[ydl-gen] linux for old ppc iron

[Stephen Harker]

Hi,

> Does anybody on the list have any *current* experience running linux
> (YDL or otherwise) on older PowerPC hardware, and have any
> recommendations?  

I have mentioned before on this list that I am currently running
YDL6.1 on my PM 7600/200 (OldWorld).  You need to compile your own
kernel as the supplied kernel does not have support for OldWorld
features.  I have upgraded using the yum upgrade method, the last
direct install I did was for YDL3.  I believe others have created
their own boot init files and run the upgrade that way.

For YDL3 to YDL4 upgrade see: 

    http://www.yellowdog-board.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=381

The following link (you will need to put the parts together) seems to
have a copy of the original shiner.info suggestions.

http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/SmartMac-kung/article?mid=3053&prev=3054&next=1008

What I did was (roughly) to copy all the rpm files to an external drive, 
     compile my own kernel and new yum, 
     create a yum repository pointing to the directory with the rpm files.
     run 'yum update'

You need to remove some items manually from your machine (use: rpm
--erase --justdb to just remove it from the machines database, not
from the machine).  With this approach I have updated from 4 to 4.1,
to 5, to 6 and now 6.1.

> I need something with support for such archaisms as an Old World ROM,
> ADB, SCSI, and a PCMCIA FireWire card that is PCILynx rather than OHCI
> (even with YDL 3 I needed to reconfigure the kernel for that one!).
> Also it should be lean enough to run with only 192MB of RAM.

I must admit to having 1 GB of memory on my 7600/200 (and a G4
upgrade).  However, I am still using SCSI, the only thing on the
internal bus is the CD-ROM but I have two drives on an Initio Miles2
using the a100u2w driver.  To reduce requirements I am still using
fvwm2 as it is a fairly minimal manager.


-- 
Stephen Harker                           s.harker at adfa.edu.au
PEMS
UNSW at ADFA