Boot Openstep Installation from CD

I just made El Torrito bootable CDs for installing OPENSTEP 4.2..

It boots FAST!  It loads FAST!  With a little work, an X-tra large disk image can be built with ALLLL the drivers included.

OS 4.2 Install Boot CD (http://ydduj.org/Openstep/bootcd.iso)
OS 4.2 Drivers CD (http://ydduj.org/Openstep/drivercd.iso)

----
In case anyone is curious how I made these:

* Create a temp directory.  In this case, it was OS42.
* Move your .floppyimage files into the directory.
* Run 'mkisofs' like so:
mkisofs -r -b 4.2_YOUR_SPECIFIC.floppyimage -c boot.catalog -o cdname.iso .
* Run 'cdrecord' like so:
cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=/your/cdr cdname.iso

This should work equally well for NeXTSTEP 3.3 or Rhapsody.

It's installing happily onto my Dell Lattitude CP Notebook and my Compaq Armada M300 8)

Quote from: "itomato"I just made El Torrito bootable CDs for installing OPENSTEP 4.2..

Excellent!

Quote from: "itomato"In case anyone is curious how I made these:

* Create a temp directory.  In this case, it was OS42.
* Move your .floppyimage files into the directory.
* Run 'mkisofs' like so:

Code Select Expand


mkisofs -r -b 4.2_YOUR_SPECIFIC.floppyimage -c boot.catalog -o cdname.iso .
* Run 'cdrecord' like so:

Code Select Expand


cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=/your/cdr cdname.iso

This should work equally well for NeXTSTEP 3.3 or Rhapsody.
NOTE: I haven't successfully installed with this method, but I think it's because I burned my OS42 CD incorrectly..  For some reason the label did not get written, and the size is over 500MB.

So you're saying this does not work and we use the method below -

Quote from: "itomato"REVISED: I made use of 'bchunk' to create ISOs from my .bin image backups, and this handy cuesheet:

Code Select Expand


FILE "OS42_User.bin" BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00


The ISO burned correctly - 488MB, "OPENSTEP_42" disk label..

It's installing happily onto my Dell Lattitude CP Notebook 8)

or are you combining the 2 images above into a 3rd OS 4.2 image and we have a bootable CD rom with drivers and user on? if that's so then this is magic!

I should clarify..  My OS install CD (OPENSTEP 4.2 USER) was broken, and the 'bchunk' bit has to do with burning a replacement OS installation CD.

Here is another chapter in the boot CD process:

The initial driver CD I made was from a modified driver disk, tailored for VMware installation.
I have created additional ISOs from the "Official" Apple 4.2 Driver disks, as well as the Beta disks (1 & 2).

* Boot from the install CD.

* When selecting drivers for ATA/IDE, choose the "Primary/Seconday EIDE", the singular "EIDE", or SCSI if you're using SCSI..  If you choose the Intel PIIX driver at this point, even if it is recognized, you will have to load the driver from diskette after the initial installation.  This might not be a problem on a desktop machine with a floppy as well as CDROM, but when installing on a laptop, it can be problematic.  The most current EIDE drivers can be installed after the base software is loaded.

* Use whatever CD is appropriate for your situation, but bear in mind, it is frequently advantageous to be conservative when dealing with OPENSTEP drivers.

* After loading the Hard Disk and CDROM drivers, and you are prompted to "Continue without loading additional drivers..." - EJECT the CD and insert your User Install CD.

* You will see the Mach Operating System screen, and hopefully, your devices will be recognized..

I have uploaded additional ISOs for the Beta Drivers to my site and added some additional instructions/notes:
http://juddy.org/Openstep/index.htm

Is there a way to do this for booting on black hardware as well?

Chef

What's the difference between the "Driver" CD and the "Official Driver" CD? Does the Driver CD include some of the beta drivers? Also, how did you make the install "disk" able to read the drivers in from CD? I didn't think that El Torito supported reading in new disk images from different CDs.

Would also be interested to find out if this is possible with the black hardware.  My floppy drive seems dead, so being able to boot the install disk from a CD version would be great!

Outside of a ROM upgrade I don't think it'll work (booting a cd on black).  However if you dig around someone DD'd a CD onto a hard disk, then booted from that hard disk...

That may be an easier path to go down...

As an alternative, I wonder how hard it is to netboot a NeXT?  Let alone if you can install via a Network install...

Quote from: "neozeed"Outside of a ROM upgrade I don't think it'll work (booting a cd on black).  However if you dig around someone DD'd a CD onto a hard disk, then booted from that hard disk...

That may be an easier path to go down...

As an alternative, I wonder how hard it is to netboot a NeXT?  Let alone if you can install via a Network install...

So are you saying that if the system has a boot capable ROM, you should be able to boot from the OS4.2 cd?  On my TurboColor machines, NS3.3 cd boots fine for installation (without use of a floppy), but not my OS4.2 CD.  It seems to find some kind of boot block, but when it tries to load it I get errors and it drops back to the monitor.

Chef

Wow now that is weird.  I was under the impression that OS & NS used the same filesystem for the CD's and thusly should be readable by eachother...

Can you install your OS cd on a PC? (vpc/parallels/Q/Qemu etc etc?)

Perhaps it's damaged....

Quote from: "neozeed"Wow now that is weird.  I was under the impression that OS & NS used the same filesystem for the CD's and thusly should be readable by eachother...

Can you install your OS cd on a PC? (vpc/parallels/Q/Qemu etc etc?)

Perhaps it's damaged....

CD works fine on intel, and in Parallels and VMware.  I even reburned from my backup iso image, and got the same result.  I just went ahead and dumped a NS3.3 image on it and then ran the updater app to get it upgraded to OS4.2.

Chef

Quote from: "itomato"* When selecting drivers for ATA/IDE, choose the "Primary/Seconday EIDE", the singular "EIDE", or SCSI if you're using SCSI..  If you choose the Intel PIIX driver at this point, even if it is recognized, you will have to load the driver from diskette after the initial installation.  This might not be a problem on a desktop machine with a floppy as well as CDROM, but when installing on a laptop, it can be problematic.

When I do this, it still asks me for the drivers disk after rebooting.  All I selected was the "Primary/Seconday Dual EIDE" for both floppy and cd during first stage install.  The Dell Inspiron 7000 I am trying to load it on has a bad floppy drive, so I can not just resort to the floppy to get these drivers.  If I skip the drivers, I get a kernel panic because of the missing EIDE kernel bus class.

Any thoughts?

Chef

nextchef,
    I'm having the exact problem this moment w/ a Dell Latitude C610.  :(   So, I'm going to take my hard drive & throw it in an older laptop which still has a floppy drive.  Then I'll finish the install from there. After that, I'm going to throw the hard drive back in the newer laptop.

Quote from: "kb7sqi"nextchef,
    I'm having the exact problem this moment w/ a Dell Latitude C610.  :(   So, I'm going to take my hard drive & throw it in an older laptop which still has a floppy drive.  Then I'll finish the install from there. After that, I'm going to throw the hard drive back in the newer laptop.

Good idea, as I can throw it in my gateway laptop which has a working floppy.  My hope was to upgrade to the dell since it has a larger screen and more memory than my current gateway OPENSTEP laptop.  Come to think of it, I might be able to just ghost that drive over this one in the Dell and not have to re-install.  The video drivers are different, so I would probably have to interrupt the boot and do a 'config=Default' so it loads the generic drivers.

Thanks for the good idea.

Quote from: "nextchef"

Quote from: "kb7sqi"nextchef,
    I'm having the exact problem this moment w/ a Dell Latitude C610.  :(   So, I'm going to take my hard drive & throw it in an older laptop which still has a floppy drive.  Then I'll finish the install from there. After that, I'm going to throw the hard drive back in the newer laptop.

Good idea, as I can throw it in my gateway laptop which has a working floppy.  My hope was to upgrade to the dell since it has a larger screen and more memory than my current gateway OPENSTEP laptop.  Come to think of it, I might be able to just ghost that drive over this one in the Dell and not have to re-install.  The video drivers are different, so I would probably have to interrupt the boot and do a 'config=Default' so it loads the generic drivers.

Thanks for the good idea.

Yep,  that's how I always move a harddrive from one system to the other.  I got tied up re-compiling stuff because of a openssl security flaw, so I'll get back to the Dell in the morning.   :D  Oh well, atleast I got bunch of stuff recompiled against the new openssl. hehe.

it's been a while since I have messed with it..

I think a new base driver disk needs to be made before it will work.  I have tried with some success on a SCSI system, but I ran into un-related hard disc issues on that machine.

I don't have a running Openstep machine or image right now, and I really can't devote any time to constructing one, else I could investigate the driver disk further.

I believe it's simply a matter of deleting/adding driver bundles to the floppy in the correct locations, and creating/editing catalog entries for them.

I'm working on this again.  I had hoped to use the info from pitz' thread (http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2187&highlight=boot), but the i386 description link is dead.   :cry:

Watch for updates/notes..

Quote from: "itomato"I'm working on this again.  I had hoped to use the info from pitz' thread (http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2187&highlight=boot), but the i386 description link is dead.   :cry:

Watch for updates/notes..

I'm with you... debugging a new system to work with OS4.2 requires constant floppy disk changes... having it all under one CD would rock.  If the installation process is mainly script files, should not be hard to do.  I'll look around the install CDs/floppies while I wait for my 2940 SCSI card to arrive...

I'll repost that blog entry before the weekend.  It was erased when I switched over to a new blog, but I have the entry content backed up somewhere.
Note that there is a 2.88MB limit on the El Torito disk boot image, so the set of drivers that can be squeezed in there is limited in number.

Reposted my old blog entry at: https://peterwong.net/blog/creating-an-openstep-boot-cd-2/ (https://peterwong.net/blog/creating-an-openstep-boot-cd-2/)

Here (http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=1711) was the original posting in the forums.

A fair warning that the process was a little complicated and a little bit of familiarity with BSD, UFS, ISO9660, ElTorito, and such is needed.

/pitz

Quote from: "itomato"I'm working on this again.  I had hoped to use the info from pitz' thread (http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2187&highlight=boot), but the i386 description link is dead.   :cry:

Watch for updates/notes..

Any progress?

I just updated the links and tested the ISOs again, it works quite well, but you need to be very specific in your timing in swapping the CDs.

Step 1. Download and burn the bootcd.iso file from the first post

Step 2. Download and burn the drivercd.iso file from the first post

Step 3. Boot your i386 Openstep system/VM from the CD containing the bootcd image

Step 4.  :!: When you are prompted to insert the diskette containing the driver files, swap the CD for the drivercd disk, and press Enter

Step 5. Presumably due to both images having the same offset, the installer seeks to the correct location of the El Torito image. I'm guessing the BIOS interrupt data is relevant for the El Torito image in the driver disk as well.  For whatever reason, it just works.

Step 6. This is the most critical step: After driver selection is complete and you are prompted to continue without loading additional drivers, eject the driver CD and insert your Openstep 4.2 User CDROM and press enter.

You should be greeted by the installation console view

The early part works nicely. But after the computer reboots, it asks for the EISA and Dual EIDE drive on the beta driver CD. But it could not find it. So the machine can't boot. I do not know if single user would work to fix it.

This is on a Toshiba Tecra M2, P4. I probably do not need this machine, but just to test the new method.

I also tried to connect my Slim SCSI. The driver is loaded, but then it says the adaptor is not found. Was hoping the SCSI CD-ROM drive could help....

Now I'm stuck here....

Quote from: "itomato"I just updated the links and tested the ISOs again, it works quite well, but you need to be very specific in your timing in swapping the CDs.

Step 1. Download and burn the bootcd.iso file from the first post

Step 2. Download and burn the drivercd.iso file from the first post

Step 3. Boot your i386 Openstep system/VM from the CD containing the bootcd image

Step 4.  :!: When you are prompted to insert the diskette containing the driver files, swap the CD for the drivercd disk, and press Enter

Step 5. Presumably due to both images having the same offset, the installer seeks to the correct location of the El Torito image. I'm guessing the BIOS interrupt data is relevant for the El Torito image in the driver disk as well.  For whatever reason, it just works.

Step 6. This is the most critical step: After driver selection is complete and you are prompted to continue without loading additional drivers, eject the driver CD and insert your Openstep 4.2 User CDROM and press enter.

You should be greeted by the installation console view

So far, this is not working. I've given up on this.

I built my laptop HD from my desktop. It works just fine. I also built the Windows XP dual boot.  Now the laptop works well.

Quote from: "redsun"The early part works nicely. But after the computer reboots, it asks for the EISA and Dual EIDE drive on the beta driver CD. But it could not find it. So the machine can't boot. I do not know if single user would work to fix it.

This is on a Toshiba Tecra M2, P4. I probably do not need this machine, but just to test the new method.

I also tried to connect my Slim SCSI. The driver is loaded, but then it says the adaptor is not found. Was hoping the SCSI CD-ROM drive could help....

Now I'm stuck here....

Quote from: "itomato"I just updated the links and tested the ISOs again, it works quite well, but you need to be very specific in your timing in swapping the CDs.

Step 1. Download and burn the bootcd.iso file from the first post

Step 2. Download and burn the drivercd.iso file from the first post

Step 3. Boot your i386 Openstep system/VM from the CD containing the bootcd image

Step 4.  :!: When you are prompted to insert the diskette containing the driver files, swap the CD for the drivercd disk, and press Enter

Step 5. Presumably due to both images having the same offset, the installer seeks to the correct location of the El Torito image. I'm guessing the BIOS interrupt data is relevant for the El Torito image in the driver disk as well.  For whatever reason, it just works.

Step 6. This is the most critical step: After driver selection is complete and you are prompted to continue without loading additional drivers, eject the driver CD and insert your Openstep 4.2 User CDROM and press enter.

You should be greeted by the installation console view

At the second reboot, you still need to proceed with Boot CD and Driver CD, with the boot option of "hd()mach=kernel".  After reading the Primary/Secondary EIDE driver, just need to swap the Driver CD with NS User.  You should just ignore another driver request at GUI.

It did work well with my digital HiNote Ultra 2000.

Quote from: itomato on November 04, 2006, 09:47:55 PMI just made El Torrito bootable CDs for installing OPENSTEP 4.2..

It boots FAST!  It loads FAST!  With a little work, an X-tra large disk image can be built with ALLLL the drivers included.

OS 4.2 Install Boot CD (http://ydduj.org/Openstep/bootcd.iso)
OS 4.2 Drivers CD (http://ydduj.org/Openstep/drivercd.iso)

----
In case anyone is curious how I made these:

* Create a temp directory.  In this case, it was OS42.
* Move your .floppyimage files into the directory.
* Run 'mkisofs' like so:

Code Select Expand

mkisofs -r -b 4.2_YOUR_SPECIFIC.floppyimage -c boot.catalog -o cdname.iso .* Run 'cdrecord' like so:

Code Select Expand

cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=/your/cdr cdname.iso
This should work equally well for NeXTSTEP 3.3 or Rhapsody.

It's installing happily onto my Dell Lattitude CP Notebook and my Compaq Armada M300 8)

I'm having trouble getting this to work on lubuntu Linux with Virtual Box 7

I've followed this site Creating an OPENSTEP Boot CD (Peter Wong) (https://peterwong.net/blog/creating-an-openstep-boot-cd-2/) and I've create a Floppy Image at 2.88MB.

# vboxmanage createmedium  --filename floppy288.img --sizebyte=2949120 --format=VMDK --variant=Fixed

Then initialized the disk and installed the bootblock on OpenStep with the following
# /usr/etc/disk -i -b -B1 /usr/standalone/i386/boot1f /dev/rhd1a
Then mounted it in Openstep
# mkdir /F288
# mount /dev/hd1a /F288

# cp -r /4.2mach_Install/* /F288
# cp -r /4.2mach_Drivers/* /F288
I then deleted the SCSI drivers as my Laptop has IDE not SCSI then copied the updated EIDE driver from Beta Drivers 1

Then modified the /F288/private/Drivers/i386/System.config/Instance0.table so that "Prompt For Driver Disk"="No"

After that I write disk to a cd iso with mkisofs
# mkisofs -r -b 4.2_YOUR_SPECIFIC.floppyimage -c boot.catalog -o cdname.iso .

-r (Generate SUSP nd RR records using the Rock Ridge protocol to further describe the files on the ISO9660 filesystem. File ownership and modes are set to more useful values. The UID and GID are set to zero, because they are usually only useful on the author's system and not useful to the client. All the file read bits are set true, so that files and directories are globally readable on the client. Read the man page)
-b eltorito_boot_image (1440 kB, 2880 kB bootable floppy image)
-c boot.catalog (Specifies the path and filename of the boot catalog, which is required for an El Torito bootable CD.)
-o filename (specify the output file for the ISO9660 filesystem image)
. current directory which contains files to add to the cd image.

Excellent, it boots in Virtual Box and I can use the swap cd trick once I have selected my IDE driver for both HD and CD to install and am about to carry on with the install and not load any more drivers.

Lets try on Dell Inspiron 5150, Burn CD, Reset Computer and boot from CD. Great OpenStep boot loader screen, then the keyboard freezes after a success RAM test of 512MB, it shows the boot config menu (type -v, or ? to see more options) and the keyboard freezes (both with USB keyboard and with just normal laptop keyboard).

Look at NeXT Answers
1480 Keyboard Lockup During Installation Bug 1k 97-06-17

QuoteQ: When I try to install NEXTSTEP Release 3.2 for Intel Processors onto my computer, the keyboard locks up, and I am unable to complete the installation.
What's going on?    How do I get the installation to complete?    Is the computer now unusable?

A: There is a known bug which may lock up your keyboard during installation onto systems which do not have integrated PS/2 mouse support. The problem is in the PS/2 mouse driver, and removing the PS/2 mouse driver from your default configuration will work around the problem.

The following entry will prevent the PS/2 mouse driver from being automatically loaded. By default, NEXTSTEP loads the following drivers during installation and when booting config=Default: PS2Keyboard, PS2Mouse, Adaptec1542B, DPT2012, IDE, and Floppy.    To remove the PS2Mouse driver from this list, type the following at the boot: prompt:
   
"Boot Drivers"="PS2Keyboard Adaptec1542B DPT2012 IDE Floppy"

While configuring during the installation process, be certain to remove the instance of the PS2Mouse driver which is automatically added by Configure.

This doesn't work for me as I can't enter any thing at the boot menu, further searching reveals this on NeXT Answers
2633 (https://www.nextop.de/NeXTAnswers/2633.html) OPENSTEP 4.2 Pentium II/400 Incompatibilities

QuoteAPM problems with power management systems OpenStep 4.2 causes Installation problems

Some Pentium II/400 motherboards contain built-in power management systems that are incompatible with OPENSTEP 4.2's power management software. As a result, OPENSTEP will hang during the installation process as it tries to access power management. To install OPENSTEP Mach 4.2 on these systems, you will need to disable OPENSTEP's power management software.

at the boot: prompt type:

"APM"="No"

after the operating system is installed, add the following line to your
/private/Drivers/i386/System.config/Instance0.table

Once again I can't do anything as it freezes at the boot: prompt. Any help will be much appreciated?

Thanks

It's been too long since I looked at this. I think someone else has done it better anyway.

Any more news on creating 2048 bit blocks?

The ISO images in the 1st post are gone :(  I need a drivers floppy .img that contains LSI/Symbios 53C876 SCSI driver, ideally...

Trying to do everything off of the EIDE stuff is giving me a variety of errors - ATAPI errors about transfer limit (41 bytes) exceeded, and eventually cdrom 33 Memory fault and cdrom 34 Memory fault.

Would like to skip the EIDE/ATAPI stuff entirely if possible, and just use my zuluscsi ISO images, as well as an UW-SCSI drive sitting there.

Quote from: luVWagn on July 16, 2025, 01:45:11 PMThe ISO images in the 1st post are gone :(  I need a drivers floppy .img that contains LSI/Symbios 53C876 SCSI driver, ideally...

Trying to do everything off of the EIDE stuff is giving me a variety of errors - ATAPI errors about transfer limit (41 bytes) exceeded, and eventually cdrom 33 Memory fault and cdrom 34 Memory fault.

Would like to skip the EIDE/ATAPI stuff entirely if possible, and just use my zuluscsi ISO images, as well as an UW-SCSI drive sitting there.

Well, i found the actual 4.2 stuff over here:
https://fsck.technology/software/NeXT/OpenStep%20Installation%20Media/OpenStep%204.2/OpenStep%204.2%20Boot%20Disks/

This actually had a nicer set of drivers available, however even after loading the 53C876 driver, it couldn't find the controller on the bus :(  Good thing is the EIDE drivers seem to be working better, so I've got a bare-bones ATAPI drive and CF-Card combo busily installing now.