[Wolves] Soooooooo off-topic

[Shane M. Coughlan]

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Peter Evans wrote:
> Wasn't a great deal of problem getting a different O/S to run on the new Apple 
> hardware connected to their use of EFI?

Yes, this is the only real issue.  But we must put EFI into context.
It's not like BIOS, in that it tries to load operating systems from the
hard drive or CD and everything is fine.  EFI is a modular bootloading
system, and the EFI on the Apple machines is "missing" some sections.
It's only designed to boot OS X (or stuff OS X allows to load).  We can
get around this by hacking the EFI to look for xyz OS on loading.
Indeed, IIRC that's how at least one Win on Mac hack works.  The problem
is that we have to hack the Apple EFI to get an EFI menu to load lots of
OS's.  We're loath to do that because it's screwing around with the
hardware/software in a pretty serious fashion, and has lead to some
horrific "kabooms."  Linux on MacIntel is well under way, but the
problem is "how to load in a reliable way that will not upset Apple?"

To be fair to Apple, they even replaced machines that hackers completely
hosed while trying to hack the EFI.  Nice guys.  Sometimes.

Shane

PS: Steve Jobs, sent me an iPod.  Go on.  You know you want to.

- --
Shane Martin Coughlan
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