Subject: Re: Screwed by PowerBook FireWire
From: Paul J. Lucas (pjl@barefooters.org)
Date: Sat Feb 26 2000 - 12:24:38 MST
On Sat, 26 Feb 2000, Dan Burcaw wrote:
> My bet is Kai thought your 400mhz PowerBook was like the one we have in
> the office -- the '99 Lombard model.
I just talked to the salesman at Elite Computers. He said that
the Lombards are no longer available and Apple told them to
return all of them. (Sounds kind of weird to me, but...)
Anyway, so I can't get one of those even if I wanted to.
> Additionally, we did not find out until yesterday that these machines are
> not supported. Previously, reports indicated that they would work with no
> problems.
Previous reports from whom? Somebody somewhere has it working?
> You'll need 2 things to try installing on this box:
>
> A newer kernel: http://ppclinux.apple.com/~benh/vmlinux.benh.15.gz
> A newer version of BootX: http://ppclinux.apple.com/~benh/BootX_1.2fc1.sit
I tried both. I get farther. It boots. It prints a bunch of
stuff, then complains about "lost interrupts" to the hda*
devices. However, it contues past that to the blue welcome
screen. But, once there, the machine locks up. Pressing
return, space, tab, F12, whatever, doesn't make it continue.
From the TSS pages, another guy said to try the ruffpack 1.8 (I
think it was) kernel. Of the two kernels, the benh one is
better (I suppose) because the ruffpack one complains a bit
about an "unsupportd Macintosh display" whereas the benh one
makes no such complaint.
So, anyway, I'm farther, but still stuck. Anything else I can
try?
> > To make sure I wasn't to blame for buying an unsupported machine, I
> > double-checked YDL's officially supported hardware page. Yup, the
> > PowerBook G3 series is there. I check under the "What hardware is
> > NOT supported" section. Nope, the FireWire PowerBook is not there.
>
> The web site states:
> - G3 Desktops, Towers, All-in-Ones, and PowerBooks
> - '99 Powerbook G3 Series (bronze keyboard)
>
> I can see that the first line could cause one to believe that this machine
> is indeed support.
Both the first and second lines. The FireWire machine has a
"bronzish" keyboard also (perhaps more brown). The point is
that, in lokking at it, I assumed I had a supported machine.
> Please email me if you have any additional questions.
I'd at least like some warm-fuzzy statement from you guys that
you ARE working to MAKE the FireWire PowerBooks work in the very
near term, not only for me, but since all the new PowerBooks are
FireWire, to make your product work on them for everybody.
- Paul
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