Snakeoil Forums

Hi, did anyone succeed to make a mac boot the Snakeoil OS from a USB stick or SD card?
When I tried, my mac could not read the boot media.

(I have Snakeoil running from an SD card on a PC, but would like to try it out for a friend who only has a mac.)

(17-Oct-2016, 11:43 PM)bodiebill Wrote: [ -> ]Hi, did anyone succeed to make a mac boot the Snakeoil OS from a USB stick or SD card?
When I tried, my mac could not read the boot media.

(I have Snakeoil running from an SD card on a PC, but would like to try it out for a friend who only has a mac.)

MAC runs a UEFI only BIOS and at the moment I couldn't create a UEFI compatible ISO for Snakeoil. The online documentation I have found so far all don't seem to work. Intel NUCs are UEFI only too.

The code itself already run fine on Intel Mac hardware (I have tested this since Snakeoil 0.1), but that requires manual installation.

ATM I'm trying to migrate all my development work from one computer to another so I can free up my old computer to test UEFI booting. This has taken months and still not complete yet (As I've chosen to use VMWare ESXi for virtualisation and that is very picky on hardware).

The idea is to sort out UEFI booting issues and release 0.1.5. Hope I can get this to work.

(18-Oct-2016, 07:54 AM)agent_kith Wrote: [ -> ]

(17-Oct-2016, 11:43 PM)bodiebill Wrote: [ -> ]Hi, did anyone succeed to make a mac boot the Snakeoil OS from a USB stick or SD card?
When I tried, my mac could not read the boot media.

(I have Snakeoil running from an SD card on a PC, but would like to try it out for a friend who only has a mac.)

MAC runs a UEFI only BIOS and at the moment I couldn't create a UEFI compatible ISO for Snakeoil. The online documentation I have found so far all don't seem to work. Intel NUCs are UEFI only too.

The code itself already run fine on Intel Mac hardware (I have tested this since Snakeoil 0.1), but that requires manual installation.

ATM I'm trying to migrate all my development work from one computer to another so I can free up my old computer to test UEFI booting. This has taken months and still not complete yet (As I've chosen to use VMWare ESXi for virtualisation and that is very picky on hardware).

The idea is to sort out UEFI booting issues and release 0.1.5. Hope I can get this to work.

Thanks, good luck!

Strangely enough, after trying two macs with no success, I tried a third one, and that one was able to boot from the Snakeoil usb stick. Apparently, though the usb stck is not readable by a started OSX (macOS), it is recognized as a 'Windows' startup disk, at least by this machine.

Alas, when booting it hangs a while waiting for network configuration, which never succeeds, and then it ends at the Snakeoil login screen with no IP address assigned.

The above problem only applies to mac. When booting from the same usb stick on a PC, an IP address is assigned.

Getting closer, but not yet there... Any suggestions?

(19-Oct-2016, 02:25 AM)bodiebill Wrote: [ -> ]Strangely enough, after trying two macs with no success, I tried a third one, and that one was able to boot from the Snakeoil usb stick. Apparently, though the usb stck is not readable by a started OSX (macOS), it is recognized as a 'Windows' startup disk, at least by this machine.

Alas, when booting it hangs a while waiting for network configuration, which never succeeds, and then it ends at the Snakeoil login screen with no IP address assigned.

The above problem only applies to mac. When booting from the same usb stick on a PC, an IP address is assigned.

Getting closer, but not yet there... Any suggestions?

Looks like need a new network driver for the Mac... Can you tell me the year of manufacture, and model of the Apple machine?

This one was a mac mini mid 2011, 2,3 GHz Intel Core i5.

(19-Oct-2016, 03:56 PM)bodiebill Wrote: [ -> ]This one was a mac mini mid 2011, 2,3 GHz Intel Core i5.

I'd see if I can dig up the specs and build u a Mac kernel. Will let you know tomorrow.

Thanks Agent Kith, appreciated!

@bodiebill. Looks like the existing kernel should work (it's already supporting the Broadcom TG3 chipset). Can you login to the machine, and run:
and show me the bits that say network? (If it's there?)

also run:
and see if any content shows up.

When you connect the Ethernet cable, did the link LED light up?

lspci: retyping from the screen, the network bits are
02.00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM57765 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 10)
03.00.0 Host controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM57765/57785 SDXV/MMC Card Reader (rev 10)
04.00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 02)

dmesg|grep eth0: alas no output

and also no link LED when I attach the ethernet cable...
 

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