Subject: Strange, man...just plain strange!
From: Chip Witt (chip.witt@westwave.com)
Date: Tue Oct 30 2001 - 15:26:54 MST
O.K. Here is the summary of where I am:
I have a Powerbook G4 500 (DVD drive, etc.). I have both, Yellow Dog 2.0
and 2.1 CDs. Initially I was trying to install YD 2.1 and encounted the
"can't mount CD/DVD" problem during the media selection process of the
install. Thanks to the help of several of you, I moved around that issue
after much head banging and swearing. Once I had the answer to this
problem, I thought I was ready to do my clean install (vs. the odd-ball
install of 2.1 via yup from a 2.0 installation -- which worked, but
wasn't a clean install--which was what I was after in the first place).
I can't believe how wrong I was.
NEW AND INTERESTING PROBLEM:
I go to create my partitions. Not rocket science. I create a 10 MB
bootstrap partition (registers as the normal HFS partition type -- pay
attention, we'll get back to this). I create a 512 MB swap partition.
I create my 6 GB root partition as a general Linux partition (ext2).
I create my 12 GB crap partition (ext2). I SAVE THE CONFIG.
I then go to set up my mount points. Everything is where I expect it to
be except the HFS bootstrap partition is nowhere to be seen (important
to note that, on the first pass of this exercise, I excused this as just
a change in the install--giving credit to the install intelligently
knowing that I wanted the bootstrap partition to be /boot--of course,
I was wrong--wouldn't boot because the HFS partition with the yaboot
crap wasn't found). I back up a step (on my fourth or fifth iteration of
this ineffective process) and check the partitions post-save and find
that what was originally labelled an HFS bootstrap partition maintains
its label, but now reads "none" under the Filesystem column (I even
tried moving where this partition was--from /dev/hda2 to /dev/hda3, etc.
with no effect).
Bells and whistles gave rise to a brilliant idea: I'll just boot off my
trusty MacOS disks and partition the drive from there (or, at the very
least, create the necessary HFS partition). Do so. Go back the install.
Just when I thought that I had successfully out smarted the YD 2.1
installer (feeling very proud), the installation errors creating the
symbolic links to vmlinux, System Map, etc. from the files with the
version numbers marked on them. Again, I refuse to get too upset.
There's got to be a solution...I know, I 'll boot from the emergency
repair CD (Tasty Morsels) and mount the boot partition and create the
links by hand. Once again (sucks to be me), the installer simply laughs
at this feeble attempt at triumph...as I cannot successfully mount the
drive because it isn't a recognized filesystem type.
Now, if this wasn't strange enough for you, I've got a really good
addition to this nonsense:
My trusty YD 2.0 install disks, that had previously allowed me to
install the distribution before, are now exhibiting the identical
bootstrap partition issues that I've run into with YD 2.1 (not allowing
me to create the necessary HFS partition--actually worse, leading me to
believe the partition is created and then showing me otherwise later in
the install). Thinking I had done something horrible to my PRAM or my
hard drive, I zapped the PRAM and reinstalled MacOS 9.2.1 and OSX 10.1.
These installed without incident (also the hardware checker I ran prior
to install came back OK). Went back to YD installs and found the same
problem with creating the bootstrap partition (2.0 and 2.1).
Just writing about it has been therapeutic. Thanks for listening.
I think I'm with that guy looking for a buyer for his YD disks...except
I'd feel guilty pawning these things off onto someone else for money. I
guess I should have gone out to dinner with my wife with the $30 I
spent.
By the way, the first person that calls me a whiner is getting seriously
flamed. I've been working professionally in IT for fourteen years, and
been responsible for one form of *NIX or another for most of it. Most of
my experience with Linux has been in the x86 arena, thus, may explain my
current problems. I've never had as many problems with an install set as
I've had with YD. On the other hand, I think the work YD is doing is
remarkable and is the only reason I sunk money into Apple hardware.
Regards.
CW
--Chip Witt Sr. Network Administrator Westwave Communications
463 Aviation Blvd. Santa Rosa, CA 95403 (V) 707-284-7237 (F) 707-591-9413 (E) chip.witt@westwave.com
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"Today, wealth is no longer best defined as ownership of land, goods, capital or labor. It is knowledge and knowing how to use it."
Peter Drucker, 1988 ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________
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