Subject: Screwed by PowerBook FireWire
From: Paul J. Lucas (pjl@barefooters.org)
Date: Sat Feb 26 2000 - 10:26:49 MST
OK, so I just purchased a brand new PowerBook G3 400 MHz
machine and YDL yesterday (25-Feb-2000) from Elite Computers in
Cupertino, CA. I bought this machine for the express purpose
of running Linux. (I already have a desktop Mac at home.)
While I was in the store, I just so happened to meet the CEO
(or president, I forget which he sais) of TerraSoft: nice guy;
he answered some questions, said I'd be "just fine" with the
installation of YDL on my machine.
OK, so I get home, follow all the instructions (among other
things I admin my own Solaris box at work, so it's not like
I've never used Unix before), and the machine hangs with
"booting..." when trying to boot vmlinux via the RAM disk.
Yes, I checked the "No video driver" box. My PowerBook only
came with MacOS 9, so I found out I should get the new BootX
beta. Did that; same result.
I used the TSS Support Manager web page since I bought the $99
YDL CD pack with the 30-day support. (Aside: this web-based
Q&A mechanism is kind of annoying: why not simply use regular
e-mail?)
So anyway, the tech guy asks me, "It's not a FireWire
PowerBook, is it?" I reply "Yes, it is." I get a reply back
that says, "FireWire PowerBook G3s are not supported yet,
sorry." That's it.
That's it?! To make sure I wasn't to blame for buying an
unsupported machine, I double-checked YDL's officially
supported hardware page. Yup, the PowerBook G3 series is
there. I check under the "What hardware is NOT supported"
section. Nope, the FireWire PowerBook is not there.
The tech guy should have said more than he did, like: Will my
PowerBook will be supported? When? Will YDL 1.2 support it?
If so, I think I'm entitled to a new CD since I just bought
mine. (One of the reasnos I bought the CD is so that I don't
have to spend hours downloading the software.) Is there any
pre-release version I could get? A patch? Anything so I'm not
dead in the water?
I haven't gotten a response to those questions yet. (It is
Saturday; but I'd better get some good anyswers on Monday.)
- Paul
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