"failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k binfmt-4c46, errno=8" booting G3 ltsp clients

[Brad Smith]

On 19 Sep 2004 12:18:21 -0400, Derick Centeno <aguilarojo@verizon.net> wrote:
> Hi Brad:
> Unfortunately for you Apple used that architecture in at least 4
> different configurations: a laptop, an iMac,a Minitower.and a Beige
> desktop model.  

For what it's worth, this is the beige desktop model. More info here:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g3/stats/powermac_g3_233_dt.html

> These different configurations should run OS9 I believe,
> which also means that if you are going to use Yellow Dog on them you
> should at least be using Yellow Dog Linux 3.0 and become familiar with
> setting up BootX such that instead of booting into OS 9 you can lock the
> boot procedure into booting into Linux only.

Thanks for the feedback. I had originally tried installing ydl3.0 but
anaconda repeatedly froze and/or returned "out of memory" errors. This
was still the case after I cannibalized some ram and gave the system
64 megs instead of 32 and ran the installer in text mode. YDL 2.1,
however, installed without a hitch.

My current setup is this:

The drive is dual-booting, via BootX, between MacOS9.2 and YDL2.1, so
bootX is set up and ready to go.

BootX is also configured to let me load a custom kernel with nfs_root
support and an initrd that mounts a root partition from the ltsp
server and then start an ltsp session. However, when I do this I run
into the modprobe error I described in my original email.

The reason I am not just using YDL as a standalone OS is that these
are 266mhz machines. With ltsp, I could build a much, much, faster
terminal server and then use the power macs as dumb-clients to it,
thus improving the user experience dramatically.

So, while I'm plenty-comfortable with adminning Linux systems, the
problem at hand appears to be a kernel issue of some sort. Any insight
into how to resolve it would be appreciated.

Thanks,
--Brad