On Monday, January 23, 2006, at 03:19 AM, Peter Teunissen wrote:
On 23-jan-2006, at 0:01, Ben Wehrspann wrote:
Hello all-
Recently I aquired a g3 (beige) power mac it has Open Firmware 2.4 I
used system disk to patch the OF though I must admit I don't know if
it actually did anything when I hit the save button. ie it didnt
give me any indication of progress etc.
From my reading the only way to boot this mac is through the floppies
as it is still *Old World*.
I downloaded the boot.img file and ofonlyboot.img file from both the
floppy and floppy-2.4 directories (I don't know what the difference
is) at the following site:
http://archive.progeny.com/debian/dists/sarge/main/installer-powerpc/
current//images/powerpc/
I created 4 floppies from the MakeDebianFloppy.sit utility. ie
[1]boot.img & [2]ofonlyboot.img from the floppy directory /
[3]boot.img & [4]ofonlyboot.img from the floppy-2.4 directory
I have inserted each of these floppies at startup and each time the
computer ejects the floppy. Is there some way to make this computer
accept those bootup disks? Is there a command I can enter into the
OF prompt to force a floppy boot? According what I've read I should
be able to do this right?
Or do I need to partition with the Mac disk utility and somehow use
quik to boot into an installer like you would on a nubus machine? If
this is a the case could you point me in the direction of a step by
step for this sort of operation.
Thanks in advance,
Ben
I've been having problems with the floppy images to, I never could get
them to work. Booting from harddisk using bootx always works tho:
http://www.us.debian.org/releases/sarge/powerpc/ch04s05.html.en#files-
oldworld
The info in this link is somewhat dated; the files you need for bootX
to use are "vmlinux" and "initrd.gz. You can probably copy them from
an installer CD. During the install you can select to install quik so
bootx won't be needed anymore and can be wiped out during the install.
Peter
Here are some BootX instructions I worked up for my recent Powerbook G3
install. You may find them to be useful. You may need to add some line
breaks to make it readable.
-Chris
For archival purposes, here is an outline of what I did to install
Debian Linux "Sarge" on my Powerbook G3 "Wallstreet." It is an "Old
World" architecture, so you cannot boot directly from the Debian CD's.
As a result, you need to jump through a few hoops. This document
describes the process.
You will need a Mac OS install CD. I have Mac OS 9.0. You will also
need the Debian PowerPC binary install CD's. I bought mine from one of
the vendors listed at Debian.org. You will need the CD-ROM drive
expansion bay of your powerbook. I tried using an external SCSI drive,
but things did not work well. You will need an internet connection that
(at least) the Mac operating system knows how to use.
I was shooting for a dual boot configuration. That is, I wanted the
option of booting into either Mac OS 9, or Debian. In addition, I
wanted to share a disk volume between the two. These instructions are
specific to this set up. Some of the information may be useful in other
installations.
1. Preparing for Debian/Mac OS 9 I was starting with a brand-new hard
drive. If you have Mac OS 8 or 9 already installed, you may end up
reinstalling Mac OS. As a result, you will want to back up any files
you would like to keep.
2. I inserted the CD-ROM module in the right media bay. I booted from
the Mac OS install CD and ran their disk utility application. I set up
a four partition disk; one partition for Mac OS 9, one partition to be
used by both Debian and Mac OS 9, one partition for Debian to carve up
as it sees fit, and one partition that consumed the rest of the disk. I
made the Mac OS 9 partition 4 GB in size and the type was HFS Extended.
I made the "exchange" partition 1 GB in size and of type "HFS." The 10
GB Debian partition was set to "unallocated" in the Mac OS disk
utility. The fourth partition was whatever was left over and was set to
"unallocated."
I found the Mac disk utility to be a little buggy. I set the sizes
first and then went back and set the specific types. It certainly did
not like me wanting HFS+ and HFS.
3. After the (successful) disk initialization (which wipes any existing
data off of your drive.), I installed Mac OS 9. I then rebooted into
Mac OS 9 using the hard drive.
4. Setting up BootX:
The Mac OS 9 installer should leave an internet folder with you. I used
either Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer to go retrieve BootX
from http://penguinppc.org/historical/benh/.
I extracted that application (Mac OS 9 also leaves StuffIt Expander for
you.) and read the documentation (including the FAQ) that comes with
BootX. I copied the BootX extension to the System Folder:Extensions
folder. I copied the BootX application to the System Folder:Control
Panels folder. I inserted the Debian/PowerPC_sarge install CD 1 into
the CD-ROM drive. I copied the files install/powerpc/initrd.gz and
install/powerpc/vmlinux to the BootX Linux Kernels folder. I then
copied that folder to the System Folder.
I opened the BootX Control Panel and set the following options: For
Kernel, choose vmlinux. (BootX should have a drop-down list displaying
the Linux Kernels folder) I clicked the options button and checked off
the "Use selected RAMDisk" checkbox. I clicked the "choose" button and
then selected the initrd.gz file.
Back in the main window of BootX, I entered the following argument in
the More Kernel Options window: video=atyfb:vmode:14,cmode:32,mclk:63
Then, I clicked "Save to prefs." I clicked the MacOS button to exit
BootX. Don't click the Linux button just yet.
5. Preparing MacOS 9 for BootX
I made sure Debian/PowerPC Install CD 1 was in the media bay and shut
down my Mac.
I unplugged my SCSI cable because in one of my failed attempts, which
are not discussed here, I found the SCSI connection caused Linux to
lock up.
6. Installing Debian Linux:
The next step involved the fairly painful process of installing Debian
Linux. During the boot, the BootX window appeared again. I (quickly)
selected Linux. Magically, the Linux installer started! That was very
exciting.
I told it I wanted to be guided through the disk partitioning process.
I selected multi-user workstation and let it partition the biggest
available space, which was the one we created earlier in the Mac
partitioner. Write down the /dev/hda12 (the partition designation) for
the boot partition. It will have a little lightning bolt near the name.
In addition, locate the partition name for the exchange partition (It
is type HFS.) Write that down, too.
The rest of the install went fairly painlessly. The installer will
suggest you install Quik. Don't. Tell it you want to continue without a
boot loader. The Sarge installer said: "You will need to boot manually
with the /boot/vmlinux kernel on partition /dev/hda12 and root
=/dev/hda12 passed as kernel argument."
At the end of the installer, it will reboot your machine for you. When
the BootX menu comes up, please select Linux again and enter the
Installer. (You don't need to reinstall the OS again, we just need to
get to a shell prompt.) As it turns out, you need to give BootX new
vmlinux and initrd.gz files. Unfortunately, they reside on the root
volume of the Debian distribution you cannot (currently) boot into. You
did, fortunately, write down the device partition designations for the
root volume and the HFS volume. Let's say the root volume is /dev/hda12
and the HFS partition is /dev/hda10.
After consulting with some very gracious people on the debian-powerpc
e-mail list, I deduced the following sequence of instructions. You go
through the installer to the point where you partition the disk. Just
cancel out of there. That will bring up the Debian main installer menu.
Way at the bottom is an option to open a shell. Do that. Take note of
the warning message. The idea here is to mount the root partition,
mount the HFS volume and copy the vmlinux and initrd files from the
root partition to the HFS volume. Okay, here we go:
BusyBox v1.0.0 pre10 (Debian 20040623-1) Built in shell (ash) Enter
'help' for a list of built in commands ~# mkdir mnt ~# mount
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part12 /mnt ~# chroot /mnt sh-2.05b#
ls -IR /lib/modules/2.6.8&*-powerpc/kernel/fs/hfs*
/lib/modules/2.6.8-powerpc/kernel/hfs: hfs.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.8-powerpc/kernel/hfsplus: hfsplus.ko sh-2.05b#
modprobe hfs sh-2.05b# mount /dev/hda10 /mnt sh-2.05b# cp
/boot/vmlinux* /boot/intrd* /mnt sh-2.05b# exit ~#exit
The mkdir and mount commands mount the root partition. On my machine,
I had to manually traverse the /dev tree to discover the partition
device file was located at /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part12.
Your results may differ.
The next line sets a new root file system to the drive you just
mounted. I am not entirely sure this step is needed, but it avoids
confusion because the shell you are in has its own root file system,
and then you mount this other root file system that has the same
directory names.
The ls command ensures the HFS kernel module is available. As it turns
out, the default kernel does not load HFS file system support. On the
Sarge installer, it is available, but you have to load it manually.
The next line (modprobe) does just that. I needed hfs support, so the
modprobe command takes an hfs argument (because hfs.ko exists).
This next command mounts the HFS partition on your local mnt directory.
This directory is completely different from the one you used earlier,
just so you know. It just happens to have the same name.
The cp command copies all the vmlinux and initrd files of interest to
your HFS drive, which is mounted in /mnt.
Finally, I exited out of the chroot shell and out of the RAMDisk shell.
This action should dump you back into the Debian installer. You now
need to Abort the installation. When the machine reboots, boot into the
Mac OS. I double clicked on my "exchange" drive. What do you know? A
bunch of Linux files are sitting there! Mission accomplished! Well, not
quite yet.
7. Final BootX configuration. From the HFS drive on Mac OS, I copied
initrd.img-2.6.8-powerpc and vmlinux-2.6.8-powerpc to System
Folder:LinuxKernels. They can sit right along side the ones you already
have in there.
Start the BootX application. From the Kernels pull-down menu, select
vmlinux-2.6.8-powerpc. Press the options button and choose
initrd.img-2.6.8-powerpc to be your RAMDisk image. Verify your kernel
options are video=atyfb:vmode:14,cmode:32,mclk:63. and then click "Save
to prefs..." Press the BootX MacOS button to exit BootX. Restart your
computer.
8. Boot into Debian Linux. In my case, after the BootX window comes up,
I selected Linux, and my machine booted into Linux. I hope it works for
you, too.
9. Debian base system configuration The Debian base system
configuration tool starts up. I set the time, root password, and
created an account for myself. When it asked me for my archive method,
I chose CD-ROM, because I had the disks. I then watched the screen. It
asked me to insert CD-1. I did that. It then successively asked for CD
2 through 14. It finished by asking for CD-1.
After that, you can install software. I chose to install a desktop
environment, a web server and a file server. It went flawlessly. For
the X server, I would recommend checking out
http://www.olografix.net/nembokid/wallstreet. This gentleman was kind
enough to post his XFree86Config-4 file. It works. I would run with it.
In addition, it will give you some help with answering the questions
the installer asks you. It goes in /etc/X11.
I hope this helps. -Chris
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