G5 installation

[Ian King]

Dru, 
 
Yup, you found a genuine pompous [insert anatomical reference here] - welcome to the "community."  :-)  
 
Regarding the question you asked: I had similar issues.  YDL 4.0.1 does not contain a needed patch to address changes in the SATA hardware (at least that's the explanation I've found), but YDL 4.0.91 does.  So I paid for access to ydl.net in order to get that package.  It wasn't an unmitigated blessing, but it did allow me to get up and running.  If you're not terribly familiar with Linux on PPC, it's probably the best (and most cost-effective) way to go.  
 
However, the other problem I had with 4.0.91 was that the machine sounded like a vacuum cleaner after about ten minutes - the thermal management stuff doesn't work on Powermac 7,3.  After some research on my own on sites like penguinppc.com, I found a patch that fixes this - see my post in the YDL forum under "G4, G5 and XServe" on "Bought a new G5 tower?  Quiet your fan!"  
 
As you imply in one of your questions, YDL does expect you to wait until they come out with a new release, which isn't necessarily realistic.  But that's the reality of the "Linux community": either you are dependent on the folks who produce a particular distribution (really, much like being dependent on any other software vendor, such as Microsoft or Apple) OR you develop the skills (relatively modest, these days) to make changes yourself.  The positive thing about open source software is that you may do so; the down side is that often, you MUST.  
 
Ignore the pompous [insert plural anatomical reference], sort through the drivel, and welcome to the wonderful, wacky world of open source.  -- Ian 

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: yellowdog-newbie-bounces at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com on behalf of yellowdog-newbie-request at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com 
	Sent: Sat 11/12/2005 10:29 AM 
	To: yellowdog-newbie at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com 
	Cc: 
	Subject: yellowdog-newbie Digest, Vol 15, Issue 2
	
	

	Send yellowdog-newbie mailing list submissions to
	        yellowdog-newbie at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
	
	To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	        http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-newbie
	or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	        yellowdog-newbie-request at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
	
	You can reach the person managing the list at
	        yellowdog-newbie-owner at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
	
	When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
	than "Re: Contents of yellowdog-newbie digest..."
	
	
	Today's Topics:
	
	   1. G5 installation (Dru Kepple)
	   2. Re: G5 installation (Derick Centeno)
	   3. Re: G5 installation (Cian Duffy)
	   4. Re: G5 installation (Dru Kepple)
	   5. Re: G5 installation (Cian Duffy)
	
	
	----------------------------------------------------------------------
	
	Message: 1
	Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 14:11:15 -0800
	From: Dru Kepple <dru.ydl at gmail.com>
	Subject: G5 installation
	To: yellowdog-newbie at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
	Message-ID:
	        <e376136b0511111411jf6352c0if239d7493bdc5a64 at mail.gmail.com>
	Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
	
	Hi.  I'm new to Linux, new to Yellow Dog, new to this mailing list.
	Forgive me if the question I'm asking has an obvious anwer that's
	already been posted.
	
	So, I have a dual 2.7 GHz G5 that seems to have bombed while I was
	updating to 10.4.3.  I thought, hey, if I need to reinstall everything
	anyway, why not set things up for a dual-boot Linux system?
	
	So I did everything according to directions i found online and also in
	the Linux Bible 2005, and have a "free space" partition of about 20 GB
	set up on my main drive, as the first partition, and the rest I
	devoted to OS X.
	
	After getting OS X reinstalled, I stuck in the YDL 4.0.1 CD, disc 1,
	and rebooted.  After typing install-g5 at the prompt, things started
	to, for lack of a better word, go.
	
	First text flashed across the screen, then more text flashed, except
	this time it looked a lot like the text that creeps over a Mac screen
	when a kernel panic occurs, and then more text flashed across the
	screen, this time being more like terminal text (actually, it looked
	more like a PC when they boot up...).  It came to a halt, and most of
	it was a numbers and letters, but the last two lines said something
	about a kernel panic, and then rebooting in 180 seconds.  And it did
	just that.
	
	After a quick glance at the yellow dog site, I did see that my model
	of computer wasn't officially supported.  And there were many
	"D'oh's."
	
	So my question(s) is(are):  is what happened what I should have
	expected to have happened (assuming I knew about the dual 2.7
	incompatibilities)?  Or did I do something wrong?  Along those lines,
	is there anything to be done about this?  Or do I just wait for an
	update to YDL?  And if I wait, how long should I expect to wait?  My
	particular model has been out for something like six months (I could
	be wrong, but I've had it for at least four)...how long do updates
	take?
	
	Thanks in advance,
	Dru
	
	
	[snip]