Install disk doesn't boot

[Derick Centeno]

On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 09:03, Marcellus Earl wrote:
> Hi,
>  
> Another real newbie! I bought YDL 4.0 on cd's and tried to boot the
> install disk. Failure. I tried holding down the C key and it didn't
> work although it was clear my machine was trying it's best to boot
> from it. I tried holding down the option key. Again, no success.
> The machine I'm working with is a Power Mac G3/300 Tower model, 300
> MHz, 20 gig hard drive, 512 MB memory. I tried booting while OS X was
> on it. I even uninstalled it and tried to boot with a newly
> initialized hard drive. Didn't work.
>  
> Do I have a defective disk, or incompatible hardware, or am I just
> plain ignorant of the right way to boot the disk? What do you advise?
>  
> Marcellus Earl
> 
Venerable Fr. Earl:
I've heard of your Order for YEARS.  Wonderful Bread!  Literally and
Otherwise!  I have been a fond student of Fr. Thomas Merton writings
since my teen years at least.  It is peachy keen to serve you and your
community in this small way!

The answer I have to share is not simple.

Many G3 based systems are designed with as "Old World" systems and so
you need to follow instructions available with YDL 3.0/3.0.1 which
includes a software application called BootX which requires it to be
installed into the Mac OS.  After it is installed there, then one boot
into YellowDog Linux.

YDL 4.0 was designed for "New World" systems and BootX is NOT included
with it.  This also means other technical issues regarding the
implications of YDL 4.0 is optimized for "New World" hardware, which
doesn't apply to some G3s.

All is not lost however, because many of us who participate on this
list, don't follow any one's rules or standards anyway and figure out
how to do things NOT formally supported by TerraSoft or anyone else.
In short, a few of us HAVE figured out how to get YDL 4.0 working on Old
World G3's!

One way I heard about recently starts from using a process of careful
transfer from YDL 3.0/3.0.1 to YDL 4.0 while keeping BootX.  This means
one will be booting into YDL 4.0 from BootX.  TerraSoft did not design
YDL 4.0 to do that and so it is not supporting any of this or other
solutions, but it will allow discussions and at least one TS engineer is
completing a paper discussing a method of how to get YDL 4.0 running on
"Old World" G3 systems.  The folks on this list are a bit ahead of him
though, maybe quite a bit.

You can find the past discussions regarding this either via Google or
via exploring the YDL archive mailing list.  This very topic is
literally just "days old" with someone making an observation or addition
to the topic with other solutions quite often.  Try searching along the
lines "YDL 3.0 to YDL 4.0", with and without the quotes, see where it
takes you.

The rest of the YDL community is not used to early morning discussions
like this however, especially not on Sunday.  So be patient waiting for
a response from the others.  Best wishes...it was my pleasure to serve.

I'll close with twp quotes which Fr. Merton would have liked:

Gitanjai 35:
Where the Mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where Knowledge is Free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic
walls;
Where words come from the Depth of Truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards Perfection;
Where the Clear Stream of Reason has not lost its way into the dreary
desert sand of dead habit;
Where the Mind is led forward by Thee into Ever-Widening Thought and
Action --
Into That Heaven of Freedom, My Father, let my country awake.
by Rabindrath Tagore

Gitanjali (Song Offerings): A collection of Prose Translations made by
the author from the original Bengali, introduction by W.B.Yeat.
London: Macmillan, 1913.

You must BE the change you wish to see in the world. -- Mohandas Ghandi

PAX