Trying to install on oldworld powermac

[Fraser Campbell <fraser@wehave.net>]

Hi,

I'm trying to install Debian (woody, sid or sarge) on a beige G3 powermac.  I 
know next to nothing about the hardware and that's leading me into trouble. 
So much to learn ... I've been using Linux for almost 11 years, on PCs, Suns, 
Cobalts, embedded devices, etc.  Now with a Mac in front of me I feel like an 
idiot ;-)

I did get woody's installer up and running from BootX but I want to get rid of 
MacOS entirely.  My understanding is that I should be able to use the Quik 
bootloader, bypassing the need for MacOS/BootX.

I was following the instructions at 
http://mfdh.ca/apple/debian_on_oldworld_mac.html and the system isn't booting 
from floppy.  Now I have a few problems:

- I can just make out that open firmware is onscreen when I boot but
  unfortunately I cannot read anything else.  My monitor displays about 6
  copies of openfirware screen in narrow vertical bands, there's some shake
  and it's too fuzzy to understand any of the output.

- I can no longer get into MacOS, which I need to do to (easily) reprogram
  openfirmware

The monitor is a 20" Mediascan 7A ... any ideas why openfirmware isn't 
displaying correctly?

On the URL mentioned I see this paragraph:

	" If you see only a black screen, your system doesn't like the output-device
	you've specified. In this case, force-reboot (Command-Control-I/O) and
	immediately zap the PRAM (Command-Option-P-R) for one chime's worth. Release
	the keys and MacOS will load; launch System Disk and start again with a
	different guess at the output-device setting."
 
So now another problem I have is that I don't know what is the Command key or 
what is the I/O key (or does that mean I & O)?  I have a Control key in the 
same place as a PC (lower left), I have an "alt/option" key to the right of 
that and then a blank key to the right of that ... is the blank (3rd from 
left) key the command key?

Elsewhere I've seen it mentioned that holding down C will make you boot from 
cdrom.  I have a debian-installer beta2 for powerpc available but it doesn't 
seem to want to boot from that (I'm not sure that it even tries though).

Any help you can give me is greatly appreciated, not being able to clearly see 
openfirmware is the biggest issue right now, if I can get past that then I 
can hopefully figure out the rest.

Thanks!
-- 
Fraser Campbell <fraser@wehave.net>                 http://www.wehave.net/
Georgetown, Ontario, Canada                               Debian GNU/Linux