Well after my troubles getting to boot I anticipated having troubles
with the install and sadly I was right. However, I worked through them
and am now writting sucessfully from Mandrake 8.0 PPC RC1.
* bootstrap partiation - There has got to be something wrong with the
bootstrap partation code. To give some background, I have a Titanium
laptop with a 30 GB HD in it. It had Linux/PPC on it partitioned as
follows (sizes are best gueses now so it probably doesn't add up):
A bunch of driver partitions.
A HFS+ partition containing OS 9/X (10 GB).
A bootstrap for Linux/PPC (1 MB)
/boot HFS (25 MB or so)
/ ext2 (5 GB)
swap (200 MB)
/home ext2 (13 GB)
/exchange HFS (650 MB)
My plan was to keep this basic partition layout, leave my /home alone,
format the /boot, /, swap, /exchange and go on. However, the installer
wasn't going to cooperate with this plan.
First I was told that there wasn't enough room for a bootstrap
partition, which I promptly ignored knowing I had one. So set my mount
points and go through the process and on I go to be told that there
wasn't a bootstrap. I tried all kinds of things, sometimes it would
tell me I didn't have one or didn't have enough space to make one.
Sometimes it would let me go all the way through the installation only
to have issues with install the bootloaders (not sure if this was
related). At any rate after messing around with it for a while my
partition table got messed up, it though the linux partions were
overlapping with my OS 9/X partition. I was able to boot into OS X but
I'd lost my OS 9 install. So I reinitialized the drive with Drive Setup
and did my partition setup there, leaving 1 MB at the end of the drive
so that the installer could please itself by making it. In short it was
a very frustrating experience.
Some observations: The AutoAllocate does not leave room for the
bootstrap. The AutoAllocate does not make a /boot partition nor is the
/ partition HFS, which creates problems with the boot loader, if you
don't know your boot loader needs to go on an HFS partition you're just
flat out screwed.
Enough of the disk issues if you need clarrification please ask.
* I noticed some issues with the package selections:
apmd - Umm why is that even in there do PPC machines even use APMD and
why is it in the top of the menu instead of burried in Other.
mutt - This is an excellent well used client that's not in the top level
nor is it installed by default. I think this is an oversight. Also why
are we shipping 1.3.15i which is a development release and is not
considered stable?
macutils - Also burried in Other, probably should be part of the default
install.
pmud - Burried in Other again, not necessarily needed in the default
install but why are we burrying something like this in Other?
* /boot setup issues - Anyway I finally through the install. However,
now I can't get the thing to boot linux. I tried the setenv boot-device
like the installer suggested, no can do. OF says there's nothing to
boot there. My /boot shows under OS 9 and looks just fine. Finally I
end stealing the Fake System Folder I used under Linux/PPC put it in the
/boot, replace the yaboot in the System Folder with the Mandrake one and
the same with yaboot.conf. Reboot, this time it works but I still can't
boot now it can't find the images. The images were set to something
like: hd:10,\\\\/vmlinuz.... (sorry doing this off the top of my head
not being exact here). I changed it to just vmlinux... and bingo it
boots. Somehow I think the installs idea of the boot loader is
foobared.
* Eterm doesn't have a menu entry under Terminals.
* /etc/sysctl.conf has net.ipv4.tcp_ecn = 0 in it when tcp_ecn is not
defined in the 2.4.4 kernel.
* mailcap isn't installed by default nor do I remember seeing it in the
indvidual package section.
* boo on not shipping Netscape. I ended up installing netscape from
Linux/PPC and stealing the libstdc++ libraries it needed.
* During the install XF86 4.0.3 wouldn't work with my Titanium. So I
installed Xpmac and switched it back later after I put a XF86Config-4
file that was compatable with the Titanium. Interestingly enough the
installers config file doesn't include the proper Modeline's for the
TiBook at all. It'd be nice if this was added:
Modeline "1152x768" 78.741 1152 1173 1269 1440 768 769 772 800 +HSync +VSync
(stolen from the config file of the guy who did it for LinuxPPC the full
configuration can be found at:
http://ftp.linuxppc.org/kernels/titanium/XF86Config-TiBook-nakashin )
* I've written a stratup script for the Airport if anyone is interested.
* I like to remap my apple/command key to the middle mouse button and
the enter key (by the spacebar) to the right mouse button. So I put the
codes in for it but nothing happens. Works just fine if I use F11 and
F12. Any ideas. The same thing worked in LinuxPPC so I know it's
possible.
That's it for now. This is all my opinion. And my experiences. Take
it with a grain of salt if you want or take it seriously.
--
Ben Reser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://ben.reser.org
Wizard's First Rule - People are stupid, they will believe anything
if they want it to be true or they fear it is true - Terry Goodkind
