Re: PowerPC Install
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:06:42AM -0400, Russell Hires wrote:
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> Hello all...
>
> I just would like to say that I'm annoyed with the way that you have the
> installer instructions set up: they refer to woody stuff rather than the
> updated information on sarge.
This is because nobody has taken the time yet to do the needed rewrite of
powerpc documentation, maybe you feel like giving a hand on this ?
> Also...I'm annoyed that I can't figure out a way to put the needed files on my
> hard drive and just be able to boot using BootX, and then tell the installer
> where to find the files on my hard disk. That you would force Old World Mac
> users to use floppy disks is ridiculous. You should still have the new system
> be able to use the *.bin images just like woody did. That way I could boot
> off my hard disk, and not need the "unreliable" floppies. Can I use the
> floppy images? Or .iso images? If so, how? There doesn't appear to be any
> documentation of that anywhere...
There are actually three ways to boot the oldworld pmacs :
o Using BootX you just need the vmlinux and initrd.gz from :
2.6 : http://people.debian.org/~luther/d-i/images/daily/powerpc/netboot/
2.4 : http://people.debian.org/~luther/d-i/images/daily/powerpc/netboot/2.4
(or the cdrom equivalent)
o Using the miboot floppies from :
2.6 : http://people.debian.org/~luther/d-i/images/daily/powerpc/floppy (currently broken)
2.4 : http://people.debian.org/~luther/d-i/images/daily/powerpc-small/floppy
o Using the .coff kernel with builtin initrd from the serial console :
2.6 : http://people.debian.org/~luther/d-i/images/daily/powerpc/netboot/vmlinuz-coff.initrd
(does not exist in 2.4 kernels though).
I believe this last one can maybe also be booted directly by BootX, not
sure though. Don't exactly know how the compact kernel+initrd .bin was
generated in woody. Well, actually never touched an oldworld box, so ...
Notice that the BootX way is non-free, since it requires an existing Mac OS
installation, which we cannot distribut, and not everyone might have, and the
miboot is problematic, since it needs a mac os toolchain to build and has
around 200 bytes or so of non-free code. the .coff booting is probably the
only free alternative, but i am told requesting a debian oldworld user to get
the serial console working is not acceptable.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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