Problems installing Yellow Dog Linux onto Old World Mac

[rutledge.50]

Okay.  Sounds like it is time to get serious.  Have you tried making a
small (100MB or so) hfs partition as the first partition on the disk,
then copy the kernel, ramdisk, yaboot, and yaboot.conf there, and
bootstrapping the install from that?  My Clamshell iBook would not read
burned CDs either, so I had to do that to start the install, then get
the files from an ftp server on my LAN, as opposed to using the CD.

You have to edit yaboot.conf so that it will look at your hfs
partition, instead of the cd.

Once they are there, hold down apple-option-o-f at bootup to get to the
OpenFirmware prompt, then type:
boot hd:,yaboot

Then select whatever yaboot entry you set up for yourself in
yaboot.conf, and you are in business.

I have used this trick to install YDL, Debian, Mandrake, Fedora, Suse,
OpenBSD, Gentoo, etcetera.

Another option is to yank that junk CD drive and put in a good one.  If
it's a 5 1/4" IDE drive, you probably have one laying around :)

I have also used this trick to install from cd using my Firewire CDRW,
but it only works with distros that want you to be able to do that.

As you tried before, don't be afraid to crank up the ramdisk size if
you get wierd errors.  I think I had to on YDL 4 and Fedora.

Good luck, keep trying,
Linc
> Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:46:00 -0600 (MDT)
> From: jrolland at SoftHome.net
> Subject: Re:Problems installing Yellow Dog Linux onto Old World Mac
> To: yellowdog-newbie at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
> Message-ID: <1671.69.95.143.147.1156970760.squirrel at pro.SoftHome.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> Hello, again, all!
> 
> Debian-PowerPC and KUbuntu-PPC didn't work at all (couldn't even get the
> installer to run), so I'm back to YDL.
> 
> I have discovered that part of my problem was trying to install 4.0.1 on
> an Old World Mac.
> 
> The directions in <http://www.yellowdog-board.com/viewtopic.php?t=339> are
> for 4.0, *not* 4.0.1 or 4.1; vmlinux-2.6.8-1.ydl.7 is the kernel that
> actually ships with 4.0, and is incompatible with 4.0.1 for sure and 4.1
> assumedly.
> 
> Having said that, I now get a "corrupt gcclib package" error at the start
> of the installation (instead of the consistent hangs I got with 3.0.1).
> 
> Would anyone happen to have a copy of the original TerraSoft CDs for 4.0
> (and maybe even the manual) I could buy from them? My 7500 can't read
> CD-RWs and is very finicky about which CD-Rs it will read, so I really
> need the original TerraSoft copies to isolate for where I'm getting the
> problem.
> 
> Thanks much for all the help; I'll post to the YDL boards once I'm sure
> what the problems are - the 4.0/4.0.1 thing was a big step forward!
> 
> Sincerely,
> -- 
> Jeffrey Rolland
> <jrolland at softhome.net>

-- 
Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance.