Problems installing Yellow Dog Linux onto Old World Mac

[Paul Higgins]

Does yaboot even work on an Old World machine?  According to the Debian 
people, it doesn't.  They supply this link to several bootloaders: 

<http://penguinppc.org/bootloaders/>

According to this site, the BootX and quik bootloaders are compatible with the 
Old World machines, but yaboot is not.  I read through a bit of the Debian 
install manual for PowerPC, and they claim that the latest version of Debian 
(3.1r2 "Sarge") will run on Old World machines.  However, it sounds like 
there's a fair bit of work involved.

As much as I like the latest YDL, it looks like the best approach is either to 
install an older version of YDL, or install Debian 3.1r2 following the 
installation manual--carefully.  It's not the easiest install I've ever seen.  
However, I use a Debian (x86) box at work, and I can certainly say that it's 
one extremely stable and fast machine, and I've never regretted going with 
Debian.  I really like the package management system and applications that 
are available.

It would be nice if someone could figure out how to make YDL 4.0.1 (or better 
yet, 4.1) install on Old World machines like the beige G3, but the reality is 
that those machines are getting pretty old at this point, and there probably 
aren't that many people masochistic enough to take on such a task.  I think 
at this point, the only distros that support Old World are Debian and 
Mandriva (and neither one is particularly easy to install on those machines).

You can download the Debian install manual here:

<http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual>

-PRH 

On Thursday 31 August 2006 12:47, rutledge.50 wrote:
> 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>