Re: Debian Sarge on oldworld Powermac?
On Sat, 2004-06-12 at 05:43, Ralf Schlatterbeck wrote:
> > The best way I've found to boot OldWorld Macs is with BootX, a little
> I already mentioned, that MacOS is not an option. I want to donate the
> whole disk to Linux and I'm unsure about the licensing: I inherited
> these boxes with a MacOs 8.6 installed but I don't have any boot-disks.
> So I want a Linux-only solution...
As Brad explained, getting OldWorld Macs to boot Linux reliably without
any reference at all to MacOS is difficult at best.
The boot loader you need to become familiar with is called "quik".
I have two completely "Apple Free" Macs running Linux and booting with
quik. I used to have a problem because (on both of them) the battery
that powered the NVRAM was old and weak. Consequently, the Open Firmware
parameter settings kept getting zapped back to factory defaults every
time the main power would fail. This prevented quik from booting until I
manually re-set the OF parameters to what quik expected. As a
workaround, I constructed a bootable MacOS zip disk that I could boot in
emergencies with a program to reset the OF parameters. Eventually, I
figured out what was causing the problem, and replaced the batteries.
The machines have been pretty reliable ever since. So it can be done.
However, you need to keep in mind that quik is very brittle -- it breaks
easily -- and when it does it leaves you with a non-bootable machine.
Fortunately for you, Apple has made MacOS System 7.5.3 available for
free download, and your PowerMac 7600 machines is compatible with System
7.5.3. I'd strongly recommend that you install MacOS 7.5.3 on a 100 MB
zip disk (It will fit with plenty of room to spare) and keep it around,
just for emergencies.
Hope this helps!
Rick
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