea of what works. I probably won't put the ROM+CPU plugins on the CD as default yet, until the box that says "Your computer cannot go to sleep, because some System Software is missing" (when you try to sleep), or until sleep works correctly. Although, I could make it a thing you can install from the "CD Extras" folder on the CD, which changes the ROM to the latest and adds in the CPU plugins, if people know about the sleep not waking up.

[ELN]

This (version 3.9) seems to be the stock one in Mac OS 9.2.2 (US English). (I'd guess that only the copyright string is different between language packs.) Your version 4.0 is probably the better one to use, but I'll leave the choice to you!

Excellent job on this ISO, RossDarker! I actually used it today to set up a mini. It took me on a nostalgia trip to 2015, when I learnt that my neglected MDD FW800 could run my favourite OS.

[ELN]

One last thing: if you are going to leave the CPU Plugin out by default, you should still use the latest ROM. Bring earmuffs though!

[RossDarker]

Ah yes that is quality. Thanks on that, removing the Multiprocessing folder with the new ROM will say you can't sleep and gives the options [Cancel] and [Shut Down] if you try to sleep.

You will be able to add the multiprocessing folder separately, which will be in the CD extras folder.

I'll get updating the ISO!

[RossDarker]

Ok here it is:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-80X7kS0noCDNiP61uA54uLCAM4d9lRQ/view?usp=sharing

Changes:
ROM is now ELN's latest ROM with MacTron's Happy Mac icon.
The Multiprocessing folder can be added to your extensions folder. Multiprocessing folder is located in the CD Extras folder in this CD.
Updated a few of the Read Me documents.

Burn the ISO through the Finder or Disk Utility or Toast on OS X, and you can burn in Windows too. You can boot the Mac mini off this CD once burned and use ASR to install OS 9.
Boots ONLY the Mac mini G4s. (10,1 and 10,2).

[RossDarker]

MacTron, another update to the Mac mini CD:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-80X7kS0noCDNiP61uA54uLCAM4d9lRQ/view?usp=sharing

[IIO]

great stuff.

could you start adding versionnumbers or date to the filenames mb? stuff starts to spread around servers.

[RossDarker]

great stuff.

could you start adding versionnumbers or date to the filenames mb? stuff starts to spread around servers.

Right now it is Version 5 of the Mac mini CDs that use ASR. I guess you could say Version 0 was that old Drag and Drop install I originally made. Each time I remake the CD, the version changes by 1. I'll add the version to the file name.

[MacTron]

MacTron, another update to the Mac mini CD:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-80X7kS0noCDNiP61uA54uLCAM4d9lRQ/view?usp=sharing

Updated!
Thanks

[MacTron]

BTW, any chance we could sticky this thread?

Donne 

[Jubadub]

By the way, has anyone succeeded booting into OS 9 on the Mini, but over FireWire (or even USB) drives? I can install OS 9 files just like I did with the internal HDD I have, and it shows up among the options on OS 9's StartUp Disk and even upon booting with Alt/Option pressed as a boot option, but once it attempts to boot, I get the "diskette with question mark" problem, implying it couldn't find any OS to boot with from there. Some seconds later, it boots from the internal HDD.

Aside from this inability described above, it also causes a little side-effect: if booting into OS 9 afterwards (installed in my internal HDD), all the partitions are missing from my external FW HDD, meaning the drive goes entirely undetected, and even upon rebooting with Alt/Option pressed, those partitions are all still missing. The problem is resolved when I boot into my internal HDD's OS X partition, which immediately "sees" the external HDD once again, and its partitions.

For reference, when all of the external FW HDD's partitions are visible and accessible once again, I can boot OS X 10.4/5 Client/Server off them without any problem whatsoever.

In short:
1. How to boot OS 9 off FireWire drives on the mini?
2. Why does the external FW drive "disappear", and why OS X "finds them back" while OS 9 does not?

In case anyone can answer these... I believe external, bootable OS 9 besides optical medium would be very desirable.
I didn't try booting things from OF, although I'm not sure if that would make a difference for OS 9.

EDIT: And oh, also:
- All partitions were formatted over OS X's Disk Utility. The Drive Setup that came with the OS 9 mini CD couldn't support the FW drive at all;
- The partition I tried to get OS 9 to work with was formatted with HFS+ (without journaling, case-INsensitive. Meaning plain, old, default HFS+).

[RossDarker]

@Jubadub, I can see my FW HD fine from Mac OS 9, and it there a 2 partitions on APM, both formatted as JHFS+ with OS9Drivers. Are the partitions too big on your disk for OS 9 to see?

[Jubadub]

@Jubadub, I can see my FW HD fine from Mac OS 9, and it there a 2 partitions on APM, both formatted as JHFS+ with OS9Drivers. Are the partitions too big on your disk for OS 9 to see?

I can see them too, provided the bug I described didn't occur (or got already fixed). But what I couldn't do was to boot OS 9 off them, nor use OS 9's Drive Setup on them. Did you manage to boot 9 from an external FireWire drive?

The partitions I have don't surpass 190GB in size. The whole drive is 931GB big. (Incidentally, I believe although OS 9 won't supposedly boot from partitions bigger than 200GB, it can still see and use partitions as big as 2TB, no?)

I forgot to mention, I also used APM (Apple Partition Map) when formatting, and I even checked the box in Tiger's Disk Utility where I state I intend to boot Mac OS 9 off the drive. Could it be the latter is, somehow and ironically, interfering with things? (I'd guess not, but I dunno.)

[RossDarker]

I boot OS 9 off the FW drive yes. The drive contains Tiger & 9.2.2 partition. I boot the Mac mini off the Tiger partition for use of OS X, and the 9.2.2 partition is what I use to make the ASR CDs. And the internal HD I use for just use for general 9.2.2. For some reason, it's just the internal drive I cannot dual boot.