Subject: Re: YDL install on summer 2000 iMac
From: Soren N. Madsen (snm@mac.com)
Date: Tue Aug 29 2000 - 14:23:21 MDT
>
> Seems like we're both looking up at the same problem. Have you had any
> further success?
>
Not really. The last few days I've been playing with installing LinuxPPC
2000 and sometimes it seems to work pretty well (I've even gotten
XFree-3.3.6 up and going) and some times I'm just stuck with a black screen
or in xmon -and I've little idea why my luck is so varying.
> I've a Mac DV SE and I've just begun to try to untangle the YD install
> problem. When I boot from the CD I'm seeing messages from the usbcore
> (usbcore: USB device not responding giving up (error -101)). From a
> practical POV, the result is that the keyboard is dead when the first YD
> install screen comes up. No suprise to you, eh?
>
> I'd like to at least get to the point where you are but am having some
> difficulties with yaboot. I've done the following:
> From the YD CD I grabbed...yaboot.tbxi, vmlinux, yaboot.conf and
> ramdisk.image.gz. I dropped these in my System folder. I then created a
> bootinfo.txt and based on the instructions you linked to and put this in my
> System folder, too.
>
> Problem is, I can't tell if I'm on the right track or not. Mac OS boots
> without any obvious signs that it is trying to do anything special.
>
The fact that your mac boots as if nothing is "special" is certainly
different from when I messed around with yaboot/dualboot before getting it
right. I used to get a mac question mark and then after a while the OF
would find a valid mac system and boot.
Yaboot is difficult to troubleshot on the new iMacs as the display behaves
somewhat strangely. Even when I get to the yaboot message, I don't see it
because the screen is all light gray. I know it is there, because if I hit
tab and then type whatever label I want to boot (install, linux, etc.) then
yaboot runs in the right direction. The iMac is also strange on the mac
side, as it has happened to me several times that after I select "shutdown"
the screen shuts down, but then clearly waits for something. In my case I
believe it is location manager asking whether I want to save changes. Thus
if I hit a blind "return" then the iMac shuts down. Hm...?
Anyway the above might not be your problem. Again, instead of using the
yellowdog approach, I really find the procedure and tools provided by suse
to be the easy way to get yaboot dualboot up and going. So first get:
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/BETA/bootonly.hqx
and print:
http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/en/html/olh_ppc_yaboot.html
Do you have a separate boot or linux HFS directory? Or do you want to
boot off the same directory as where you have your mac system? I only have
experience with the former case. In the second case you will probably have
to get into OF and set boot-device and boot-file (again see suse's
directions at http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/en/html/olh_ppc_openfirmware.html) If
you do have a dedicated boot directory, as I have, drop the suseboot folder
on that directory.
Edit the os-chooser script:
-add PowerMac2,2 to the compatibility list
-change ultra0:6 to where you have your mac system (hd:9 or whatever)
-change ultra0:7 to where you have yaboot (hd:11 in my case)
-optionally you might want to swap the "Booting MacOS" and "Booting Yaboot"
lines
Run the script "mark yaboot bootable" from the tools folder -and set the
startup as you are directed to.
Edit the yaboot.conf script. As you saw in my previous post I used
image = hd:11,vmlinux
label = install
initrd = ramdisk.image.gz
append = "video=aty128fb:vmode:17"
during installation and later
image = hd:11,vmlinux
label = linux
root=/dev/hda12
append = "video=aty128fb:vmode:17,cmode:24"
Note that as I could not see the yaboot start prompt it is really a good
idea to set default = install when you are installing and default = linux
later.
> Please forgive the ignorance about how the Mac system folder works. I've
> been hanging about on i386 based Red Hat installs for a while.
>
> Any help you could provide would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Michael
>
> michael@westpole.com
>
>
I'm on travel until Friday, so this is of the top of my head. However, I
visited the suse site just to see if I was approximately right and I saw a
page which might be of interest to people with the latest iMac. Check out
http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/en/html/keylist.POWERPC.html and in particular
"PPC: No installation of version 6.4 possible on latest Macs" that might
have something to do with our problems? If it does help, please post it so
that we can get those new iMacs up and running -with XFree-4 and all of
course ;-)
Soren
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