Seth Daniel wrote:
I currently have a NewWorld mac (Blue and White G3) which I have debian unstable installed on (with kernel 2.4.19-powerpc). I will be giving away this machine and receiving an OldWorld powermac 8600. Is it possible to simply remove the hard drive from the NewWorld mac and place it in the OldWorld mac and have things work? From what I have read it seems like it may be possible but I am very new to the world of powermacs, powerpcs etc... I am not new to Linux or debian.
An 8600 doesn't have an integrated ATA controller, so unless you have a SCSI disk and a SCSI card in the G3 blue and white you're using now, you'll probably have to get an ATA card with an OpenFirmware ROM on it. See if you can consult a local (third party - an Apple Store will just look at you funny, like "what, that old piece of crap?") Apple dealer about what's available. Also check on www.smalldog.com (search for "ata card" or "ide card"). No, a standard IDE card you get from your local computer dealer WILL NOT WORK. It _MUST_ have an OpenFirmware ROM - yes, you can use it in Linux without one, but booting will be very difficult (read: not possible) from an IDE drive hanging off such a card. Then the main thing is installing andd configuring quik, and applying the appropriate OF patches to the system (see http://www.penguinppc.org/projects/quik/quirks.shtml) to the system, so that the OpenFirmware will play nice.
Note, I've not done this myself, but this is based on a few years' learning about PowerPC, Apple PowerPC systems in particular, and running Linux on said systems (I have a PowerBook Pismo on my lap now, and a B/W G3 and PowerMac 7500 sitting across the room). It won't be pretty, and it probably won't be easy either. I'll answer what questions I can if you decide to do it and need assistance.
-- Derrik Pates dpates@dsdk12.net