Darwin boot options

[kylepsp]

hey, when my computer loads up it goes straight to mac unless i press F8, is there any way i can get the menu that comes up when i press F8 to come up as default?

 

Thanks

[hecker]

Hmm, this is a common question.

The answer is setting the option for Quiet Boot to false in your boot.plist file. Neonkoala has it all on his website: http://neonkoala.co.uk.

 

Here's the text for the impatient:

All the permanent settings are stored under /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist and a good way to edit this is using nano in the command line. Another way is to drag it to the desktop, edit with TextEdit and then overwrite the original but this usually saves time with ownership issues. For instance to open it in the terminal I would go:

 

sudo -s

 

nano /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

 

You will then see something similar to this:

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">'>http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>Kernel</key>

<string>mach_kernel</string>

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string></string>

<key>Boot Graphics</key>

<string>Yes</string>

<key>Timeout</key>

<string>10</string>

<key>Quiet Boot</key>

<string>No</string>

</dict>

</plist>

 

Let's look at what each of these do.

 

* Kernel - this tells the bootloader which kernel to boot with.

* Boot Graphics - this tells it whether to show the pretty Apple loading screen or not

* Timeout - this is the time before the default boot option is chosen

* Quiet Boot - if set to yes the OS boots straight to the GUI without showing the bootloader, if set to no it boots to the bootloader first. To use the chain0 boot method this MUST be set to 'No'. To access the bootloader when this is set to 'Yes' bash F8 repeatedly during boot till it displays.

 

You can set more than mentioned above but those are the standard ones and any of the following can be added using keys such as "<Kernel Flags>" or "<Graphics Mode>" to the config file.

 

* -f - This forces rebuilding of extensions cache

* -s - Boots into a single user command line mode

* -v - Verbose, boots in text mode showing all debug info and errors

* -x - Boots into safe mode

* "Graphics Mode"="1024x768x32" - Tells VESA to boot with this resolution, the x32 is bit depth and is only compatible with VESA 3.0 and up

* rd=disk0s1 - Tells Darwin to boot from a certain partition specified in BSD format. Disk 0 specifies first HDD and s1 specifies first partition as 0 is the MBR.

* cpus=1 - Tells the system how many CPUs or cores to use, useful for Core Duo users.

* platform=X86PC - Can be used if problems with normal booting, ACPI is another option here

* -legacy - Boots OS X in 32bit mode rather than 64bit if 64bit is used due to a 64bit processor

* idehalt=0 - May stop stuttering

 

If you need to copy the bootloader to the MBR use this command:

 

fdisk -u /dev/rdisk0

 

An example of a configuration to boot OS X in safe mode, verbosely, with 1024x768 resolution forced and with the 2nd partition as default is as follows:

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>Kernel</key>

<string>mach_kernel</string>

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string>-v</string>

<string>-x</string>

<string>rd=disk0s2</string>

<key>Graphics Mode</key>

<string>1024x768x32</string>

<key>Boot Graphics</key>

<string>No</string>

<key>Timeout</key>

<string>10</string>

<key>Quiet Boot</key>

<string>No</string>

</dict>

</plist>

 

Cheers,

 

hecker

[kylepsp]

Thanks for your help but ive added quiet boot to terminal but how do i save this?

[BJMoose]

Thanks for your help but ive added quiet boot to terminal but how do i save this?

ctrl+o will save

ctrl+x will exit

[Nagual70]

How do you configure darwin bootloader in order to have XP as the default ?

 

In XP is easy... you just edit the file boot.ini and use the "Chain0 method".