[Sugar-devel] Getting Sugar to run on certain mac chipsets

[Amir Ansari]

Hi Caroline

I can only think of three ways of doing this:

1.  Offer a Mac-specific SoaS;
2.  Add an extra option to the boot menu to allow Mac booting;
3.  Use a (modified?) initrd to try to detect whether the computer is  
a Mac, after the bootloader but before loading the full kernel, and  
then boot accordingly with the correct kernel option. I've  
experimented with initial ramdisks, but I don't recall this being  
possible...

I'll be able to investigate this in more detail next week. Does anyone  
else have a better solution...?

Amir


On 18 Jun 2009, at 14:23, Caroline Meeks wrote:

> We've been having an issue on some newer macs with the screen going  
> blank.  Deds and Pauline have been working on the issue and here is  
> what they have discovered that works.
>
> Note that this is using standard keyboard and not the apple one.  If  
> using apple keyboard you might need to change the keys you press.   
> The following is what I did:
>
> I plugged the latest SoaS (Soas2-200905241902.iso) and boot helper  
> (soas-boot-20090615.iso) in the mac mini and then booted up.
> At the sound of the chime, I immediately pressed the ALT key until  
> the boot options appear.  (options that appeared on the mac mini are  
> Macintosh HD and Windows, with Windows pertaining to the SoaS)
> Select Window.
> As soon as you see the blue screen which says automatically logging  
> in n seconds... Press the TAB key.  This should display the boot menu
> At the boot menu press the TAB key to display the kernel boot  
> parameters.
> At the end of the displayed parameters, type "nomodeset" and press  
> ENTER. This should start up sugar
> So what does nomodeset actually do?
>
> It disables this https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/KernelModesetting
>
> Introduced in FC10 but has been having problems with some graphic  
> chipsets (including Intel GMA 950 which is in the Mac Mini).  AFAICT  
> it can be safely disabled with no adverse effects on stability.
>
> Is there a way we can modify SoaS so that mac users don't have to do  
> this but it still works for everyone?
>
> -- 
> Caroline Meeks
> Solution Grove
> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
>
> 617-500-3488 - Office
> 505-213-3268 - Fax
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> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
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