Problems installing YD on a 5260

[Alexander Holst]

Hi Harold,
Hi David,
Hi List,

Ok, here's how I got YDL 2.2 installed on a Performa 5200/75 with 64MB 
RAM and PDS EthernetNIC:

Drive partitioning scheme:
With Apple's DriveSetup I created 1 HFS partition with 32MB as HFS _not_ 
HFS+! The rest I left as Extra, unused.
Then afterwards from within the text based installer, I created a 128MB 
swap partition and used the rest of the drive [in my case 3.8GB] as 
Linux ext2. The partition scheme looks like the following now:

first partition after Apple's drivers and patches:  32MB HFS
second partition after Apple's drivers and patches: 128MB Linux swap
third partition after Apple's drivers and patches:  3.8GB Linux ext2

Now for the installation procedure:
1]
I copied the System Folder containing the miBoot software from the 
LinuxPPC2kQ4 CD to that first HFS formatted partition, being booted from 
a MacOS9 CD via AFP from another Mac that had the LinuxPPC CD in its 
drive.

2]
I moved the boot.conf file from within that SystemFolder to the root 
level of that first HFS partition and altered it to look as follows:

init-message = "\nWelcome to LinuxPPC!\Press <TAB> for boot options.\n\n"
timeout = 100

default = bootYDL

image = vmlinux-input-20010619
label = bootYDL
root = /dev/hda8


image = vmlinux-input-20010619
label = install_YDL
initrd = ramdisk-text.image.gz
initrd-size=16384
root = /dev/ram0
append = "init=/bin/sh"

The append = "init=/bin/sh" line is important, as I always got errors 
from the kernel when trying to mount /dev/usb - this way I got around 
and got dropped in a shell, being able to start the installer manually.

3]
Then I copied the unzipped kernel from http://nubus-
pmac.sourceforge.net/nubus-pmac/test/vmlinux-input-20010619.gz into a 
folder named "Linux Kernels" on the root level of the first HFS 
partition, thats where miBoot is looking for kernel images. [Still being 
booted from CD, downloading all the Stuff from my other Mac]

4]
Copied the ramdisk-text.image.gz from the YDL2.x CD [whichever version 
you want to install] into the root level of the first HFS partition, 
still using my other Mac as a file server. _Do not_ unzip it!

5]
Time to boot into Linux! Restarted the Mac and waited for the miBoot 
screen, a landscape with Tux the penguin. Hit the space bar when that 
screen appears! miBoot ignores the init-message line as well as the 
default line, resulting in always using the _first_ set of definitions. 
In the next screen, I chose "install_YDL" and hit <Return> You can 
specify extra kernel arguments in that screen if neccessary.

6]
The kernel booted fine, and found the ramdisk image, expanded it and 
fell into a shell. Then I had to manually start the installer by running 
runinstall or /bin/runinstall, can't remember exactly. from that point 
on everything went according to the procedure outlined in the YDL 
manual. I chose "Custom" as installation method, to be able to adapt my 
custom partitioning scheme. In the Mount Pount part of the installer, I 
chose /mnt/Boot_Linux to mount my HFS partition, which enables me to 
alter the boot.conf file or put up new kernels from within Linux. As for 
the package selection, I chose Development/Workstation, which worked 
fine with a 3.8GB root partition. BTW, my Mac has 64MB of RAM in it only 
as this was the max. amount for that machine.

Due to the slow speed and some bad designs in engineering, Apple had 
done on that particular machine, it takes ages for the installer to 
start showing any progress. Don't panic, I think it took more than five 
hours for the installation to complete.

7]
After installation finally was done - I did get some error messages 
during the installation of some packages, but it seems that everything 
went ok, selecting Text as the default boot mode [meaning booting in 
runlevel 3] prooved to be a good choice! I haven't gotten X to run 
stable under YDL 2.2 - it was stable under YDL 2.0 and 2.1 - have to get 
into that as soon as time permits.

8]
I then rebooted [I had to do a forced reboot as any command I issued 
from the shell prompt seemed to not work!] and selected the default boot 
settings. You may have to edit the boot.conf file to reflect your root 
partition, in case you don't know that in advance, by rebooting with a 
MacOS CD and edit the file with SimpleText. It seems as if it does not 
matter whether the file has Mac style linebreaks, or UNIX style line 
breaks, as now, running under Linux, I can edit it with pico or any 
other editor and reformatted it to UNIX style line breaks for better 
readability in Linux.

The machine booted into YDL 2.2, giving some errors when trying to set 
the time, as the kernel I used for installing does not support /dev/rtc 
[in the meantime I compiled my own 2.4.5 kernel, using the patch from 
nubus-pmac.sf.net and the vanilla 2.4.5 kernel source from kernel.org - 
works fine so far]. The only problem I still have is networking. It does 
not come up during the default boot procedure and I manually have to 
activate it by running setup and enter all the values again, although 
all config files are ok. i get an error about some module named net-pf16 
is missing. I haven't found any solution to that yet. Maybe trying to 
get the 2.4.13 kernel compiled for nubus will help me there.

Other than that, My Performa 5200/75 is now running YDL 2.2 for quite a 
while and is even fast enough as fileserver for burning audio CDs on my 
G3 with double speed! BTW, I do have a PDS ethernet card in it and it 
was recognized immediately by the kernel [can't remember the brand right 
now].

A YDL 2.2 only Performa 5200/75 now!

BTW, the same procedure worked for a PM7500/100 as well, except I could 
use the default kernels found on the YDL 2.2 CD!

Am Freitag den, 17. Mai 2002, um 20:12, schrieb Harold Martin:

> Alex,
> I'd greatly appreciate if you'd give this newbie the step-by-step 
> install instructions. The only other time I've worked with Linux is 
> trying to install mk on a PB1400, another fascinating machine :)
> Greetings from the no-Steve-Jobs-period Old World,
> Harold

Hope that helped y'all out there.

Greetings from good ole Germany,
Alex

Alexander Holst
Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences
<holst@fh-pforzheim.de>
ph: +49 [0]7231 28-6837
fx: +49 [0]7231 28-6040