Re: Problems booting into Debian installer on PowerMac G5
Hello,
This is just an update after talking to someone on #debian
After the installer partitions the drives I dropped into the shell and
executed the following:
$ cd /target
$ chroot .
$ ybin -v -v
This produced a few lines of output and stated that it had blessed
/dev/sda1 with Holy Penguin Pee. Shouldn't this have read "hda"?
Using mac-fdisk to look at the partition map of /dev/sda I got the
following output:
Apple_partition_map ... Partition map
Apple_Bootstrap ... NewWorld bootblock
Apple_UNIX_SVR2 ... Linux native
Apple_UNIX_SVR2 ... Linux swap
This all looked fine, so I did the following:
$ mkdir /mnt/tmp
$ mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/tmp
This gave the following error:
"Invalid Argument ... You must specify the filesystem type"
After some futile attempts to get this working, I tried the following:
$ mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/tmp
$ ls -l /mnt/tmp
This was the output:
ofboot.b
yaboot
yaboot.conf
So, all looks good here too.
I rebooted and... nothing, yaboot presented me with the option screen,
but "l" still didn't work and it just hangs for a while and goes back
to the selection screen.
So, I'm thinking - perhaps an issue with the kernel?
So I tried all the above steps again twice over, each time using
apt-get to install the following kernels respectively:
vmlinux-2.6.8-power4
vmlinux-2.6.8-power4-smp
Even with the new kernel, I was still getting the same problem.
BTW, I did check /etc/yaboot.conf and in each case it was pointing to
the right kernel.
I hope this helps shed at least *some* more light on my situation.
Does anyone have an idea where this is going wrong?
Thanks,
Noah
On Apr 3, 2005 4:21 AM, Noah Slater <nslater@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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