Hello all,
I have been working with Debian for quite a few years now and using
powermac G3 machines with extra network cards in them as routers
and firewalls, etc. These machines were set up back in the days of
Woody and have been kept uptodate with security updates, but
otherwise pretty much left untouched. Due to the issues around the
firmware in these machines and because it was useful, I always set
them up to boot initially into mac OS9 then use BootX to hand over
the Debian. This worked a treat.
However, I thought it would be good come up to date by installing
Etch instead.
I'll bring this up to Lenny. [Rick]
I used a free machine that was not actually in use and ran the
install using the current network install ISO.
I used the Lenny Beta2 "businesscard" install disk.
Things have changed since the days of woody and it now seems that
floppy images (boot image and root image) are no longer used.
Hence, I copied the initrd.gz file over to the mac HD and set that
as the ram disk for the install. I also copied across the linux
kernel and put that into the kernels folder in the system folder.
In a little more detail: I drag-n-dropped the "vmlinux" and
"initrd.gz" files from the Debian install CD (they are in the
"install/powerpc" directory) into the MacOS9 "System Folder:Linux
Kernels" folder. Then I chose those two as the "Kernel" and "use
specified RAM disk" options in BootX.
I set the "More kernel arguments" box to
"DEBCONF_PRIORITY=low" (without the quotes) to specify that I wanted
to run the installer in "expert" mode, so I could do a couple of non-
default tricks needed by OldWorld Macs using BootX.
You may or may not want to check the "No video driver" checkbox,
depending on your video hardware. This is the equivalent of the
"video=ofonly" in yaboot. You'll have to experiment to find out
which option works for you.
You may (probably will) want to change the "Ramdisk size" option to a
larger number. I use 32768. The default is 8192.
Using that allows me to boot into the installer
where I answered the questions in the usual way, until I got to the
step "Load Installer Components from CD". There I chose the option
to install "hfs-modules": HFS filesystem support. We'll need them
later on when we copy the new customized kernel and initrd to the
MacOS9 partition. This is the first "non-default trick" for BootX
installation, for which we need to be in "expert mode". There will
be another occasion later.
and using the installer
partitioner in the installer
I deleted the previous linux partition (hda7) and swap (hda8) and
made new ones.
I used the "manual partitioning" option and created "root" and "swap"
partitions. Note that these two partitions should have single digit
numbers. Otherwise, during the reboot following the installation,
the Linux boot process will hang "waiting for the root partition". I
suspect this is a bug somewhere in the code that decodes the kernel
arguments. Putting this restriction another way, the root and swap
partitions should each be chosen from hda7, hda8, or hda9 (assuming
your MacOS9 partition is hda6, as it usually will be.) If either of
them are hda10 or greater, you'll have problems later. You can use
two-digit partition numbers for things like "/home" and "/usr", it's
just the root that is restricted.
The "guided partitioning" will try to create an ext2 "boot"
partition. This is necessary for the quik bootloader, but completely
*un*necessary for BootX. In fact, it's actually undesirable because
I've recently discovered that the default size (8 MB) for the "boot"
partition is too small -- kernel and initrd have grown since quik was
written. So including /boot as just a directory in the root
partition allows it to have arbitrarily large contents.
While you're there in the partitioner, make a note of the partition
numbers of your MacOS9 and root partitions. You'll want them later.
Then installed the base system, etc,etc all the way through to
where it runs tasksel. I just leave that at the basic system for now.
Following on some more, finally we get to the point of
having finished "Select and install software" where the next thing it
would want to do is "Install quik on a hard disk". You do *not* want
to install quik. You've got MacOS9 and BootX to do that job. So
skip over that line and continue with "Continue without boot
loader". It will tell you that you need to use the vmlinux from the
"boot" partition and set the kernel parameter "root=" to the root
partition that you just installed into. Write down the root
partition number (if you didn't do so during the partitioning step)
you'll need it later.
At this point you should switch to a different console (hit the "alt"
and "F2" keys) and do the following magical stuff:
mount -v -t hfsplus /dev/hda6 /mnt
# Instead of hda6 you should use the partition where your own MacOS9
is located.
# the mount command automatically loads the hfsplus module we
retrieved earlier.
cp /target/boot/vmlinux /mnt/System\ Folder/Linux\ Kernels/
cp /target/boot/initrd.img /mnt/System\ Folder/Linux\ Kernels/
umount -v /mnt
This will put your new customized kernel and initrd where BootX can
find it later.
Now you can return to console 1 (the installer) by hitting the "alt"
and "F2" keys. and run the "Finish the installation" step.
[I did not need to do the following -- Rick]
trying to install Quik (which I don't need) and it gives an error
anyway, since I have selected ext3 file system that is not
supported in quik. I therefore say to carry on without a boot loader.
[End of "I didn't do this" -- Rick]
Everything goes fine all the way to rebooting into the new system.
However, when I do that, OS9 will not boot up. I just get the
flashing disk symbol with a question mark on it. Popping the OS9 CD
and booting off that and then running disk setup shows me that the
HD has somehow been altered so it is not recognised properly as a
mac HD. During the partitioning step, I did not alter anything
other than hda7 and 8.
I get the same thing. I don't know why.
I have found that I can reinstall the apple hard disk driver onto
the disk and this then gets OS9 up and working.
I do this with the "Drive Setup" program in the "Utilities" folder of
the MacOS9 install CD. I hi-lite the disk, and choose "Update
Driver" from the "Functions" menu. Then I reboot and MacOS9 comes up
fine. (Do *NOT* initialize the disk, incase you were tempted to try
that. You would wipe out all your hard work up to now.)
Once MacOS9 boots and displays the BootX dialog box, you can edit its
options to use the customized vmlinux and initrd.img files you copied
into the "System Folder:Linux Kernels" folder, and set the kernel
parameter to "root=/dev/hda7", where, instead of hda7 you use the
root partition number that you wrote down a while ago. You should
then click the button to "save to prefs" to remember these new
parameters.
When you then click the "Linux" button, Debian will boot for you.
[I don't have the problem described below -- Rick]
However, I cannot then boot into Debian, since the boot process
gets a little way in and then I get a kernel panic at the point
where it tries to mount the file system (error about no file
system at /dev/hda7).
I have done this several times now and the same thing happens
every time. The install goes fine but then I end up with a
completely unusable machine.
I am wondering if I am going about the install process wrongly (ie
using the initrd.gz file). I can't find anything really useful in
the install manual or using Google. I will probably end up looking
really stupid when someone points out an obvious mistake I have
made, but I can live with that.
If anyone has got etch installed on the beige g3 (its a 266 mhz
machine, but I can't tell you the firmware version, etc. Would
need to find out how to get at this) and can share their
expertise, it would be most appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
[End of "I don't have this problem -- RIck]
Nick.
So, here is the way I got it to work....
First off, I have to thank Rick for a very helpful discussion about
this. Without his help, I would not have been able to get this baby
working!
I have OS9.2 on a circa 500 meg HFS+ partition, leaving the rest
for debian (I will add here something I didn't mention in the
original post - don't format this space using the OS9 CD, just
leave it as "free space"). I use BootX as a boot loader. I used the
netinstall CD for Etch.
First boot into OS9 with the Etch CD in the CD drive. Copy the
vmlinux kernel from the CD install directory and put it into the
kernels folder in the system folder. Copy the initrd.gz image to
the BootX folder. Select the BootX application and tell it to use
the vmlinux kernel and set the RAM disk to initrd.gz image. In the
additional kernel arguments box, type "DEBCONF_PRIORITY=low" (no
quotes). Boot into linux.
The installer will start. Go through this answering questions. When
you get to the partitioning section, Partman will run. You should
choose "manual" as your partitioning method. Select the free space
and make a linux partition with Ext3 format and choose to mount "/"
on it. On my machine this then becomes /dev/hda7/. Also make a swap
partition (/dev/hda8). The sizes of these will depend on your HD
size. You can also obviously choose to split up your file system so
that not everything is under the root (/). I also named my /dev/
hda7/ as "debian". Probably makes no difference, but I did notice
that the HFS+ partition (/dev/hda6) was called "untitled" as was /
dev/hda7/ and did not think this a good idea.
Once you are happy with how the partitions look, write out the
partition table. This will destroy the apple driver partition, but
don't worry, you can recover from this providing you have your OS9
CD. More of this later...
Continue with the installation and install the base system and
whatever else you want.
Despite being in the "expert" install mode, after install of the
base system, the installer went straight into trying to install
quik as the boot loader without giving me the option to avoid this.
However, since quik only works with ext2 file systems, it bombed
out with an error and allowed me to continue. I go all the way
through to the point where it says the install is finished and
wants me to remove the install CD and then select reboot. We stop
at this point and swap to a new console (alt right arrow).
In here we can access the newly installed file system *and* the mac
HFS+ partition. At the prompt, type "cd /" to make sure you are in
the root of the file system. On my system, there was a folder at
the root called "mnt" that contained nothing. I therefore typed in:
mount -t hfsplus /dev/hda6 /mnt
(note: I had put "/dev/hda7" here in the first post regarding
getting Etch installed. hda7 on my system is actually the linux
root partition. When deciding on which partition to mount here, the
partitioning step will help, since partman lists the partition
numbers).
This mounted the mac HFS+ partition under "mnt". You could use
another directory, since mount just takes over the directory and
then will give it back when you "umount", but I prefer to use an
empty directory just in case.
Now you can cd to mnt and you should see your mac HD.
cd to /target/boot/ and cp whatever is symlinked to vmlinux and
initrd (do a "ls -l" on the directory to see the details) over the
mac HD.
Now "umount /mnt", change back into the installer console (alt left
arrow) and remove the netinstall CD from the drive. Pop in your OS9
CD, because you will need it.
Reboot by selecting that option in the installer.
Your machine will boot into the OS9 installer (even without you
holding down the "C" key). If you get a flashing disk symbol with a
question mark in it, you have not got your OS9 CD in the drive.
Remember that the partitioning has trashed the mac hard disk
driver partition so your mac does not know what to do.
Once the OS9 installer disk has booted and you are at the window
where you can choose to install OS9, go to the utilities folder and
select drive setup. Once this has found the drives on your machine,
select the one at the top (on mine it said "not mounted") and then
select from the drop down menu at the top of the screen to "update
apple hard disk driver". Once you do this, you get a message saying
you need to reboot. Do this.
Now we can get back into OS9 on the hard drive.
Once in OS9, move the vmlinux kernel you copied above into the
kernel images folder in your system folder. Put the initrd image
anywhere you want.
Select the BootX application.
Select the linux kernel you just moved. Select "use specified ram
disk" and choose the initrd image you copied above. Now in the
additional kernel arguments box, enter "root=/dev/hda7" (without
the quotes). Obviously your root file system might not be hda7, so
change that appropriately. Save these settings to the defaults. You
may want/have to enter other kernel arguments (eg for video), but I
did not have to.
Now boot into linux.
BootX should hand over to linux and your new install will boot up.
At least it did for me ;-)
If you upgrade to a new kernel / initrd image, you will need to
mount the HFS+ drive and copy these over to it so that you can
specify these in the BootX app.
Hope this has been of some use to someone.
Best of luck,
Nick.
*****************************************************
Dr. N.R. Helps
Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit
College of Life Sciences
MSI/WTB/JBC Complex
University of Dundee
Dundee
DD1 5EH
Scotland
t: 44 (0)1382 384745 (office)
t: 44 (0)1382 388019 (lab)
f: 44 (0)1382 388729
e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
w: http://www.dnaseq.co.uk/
w: http://www.ppu.mrc.ac.uk
****************************************************
Stephen Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 09/07/08 6:18 PM >>>
On Sun, Sep 07, 2008 at 10:42:36AM +0300, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
2008/9/7, Stephen Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
The install is where I had the issue(s), of going through the
steps and
hanging when it came to installing
the quik bootloader. I don't understand why it's install quick as
I thought
that BootX would be used.
You should try to skip the quik installation. The advantage of using
BootX is that if you use quik and it fails to boot you have no
backup,
with BootX you can always get into OS 9. You don't need - and cannot
have - both: the OldWorld ROM always selects the first bootable
partition. Or - in theory - you could have quik in first
partition and
OS 9 in second and use quik to boot OS 9, but I don't see any
point in
it.
OK managed to skip the Quik installation. (I'll have to write up a SxS
mentioning how to do this)
I went through several iterations of disk partioning schemes
without any
successful install. One message I
got several times was that Quik has to be on the first partition.
The MacOS
has a small partition at the
first that doesn't delete for me, so I'm kind of stuck there.
You should keep the Mac OS partition. Get into another virtual
terminal (Ctrl- Alt- F2), mount the Mac OS partition (the path is
either
/dev/hda... or /dev/bus/ide/disk.../part..., or similar):
OK kept the MacOS partition(s). There are 7 of em put there by the
MacOS 9
disk utility (6 small ones).
I have one disk and it was labeled hdb when partioning. So that
would be
'mount - t hfs (It's hfs)/dev/hdb7 (MacOS was installed on the 7th
partition).
There are a bunch of small Apple/MacOS partitions before this. But
I assume
since you mentioned system folder that it's has to go on the larger
MacOS
partition where the Mac system folder is; correct ?
mount - t hfs /dev/... /mnt
(or hfsplus), and copy the new initrd into it:
cp - p /target/boot/initrd.gz '/mnt/System Folder'
There didn't appear to be an 'initrd.gz' but there was an 'initrd'.
Same
thing right ? On /mnt I didn't have a directory 'System Folder',
however
mount didn't through any complaints when mounting hdb7, so I assume
that
was OK.
At this point you should have the kernel package installed on target
partition.
Unfortunately it didn't boot. I'm getting close though. Any ideas ?
Thanks.
-- Regards,
S.D.Allen - Toronto
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