iMac Rev A -- newbie help

[Suzanne Payne]

--On Tuesday, May 27, 2003 3:26 pm -0400 Goofus <thegoofuskac@hotmail.com>=20
wrote:

> That does help a little, but not only can I not install OSX on here, I
> don't have $120 twice a year to keep it up to date anyway.   :-)     I
> was told by my Mac guru that the original Rev A Bondi boxes can only
> support 96mb of RAM, and OSX needs 128.  That's fine since I don't like
> OSX, but I digress...


The max is 256Mb according to www.everymac.com.  I have 160Mb in my Rev B.=20
A lot of these "the machine can only take blah ram"  things are because at=20
the time of release the biggest chips you could put into your two slots=20
were only 32Mb or 64Mb, whereas now they sell 128Mb or 256Mb chips that fit =

in the machine and the machine can address every last byte of them!   Not=20
always mind, the LCII will only ever see 10Mb no matter how much you put=20
in...but I digress...

> I've tried literally EVERY partitioning scheme known to man, even =
deciding
> at one point to just trash the MacOS and install Linux exclusively.  Same
> thing happened, nothing.

I've had just YDL (using the original 4 gig drive) and YDL with 2 extra=20
partitions for the various macos not to boot into macos but to use them=20
under mol.  The machine only actually boots into YDL.


> Any thoughts?  Or did I waste $13?  Actually no, I didn't waste $13 =
either
> way, this thing really does need more than 2mb of VRAM no matter what it
> ends up running.   ;-)

No, extra vram is always useful.  The Rev B shipped with 6Mb (and has a=20
Rage Pro card as opposed to a Rage IIc which is in the Rev A).

Ok...not wishing to tell you what you already know, I guess the easiest is=20
to start with just YDL.  So..boot off a macos CD and format the drive.=20
Make the whole of it "empty space" as opposed to some sort of hfs=20
partitioning (set the single partition to 0Mb).  Then boot off YDL disc=20
one.  You might try the text install instead, it's very easy and is less=20
demanding of the vram, but that's up to you.  Select all the bits and=20
pieces you want until you get to partitioning.  You should already have I=20
think 6 partitions with various apple names, and a lot of "free space".=20
Don't delete the apple partitions already there, click on the free space=20
and create a 1mb bootstrap partition, a 192mb swap space and fill the rest=20
of the drive with a single ext3 partition with the mount point of /  Then=20
sit and feed it CDs, make a cup of coffee, walk the dog, answer a few=20
questions whilst it tries to set up X, personally I'd set it to have a text =

login not a graphical login (you type "startx" once you're logged in to=20
start X Windows), reboot, and hopefully.....fingers crossed...voil=E0!

Hope this helps!  I have to say the install on my Rev B Bondi Blue iMac has =

been far less problematic than on my Pismo!

Suzanne