Re: [9fans] Booting plan9 on intel macs

["J.R. Mauro" <jrm8005@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg<lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:
> I accidentally installed a FreeBSD drive in my MacBook. To my surprise,
> it just worked. If you install a boot drive with the "usual" PC disk
> partitioning the Macs will boot in what seems to be a fairly complete
> BIOS emulation.
>
> How far Plan9 gets is another story, but my guess is that even if it
> sees the disk controllers properly, it's not going to like the NIC(s).
>
> Don't even try to install it on a Mac. Instead, pull the drive and do
> the install on a normal PC, then stick the drive back into the Mac. This
> might give you a fighting chance, but it's inevitable you'll be doing
> driver work before long.
>
>

Just installing rEFIt will be much easier than any of that, assuming
plan 9 can handle the hardware. But the intel macs use Broadcom NICs
and a weird platform chip for the ambient light sensors and
accelerometers, which you'd have to write a driver for. Looking for
'applesmc' would give some examples. I can't think of other weird
hardware they might use... aside from discrete video cards, they're
mostly intel hardware.