EFI 10 or Chameleon rc2

[E-Chris]

What are the primary differences between the two (EFI 10 and Chameleon RC2)?

 

Any advantage over the other?

 

I'm still on EFI 8, trying to figure out which one to upgrade to (EFI 10 or Chameleon), any advice?

[Beerkex'd]

Here's the PCIEFI v8 documentation:

 

 

And here's the Chameleon 2.0 RC2 documentation. Decide for yourself.

 

						Chameleon Boot Loader
					=====================

 What is it?
 -----------

 Chameleon is combination of various boot loader components. It is based
 on David Elliott's fake EFI implementation added to Apple's boot-132
 project. Chameleon is extended with the following key features:


 Features
 --------

  - Device Property Injection via device-properties string in com.apple.Boot.plist
  - hybrid boot0+boot1h loaders for both MBR and GPT partitioned disks.
  - automatic FSB detection code even for recent AMD CPUs.
  - Apple Software RAID support.
  - stage2 loader (boot) can be placed as a regular file in the boot
 partition's root folder. It has precedence over the embedded
 startupfile.


					Installation
					============

 Normal Install (non-RAID):
 --------------------------

 Suppose that your installation is on /dev/disk0s2

  - Install boot0 to the MBR:
  		sudo fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk0

  - Install boot1h to the partition's bootsector:
	  sudo dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk0s2

  - Install boot to the partition's root directory:
	  sudo cp boot /

 No need to use startupfiletool anymore!


 RAID Install:
 -------------

 Suppose that your installation is on /dev/disk3, which is either a mirror- or a
 stripeset consisting of /dev/disk0 and /dev/disk1

 Mac OS X creates a small helper partition at the end of each RAID member disk,
 namely /dev/disk0s3 and /dev/disk1s3

  - Install boot0 to the MBR of both disks:
	  sudo fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk0
	  sudo fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk1

  - Install boot1h to the bootsector of each boot partition:
	  sudo dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk0s3
	  sudo dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk1s3

  - Install boot to both helper partition's root directories.
	  diskutil mount disk0s3
	  cp boot /Volumes/Boot\ OSX
	  diskutil unmount disk0s3
	  diskutil mount disk1s3
	  cp boot /Volumes/Boot\ OSX
	  diskutil unmount disk1s3

  - Add "rd=uuid boot-uuid=506D8F03-0596-32D8-BE0B-E3A4E7D5C72A" to your kernel flags
 (replace with your root volume's UUID; find out using "Disk Utility.app", right
 click on your root volume, then Get Info"):
	  nano /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist
	  touch /System/Library/Extensions


 Support:
 --------

 If you have any questions, issues etc. feel free to join us
 at irc.voodooprojects.org #chameleon


 Source Code
 -----------

 For downloading the source code please visit the project page at
 http://chameleon.osx86.hu


 Licensing
 ---------

 Chameleon is released under the terms and conditions of
 Apple Public Source License (see APPLE_LICENSE).
 To use "Chameleon" for commercial purposes please contact us at:
 h t t p ://chameleon.osx86.hu/contact

 

The boot: prompt waits for you to type advanced startup options.
If you don't type anything, the computer continues starting up normally. It
uses the kernel and configuration files on the startup device, which it also
uses as the root device. 

Advanced startup options use the following syntax:

[device]<kernel> [arguments]

Example arguments include

device: rd=<BSD device name>	   (e.g. rd=disk0s2)
	 rd=*<IODeviceTree path>	(e.g. rd=*/PCI0@0/CHN0@0/@0:1)

kernel: kernel name				(e.g. "mach_kernel" - must be in "/" )

flags: -v (verbose)	-s (single user mode), 
	-x (safe mode)  -F (ignore boot configuration file)

"Graphics Mode"="WIDTHxHEIGHTxDEPTH" (e.g. "1024x768x32")

kernel flags					   (e.g. debug=0x144)
io=0xffffffff					  (defined in IOKit/IOKitDebug.h)

Example: mach_kernel rd=disk0s1 -v "Graphics Mode"="1920x1200x32"

If the computer won't start up properly, you may be able to start it up using
safe mode.  Type -x to start up in safe mode, which ignores all cached
driver files.

Special booter hotkeys:
 F5			Rescans optical drive.
 F10		   Scans and displays all BIOS accessible drives.

Special booter commands:
 ?memory	   Displays information about the computer's memory.
 ?video		Displays VESA video modes supported by the computer's BIOS.
 ?norescan	 Leaves optical drive rescan mode.

Additional useful command-line options:
 config=<file>			 Use an alternate Boot.plist file.

Options useful in the com.apple.Boot.plist file:
 Wait=Yes|No			   Prompt for a key press before starting the kernel.
 "Quiet Boot"=Yes|No	   Use quiet boot mode (no messages or prompt).
 Timeout=8				 Number of seconds to pause at the boot: prompt.
 "Instant Menu"=Yes		Force displaying the partition selection menu. 

 "Default Partition"	   Sets the default boot partition,
=hd(x,y)				  where 'x' is the disk number, 'y' the partition number.

 GUI=No					Disable the GUI (enabled by default).
 "Boot Banner"=Yes|No	  Show boot banner in GUI mode (enabled by default).
 "Legacy Logo"=Yes|No	  Use the legacy grey apple logo (disabled by default).

 GraphicsEnabler=Yes|No	Automatic device-properties generation for graphics cards.
 EthernetBuiltIn=Yes|No	Automatic "built-in"=yes device-properties generation
						for ethernet interfaces.

 USBBusFix=Yes			 Enable the EHCI and UHCI fixes (disabled by default).
 EHCIacquire=Yes		   Enable the EHCI fix (disabled by default).
 UHCIreset=Yes			 Enable the UHCI fix (disabled by default).

 Wake=No				   Disable wake up after hibernation (enbaled by default).
 ForceWake=Yes			 Force using the sleepimage (disabled by default).
 WakeImage=<file>		  Use an alternate sleepimage file 
						  (default path is /private/var/vm/sleepimage).

 DropSSDT=Yes			  Skip the SSDT tables while relocating the ACPI tables.
 DSDT=<file>			   Use an alternate DSDT.aml file 
						  (default paths are /DSDT.aml or /Extra/DSDT.aml).

 SMBIOSdefaults=No		 Don't use the Default values for SMBIOS overriding
						  if /Extra/smbios.plist doesn't exist, factory
						  values are kept.

 "Scan Single Drive"	   Scan the drive only where the booter got loaded from.
=Yes|No				 Fix rescan issues when using a DVD reader in AHCI mode. 
 Rescan=Yes				Enable CD-ROM rescan mode.
 "Rescan Prompt"=Yes	   Prompts for enable CD-ROM rescan mode.

[E-Chris]

Good to know about the documentation.

 

Anybody else have an opinion?

 

Is EFI10 based on Chameleon? Thought I read that somewhere.

[Beerkex'd]

I think it's the other way 'round.

 

Netkas' PCIEFI was around before Chameleon but they are both based on the groundbreaking work by David F. Elliott.

 

As you can see from the docs, Chameleon has a lot more functionality than PCEFI.