On Sun, Apr 15, 2001 at 11:34:53PM -0700, Chris Tillman wrote: > I'm happy to hear the oldworld keyboard problem will soon be fixed. > > In the meantime, I've been scratching my head wondering how I can manage to > install Debian on my NewWorld iMac 350, unless I get a CD. I was sort of > avoiding buying a CD because I wanted to learn more about how the whole > thing goes together as I install. you have to manually setup a bootloader and load it via the OpenFirmware command line. if you don't like that buy a CD. > My machine is floppy-less, so I don't know how to initiate the boot process. > I thought of copying the floppy image contents to the Mac OS RAM Disk, then > setting the RAM Disk as startup. But MacOS 9.1 won't allow me to use the RAM > Disk for startup like the earlier versions did. This isn't MacOS dude, the MacOS startup disk control panel will not help you. besides that macos ramdisks go away on reboot unlike on OldWorlds. > I also tried using one HFS partition as my floppy-substitute, and copied the > floppy image contents there. The 9.1 Startup Disk utility doesn't recognize > it as a valid system, so won't allow me to boot from it. Even if I got past > that hurdle, I know the next thing it would ask for would be the root.bin > floppy. of course not, this isn't MacOS. > I looked at netbooting, but the MacOS idea of netbooting is really limited > to getting a boot image from a MacOS Server on the LAN. It sure would be > cool to be able to point MacOS at an internet install file, and have it boot > directly into the installer online! Maybe, someday... Right now it looks > like there is no support for netbooting an initial Debian installation. http://penguinppc.org/usr/ybin/doc/netboot.shtml it is quite easy to netboot the debian installation. that is how i usually do boot floppy testing on my blue g3 rather then spending time burning a CD. > I finally hit on the idea of downloading and installing Darwin on a separate > partition, in order to have access to a Unix system with which to install a > Debian system. It'd be great, someday, for Mac users, to be able to double > click an installer file to get Debian installed. I did successfully boot > into Darwin, but I'm totally clueless about how to proceed. I know I need to > run dbootstrap somehow, and I need to have a kernel to run it with. Or maybe > I could just run it from Darwin? Or if I put the right files in the right > places, can I start a boot from OF *without* floppies? you need to get past this complex that Debian is MacOS, or that its a MacOS program. its not. don't expect it to be like MacOS either, its not and won't be. > I used the Drive Setup utility to partition my drive as follows: > > A/UX Free (to be eventually used for Apple_Bootstrap): 1M 800K is more then sufficient. > A/UX Root: 128M > A/UX Swap: 128M > A/UX User: 1000M where is /home ? > HFS+: 500M (for MacOS system) > HFS+: 2000M (for MacOS apps/data) > HFS+: 1500M (for Darwin) > > Thanks for any help you can give, I'm willing to experiment. here is the deal: put yaboot and the file `linux' (from the boot-floppies) along with root.bin onto the *root* (not desktop, not system folder, not any other subdirectory) of any of those HFS partitions. create the following yaboot.conf file: image=linux label=install initrd=root.bin initrd-size=8192 now you need to boot into OpenFirmware, do this by holding down `command option o f' while booting the machine, you should get a prompt like this: 0 > at this prompt type: boot hd:X,yaboot where X is the partition number of the partition you put the yaboot file. if you don't know start at 9 and work your way up until it works. after that you should get a yaboot `Boot:' prompt enter `install' and press return. this will boot into the debian installer. follow http://penguinppc.org/usr/ybin/doc/mac-fdisk-basics.shtml for info on how to correctly partition the disk with mac-fdisk. creating the 800K type Apple_Bootstrap partition is critical. once you get to the `make disk bootable' step, skip it, its broken on newworlds (such as iMacs) instead follow the debian install documentation on how to run mkofboot on the command line (run Execute a shell). -- Ethan Benson http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/
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