Trying to install on a 3400c PowerBook. Help!

[Derick Centeno]

No Problem...

There are more details you should be aware of, however before you thank 
me.  The saying in Engineering, and perhaps other careers goes "the 
devil is in the details", so get prepared to not be happy.  And for 
that, I will apologize ahead of time.

The PB 3400 came with a 603 chip which is a PowerPC chip.  If you are 
running OS X Tiger on a 603, that IS pretty amazing.  But some programs 
in Tiger will be looking for specific features which only PowerPC G4/G5 
series have.  Why?  Because the design of that series is several 
magnitudes of order beyond the 603.  Even the PowerPC G3, which is more 
advanced than the 603 is not the recommended chip for running or 
showing off OS X!

The 603 should have no trouble running Champion Server 1, and YDL 2 or 
YDL 3.  However, you should be staying with Mac OS 8.6 which came with 
your PB, because you probably have everything 8.6 would need (back up 
software, diagnostic software etc.) but again to use YDL you need BootX 
to be running within Mac OS 8.6  PB unlike their desktop and tower 
cousins are not designed to be all that flexible.  You cannot easily 
swap out motherboard, cpu, memory, graphic card, etc of a PB, as easily 
as you could a desktop or tower system.  This limitation is also true 
for the PC Intel based universe.

So keeping OS 8.6 is a great idea (moving up to OS 9 is not much of an 
improvement) and still you need BootX to get into Linux regardless.  
But you can upgrade from YDL 2 to YDL 3 or to YDL 3.x whatever it was, 
but again what is possible for you with a PB 3400 stops there.

Burning isos or anything else, cannot be done with the standard CD-ROM 
drive which came with the PB 3400.  You may perhaps have an external 
DVD-RW/CD-RW drive which can burn isos or anything else, but I doubt 
very much whether the circuitry or Mac OS 8.6 of the PB 3400 can handle 
it well, if at all.  I recommend that you speak with the wonderful 
wizards of Other World Computinng (www.fastermacs.com) if something can 
be done to get modern functionality out of what you have those are the 
folks to communicate with.  They don't support Linux however, although 
anything I've gotten from them has always worked within YDL.  Right now 
your   problem is to get the OS to burn your isos; they may have 
software which works with 8.6.  Talk with them, write them an email.

Although I respect your enthusiasm regarding the PowerPC I will state 
that Apple's decision is forcing a whole lot of thinking for many 
people.  First of all your experience with the PowerPC is colored by 
the OS which Apple produced for you and the rest of us.  However, that 
OS will no longer be available for PowerPC based systems.  The OS 
systems which remain with the PowerPC will be YDL, IBM's AIX and maybe 
something produced by Genesi or Pegasos.  This means the type of 
persons still sticking it out with the PowerPC will most likely be 
mathematicians, engineers, and other professionals who are not 
unwilling to investigate pages of code in hexadecimal.  Linux as an 
alternative to Windows or the Mac OS is not the way to go for the 
majority of people, because the majority of users cannot code in C or 
C++.  And like it or not, solid programming skill is what is needed to 
function even reasonably well in Linux just to get a normal task done.  
It shouldn't be that hard, but it is.  And without the Mac OS to fall 
back on you'll just have Linux on a PowerPC and your own skill or lack 
of it.  The Mac OS will be departing for Intel real soon now, and I 
don't think Apple is looking back at those who will continue to work on 
PowerPC G4s/G5s.

You will not be the only person puzzled with what is going on, but you 
may be so used to Apple's OS you may just have to follow them 
where-ever they go.  Linux as an OS is not pretty, cuddly or warm.  It 
is however, powerful, complete and uncompromising.  It is and has 
become unique in a completely new way which will make many, many people 
very uncomfortable.  It is as bad and different as Grad School can get 
when all the Science and Engineering students gawk and laugh at 
everyone else, it will get that way soon and worse.  Maybe not on this 
list, but you may see it already here and there.  Also one more thing, 
IBM is not Apple.  IBM's idea of an explanation of a task for eating a 
sandwich would be found in Vol. 12, Section a, sentence 12;  Apple 
explains nearly everything as though they were your buddy.  A lot of 
people won't like that difference either, but IBM produces the chips so 
... it's every fellow for himself!

Welcome to the new reality.