YDL 3 on iMac (333MHz) - can't boot - HELP!!

[Michael Jaffe]

I have been trying to boot linux on my 333MHz (Rev. D, I think) iMac
for about 2.5 weeks now.  No problems installing.  I've tried Debian,
SuSE, and YDL.  Each time, after installing, I can't boot.  I've booted
into Open Firmware and zapped the PRAM so often I can find the keys
blindfolded.

When the machine boots, it just hangs there with a gray screen.  If I
want to get into the Mac OS (9.2), I have to go into Open Firmware and
enter "boot hd:7,\\:tbxi".

At this point, I'm trying with Debian.  If I can get this to work, I'll
try moving back to YDL.  Here are the particulars of my system:

First the partition table

 #:                type name               length   base      ( size )
 1: Apple_partition_map Apple                  63 @ 1        
 2:    Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh              54 @ 64       
 3:    Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh              74 @ 118      
 4:  Apple_Driver_IOKit Macintosh             512 @ 192      
 5:       Apple_Patches Patch Partition       512 @ 704      
 6:     Apple_Bootstrap bootstrap            1600 @ 102401216
 7:           Apple_HFS untitled        102400000 @ 1216      ( 48.8G)
 8:     Apple_UNIX_SVR2 Swap               262144 @ 102402816 (128.0M)
 9:     Apple_UNIX_SVR2 Root             53636528 @ 102664960 ( 25.6G)

In Open Firmware, (before I last zapped the PRAM), I noticed that
"boot-device" was set to "hd:6,\\:tbxi", which would be correct, right?

Also, when I try commands "boot hd:9,\\:tbxi" and "boot hd:8,\\:tbxi" I
get an error message that these are not valid partitions.  What gives?

Is it possible that my firmware is screwed up?

I also read a 2-year-old entry by Ethan Benson to the effect that the
"make disk bootable" step in Debian wasn't working right - that one has
to use "mkofboot" in order to correctly set up the bootstrapping.  Is
this still the case? 

Anybody have any ideas?

Thank you,
Michael Jaffe

=====
-------------------------------------------
J. Michael Jaffe, Ph.D.
jmjaffe@research.haifa.ac.il
phone: +972 4 6398160
fax: +972 153 4 6398160

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