Re: Installing Debian PPC 3.1rc2 Sarge onto a PowerMac 8600
On Jun 18, 2006, at 12:22 AM, TuskenTower wrote:
> [...]
> After looking at the candidates on the
> PPC+oldworld list I chose Debian PPC.
Good choice. I have tried several other Linux Distributions that claim to work
with my OldWorld PowerMac 9500 but Debian has proved to be the best.
> 1. I removed all non-stock equipment, Sonnet Tempo ATA 100 PCI (with
> disks) and Yamaha CD Burner
I have an Acard 6280 which is very similar to your Sonnet and I also have a
Yamaha CD Burner. Debian had no problem with them :-)
> 4. BootX options.
The BootX is a bit tricky with 2.6 Kernels. You have to use the Kernel and a
corresponding Ramdisk. As Argument give init=/dev/ram0
NO 2.6 Kernel WITHOUT initrd
> the installer forced me
> to use EXT2 as my root filesystem (I forgot why).
You can change that by manually editing the partition table. Simply select the
partition you want to set with the up- and down-keys and press Return.
> I tried using the 'option' key - F2
> ('alt' on a winDOwS keyboard) to switch to another virtual terminal
> like some other install guides mentioned, but that didn't work.
It's ctrl-option-F2
> > I needed to open the terminal shell to copy the newly install kernel
> > and initrd onto the MacOS9 disk's "Linux Kernels" folder
try the following:
# chroot /target
# modprobe hfs
# mount -t hfs /dev/sdaX /mnt
# cp /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.XYZ /mnt/...
# cp /boot/inired-2.6.XYZ /mnt/...
> My reality was that /dev/ did NOT contain the necessary devices files
No, it didn't. You were in the root of the Ramdisk. You need to chroot to the
root of your newly installed system: chroot /target
> tried booting with BootX without the
> initrd using "root=/dev/sda8" as a boot option, but that didn't work.
For Debian you can leave it to root=/dev/ram0. Debian will get it right ;-)
Another problem you might stumble into are the sometimes very slow Debian
mirrors. A solution might be to get the Debian-DVD-iso, mount it (mount -o
loop /your/path/debian-31r2-powerpc-binary-1.iso /srv/ftp/) and use ftp or
nfs on another computer. (I used pure-ftp: /usr/local/sbin/pure-ftpd)
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