Problems booting into Debian installer on PowerMac G5
Hello,
I posted here last week regarding getting the right ISO to install
Debian on my dual G5 PowerMac.
I was pointed to rc5 and this worked fine when booted from cd. To get
it to work though I had to select "install-power4 video=ofonly" on the
first yaboot (?) screen.
>From there I was taken automatically through a few screens which were
red, grey and blue - seemed to be using ncurses or something.
Anyway, the only information it asked me for was the hostname and
domain name of my new system.
So far, so good.
Eventually I got to the partitioning screen. After opting to erase the
whole disk and then being asked what type of setup I would like the
installer presented me with the following information of it's intended
partitioning:
#1 32.8 KB Apple
#2 1.0 MB boot untitled
#3 244.8 GB ext3 untitled /
#4 6.2GB ext3 swap swap
#2 had a downwards pointing arrow and a black face on the same line
both #3 and #4 had a skull and crossbones on the same line
It might be worth pointing out that my system has 2 disks. The first
one is has OS X on and the second is used as storage space for OS X.
For safety I unplugged the main system disk before booting with the
Debian installation disk - just as a safety measure to stop me from
removing my old system.
The plan was to install Debian on the second disk, and once I was sure
it worked as expected I would plug in the primary disk, copy across my
important files, wipe and use fstab to mount as my new /home dir.
So anyway, the installer told me everything was a success - ejected
the CD and rebooted my system.
When my system booted up the screens were all back for a good minute
or so, a little animated icon of a question mark and a OS X system
folder came up, the screen went black and I was then presented with
the following screen (where I selected the "l" option):
---------------------------
First Stage GNU/Linux Bootstrap
Press l for GNU/Linux,
c for CDROM
Stage 1 boot: l
Loading second stage bootstrap...
---------------------------
At this point, the same flashing question mark/folder icon came up.
Nothing happened for a minute or so and then the screen reset it's
self - presenting me with the same initial option.
I tried this several times and nothing would get it past this screen -
the only thing that seemed to work was inserting the Debian install
disk and using the "c" option - but this just takes me back to step
one.
Does anyone know where I am going wrong? I reset my p-ram and it still
doesn't work.
I know OS X needs to 'bless' drives etc before this work - I do not
understand this concept but surely this is not relevant when I am
installing Debian by it's self on the only blank disk the system can
see?
Thanks in advance for anyone who may be able to help me out.
Regards,
Noah
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