"EB" == Ethan Benson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: EB> the debian cds should boot Newworld powermacs and PReP EB> (maybe) it would be nice to be able to boot oldworld macs EB> too but that would require non-free Apple CD drivers or a EB> custom written driver that acts as a boot loader EB> [...]
EB> i frankly doubt its even possible to make a bootable CD EB> that will boot all of the powerpc machines. there is just EB> too much diversity and broken firmwares.. fortunatly most EB> of them have floppy drives and the ones that don't (*cough* EB> apple) are Cd bootable. apple machines are probably the EB> most common powerpc machines anyway... I'm sure we've had some discussion about this issue before, but just to bring it up again, what are the LinuxPPC people using on their CD-ROMs? My housemat and I downloaded disk images for LinuxPPC 2000 and burnt CD-ROMs from them, and they booted my ``old world'' PowerComputing clone just fine. (We actually downloaded them because there was no working Debian solution at the time, and I needed to be sure I could recover if something went drastically wrong after updating my C libraries.) >From reading their hardware-compatibility list (<http://www.linuxppc.com/about/hardware/>), it looks like LinuxPPC 2000 is only installable* on Macs and Mac clones -- their CD-ROMs boot on pretty much all of those systems, including G4s, G3s, iMacs, iBooks, various PowerBooks, lots of older systems, and lots of clones.** If LinuxPPC can boot both ``old world'' and ``new world'' PowerMacs with the same CD-ROMs, why can't Debian? I thought I remembered seeing a message from someone at LinuxPPC offering to help with getting the bootable CD-ROMs set up, as well, although I'm damned if I can find it now (gotta love computers, right?). As for other architectures, LinuxPPC seems to have decided that booting on PowerMacs is the most sensible option, and provides links to various places (mostly off their site) for more information on getting LinuxPPC installed and running on those platforms. Debian could certainly do that, too; another option might be to provide additional CD-ROM images that would boot on different architectures. From my admittedly brief look at the way Debian does CD-ROM images, it seems like it might be possible to provide a skeleton image for each architecture that would be filled in with the architecture-specific and generalized PowerPC packages. Let me know if I'm totally off-base here. While it would be nice to have a single set of disks for all PowerPC systems, I think we all agree that's not entirely possible, and maybe not even entirely desirable. It seems like the major downside to having multiple architecture-specific CD-ROMs would affect retailers more than end-users, and I suspect that most Debian users download images and burn their own CD-ROMs anyway. CMC * ``Installable'' is their term; I don't know whether that means that LinuxPPC 2000 doesn't work on other architectures or whether they just mean you can't boot from their CD-ROMs on other architectures. ** Aside: LinuxPPC's Mac page, <http://www.linuxppc.com/about/hardware/apple/>, claims that G4s should be able to boot with the newest version of BootX available from Ben's site, <http://ppclinux.apple.com/~benh/>. I thought that was kind of interesting given the discussions here about BootX vs. yaboot. I don't see anything on Ben's page that confirms or denies G4 bootability with BootX. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Behind the counter a boy with a shaven head stared vacantly into space, a dozen spikes of microsoft protruding from the socket behind his ear. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ C.M. Connelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] SHC, DS +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
