G3, YDL, OSX

[Clinton MacDonald]

Ted:

On Tuesday, September 16, 2003, at 04:37  PM, Ted Parks wrote:
> Upgrading to an 80 gig HD in my beige G3, I want to install both OSX 
> and YDL 3.0 in addition to running OS 9.2.2. I was unsure about the 
> YDL installation because the beige G3 requires OSX to be put on the 
> first 8 gigs of the HD.

I have a Wallstreet PowerBook, which comes from approximately the same 
era as your Beige G3. I have my OS 9/X partition (HFS+) as the first 
partition (8 GB), and it works just fine. I have a small HFS (no plus) 
"interchange" partition next, to serve to transfer files between the 
Linux and Macintosh environments, and Linux as the last partition. It 
works great.

Here's what I did on a 25-GB hard drive that I wanted to have three 
partitions (HFS+ for Mac OS 9/X, HFS for interchange, and ext3 for 
Yellow Dog Linux):

[1] Boot with the Macintosh OS 9.x installation disk. Use the Disk Tool 
to initialize the hard drive, and set partitions.
[2] Choose to set up two partitions.
[3] Using the drag interface or by typing values in the window, set up 
partition one ("Untitled") as 8 GB (or less) of the type Mac OS 
Extended.
[4] Set up the partition two ("Untitled 2") to a reasonable size (I 
chose 1 GB, but more might be better for you) and Mac OS (not 
Extended). This will be your "interchange" partition, because Linux can 
mount Mac HFS but not Mac HFS+ partitions.
[5] The remainder of the drive (more than 15 GB for a 25-GB drive) will 
remain unallocated -- do nothing to this portion of the drive.
[6] Quit the Disk Tools utility, and install Macintosh OS 9.x on the 
first (HFS+) partition. Reboot, and set up OS 9 to your liking.
[7] Install Mac OS X on the same partition, if you so desire (I haven't 
done this, yet). Set up Mac OS X to your liking.
[8] Boot into Mac OS 9. Insert the first Yellow Dog Linux installation 
CD. Follow the instructions to set up BootX, and so on (consult the YDL 
literature for these steps -- and read the instructions carefully, it's 
not always completely obvious).
[9] Install Yellow Dog Linux from the CD.

The YDL installer is smart enough to ignore your two Macintosh 
partitions and go right for the unallocated portion of your drive. If 
you have followed the instructions for the YDL installation, everything 
should go quite smoothly. Pay attention during the install: it is very 
important to remember during the installation to write down the 
partition number (hda11 in my case -- it will be different if you chose 
not to include an interchange partition, for instance) to which you 
have installed your "/" root partition! You will be unable to tell 
BootX where to look for your installation otherwise.

[10] Reboot into Mac OS 9 and setup your BootX parameters as instructed.
[11] Start up Yellow Dog Linux.
[12] Have fun!

> The YDL installation How-To says to create three partitions on the HD 
> to install OS 9, OSX, and Yellow Dog, with the first partition for 
> YDL. Can I still boot into YDL using BootX if I put YellowDog on the 
> second or third partition, after OSX?

Yes (see above).

Good luck!

Best wishes,
Clint

-- 
Dr. Clinton C. MacDonald | <mailto:clint DOT macdonald AT sbcglobal DOT 
net>