All, Thanks for your responses. I will redo my installation of Debian on my machine this weekend. Before I get started tomorrow evening (assuming my wife lets me) I'll compile a list of things that I should be doing and mail the list. That way I'm on the same page as everyone else.
As a side note, I built the vanilla 2.6.17 kernel without success. Anyone know how to set up a serial console to my PowerMac 8600? Not being able to "see" the output of the kernel is downright annoying, especially when it dies. thanks, TuskenTower PS: I noticed that most of you emailed me directly and kept the conversation off the list. I'm not sure if that's normal on Debian-PPC, but I want to keep this on-list so that someone can find the information while searching through the archives. On 6/19/06, Rick Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi! From what I can see here, you did everything right (a couple of false starts, but that happens to all of us!) I don't know why <cmd>- F2 didn't get you a screen with a shell -- it's never failed like that for me. But all's well that ends well, and you found a work- around by dropping to a shell from the main menu. The "chroot /target" trick is really the best (and only reasonable) way to get access to a fully functional shell from which to do things like copy the kernel and initrd to where BootX can find them. I don't think it's in the documentation. It probably should be. Incidentally, you can do "modprobe hfsplus" from inside the chroot'ed shell to install HFS support. I believe that the 2.6 kernel modules support both hfsplus and hfs. For what it's worth, you could have made your MacOS-9 partition hfsplus if you'd wanted to. Which netinst did you use? Here's how to find out: Put the netinst CD in your drive and let the system mount it. (If it doesn't do it automatically, as root, do "mount -v /dev/cdrom /media/ cdrom") Then cd into /media/cdrom and search for a file called "Release". (I use "find", but YMMV) It's a text file and its contents will tell you the date the .iso you burned the CD from was created and some other useful information. There will probably be a few "Release" files. The one closest to the root (least number of intermediate directories) is most likely to be the one you're looking for. The output of "uname -a" is also helpful. The reason I'm interested is because I'm having trouble getting the "beta2" netinst (or anything later) to install on a beige G3, and I'd like to swap war stories with you and see if I can get it working. Thanks! Rick On Jun 18, 2006, at 12:22 AM, TuskenTower wrote: > Hello All, > I spent my last weekend installing Linux/GNU OS onto my PowerMac > 8600 250MHz/385MB. I'm brilliant (reads: I don't read all of the > documentation, especially when I should, so feel free to correct me) > and slogged through an attempt of installing OpenSuSE 10 PPC without > success. The stock kernel would not boot (I was using BootX). It > displayed some information and then the screen went blank. (In case > you're wondering I chose OpenSuSE, I use it as my Linux desktop at > work) > > Searching on the internet, I saw the nice distro list at > http://penguinppc.org/about/distributions.php. This list does not > include SuSE in the list of vendors that support OldWorld machines. > Open SuSE's wiki on the other hand has a page > (http://en.opensuse.org/Booting_on_PowerMac_%28OldWorld%29) covering > an OldWorld install. After looking at the candidates on the > PPC+oldworld list I chose Debian PPC. > > I downloaded the netinstall disk from GA Tech > (http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/debian/) because GA Tech rules. Of > course I can't find the ISOs anymore. I guess I downloaded them from > somewhere else. Anyways, I'm rambling. This post is for anyone else > who is doing the same thing and for others to correct my stupidty. :) > > > Steps: > 1. I removed all non-stock equipment, Sonnet Tempo ATA 100 PCI (with > disks) and Yamaha CD Burner. -- This avoided problems with hardware, > but I had to deal with getting those device to work later (not hard > but not easy if you don't know your way around Linux). Knowing now > that these devices will work right off the bat, I should have > installed with them in. The Sonnet Tempo ATA 100 card uses pdc202xx > kernel modules based on the Promise chipset (google search and you > will find more information) > > 2. Clean installed OS 9.1 onto the machine, partitioning the 2GB drive > into 3 partitions. 512 MB HFS (not extended) for the OS, 512 MB as > AU/X Swap and 1.5GB as AU/X Root. You can make the MOS9 partition > smaller, but that's your choice. Since I was adding two more IDE > disks with 30GB and 40GB space was not my concern. > > 3. Downloaded and installed BootX. I read the BootX instructions > which only covered uptil the initrd part. I pulled the kernel > (/install/powerpc/vmlinux) and initrd (/install/powerpc/initrd.gz) > from the install CD's boot directory /install/powerpc/ (which was > kinda odd since I'm use to looking in the /isolinux directory used in > X86 installs). > > 4. BootX options. See the initrd option was easy since it was in the > instructions. The rest of those options are confusing. With the > default 8600 settings you want to use "Force video settings" option > (no idea what that "Force SCSI" does. Check the box for "No video > driver" on the main screen. Don't add anything to the kernel's > command line. (I have tried the same with the OpenSuSE 10.1 PPC > install disks but they don't work) > Even with these settings, it take a while for the screen to come > back after the initial boot messages (which won't mean anything to > most people - anyone know what I need to get the serial output off > this machine?). You will be presented with a wonderful language > selection screen. > > 5. Go though the standard installation stuff. Now in all seriousness, > I forget what the partitioning screens look like. But since I already > had partitions for swap and root (aka '/') I didn't have to do > anything else except choose to format them. The installer forced me > to use EXT2 as my root filesystem (I forgot why). > > 6. Now, I finished the installation of software packages and the > installer went straight to using "quik" an OldWorld boot loader that > gets you past BootX. I skipped that since I could not find anyone > using it on my hardware. Moving out of that screen I came to the > installer's blue main menu. I tried using the 'option' key - F2 > ('alt' on a winDOwS keyboard) to switch to another virtual terminal > like some other install guides mentioned, but that didn't work. I > could however use the installer's main menu option to open a terminal > shell. > > I needed to open the terminal shell to copy the newly install kernel > and initrd onto the MacOS9 disk's "Linux Kernels" folder. Now here is > where my problems started. Every single guide tells you to mount > /dev/sdaX (where X is your MacOS9 partition, in my case it was > /dev/sda6) and happily copy them over. > The following is the happy method that people claimed works (remember > to replace and XYZ): > mount -t hfs /dev/sdaX /mnt > cp /target/boot/vmlinux-XYZ /mnt/System\ Folder/Linux\ Kernels/ > cp /target/boot/initrd-XYZ /mnt/System\ Folder/Linux\ Kernels/ > > My reality was that /dev/ did NOT contain the necessary devices files > (sda6 or sda8), neither could the running kernel read HFS (this > command shows this "grep hfs /proc/modules"). The running kernel > could see /dev/sda6 and /dev/sda8 ("cat /proc/partitions"). "df -h" > on the other hand gave me a nasty device path > /dev/scsi/host1/bus0/lun0/part8 (yikes!). I tried mounting the > partition using that long path, but ran into the problem of > unsupported filesystem. So I tried booting with BootX without the > initrd using "root=/dev/sda8" as a boot option, but that didn't work. > > Well, what to do? I was stumped initially, because I didn't have > filesystem support in my kernel to mount the partition, nor did the > standard device names work and I was missing needed utilities. Turns > out, that I had just installed everything I needed! The Debian > installer mounts the installation partition as "/target". The running > kernel, 2.6.8 is the same as the installed kernel which meant I could > simply "insmod /target/lib/modules/2.6.8-powerpc/kernel/fs/hfs/hfs.ko" > to get HFS support. :) To get access to all of my installed binaries > I gave myself a chrooted bash shell > "chroot /target /target/bin/bash". After giving myself the chrooted > shell, I could use "mount -t hfs /dev/sda6 /mnt" to mount the MacOS9 > partition! This worked because the chrooted shell had /dev/sda6 > mapped to the same path as /dev/scsi/host1/bus0/lun0/part6. > > I copied over the initrd and vmlinux files and rebooted. > > 7. I tried BootX without an initrd again, but that didn't work. I > needed the initrd and unchecked all the other options. The machine is > now successfully installed. :) > > Any thoughts or questions? (clarifications?) Here's hoping this helps > someone. :) > thanks, > TuskenTower > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact > [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
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