Re: Problems booting into Debian installer on PowerMac G5
Can I just make an observation?
>From http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ports-status I
notice that "powerpc, Apple Powermac G5" is listed as "Unavailable"
and "Not yet" (but "32 bit may work"
I was told earlier that this would all work on my PowerMac G5. Is this
not the case? Is this why I am having problems?
If this is the case, does anyone know how long I can expect to wait
before this platform is expected to be supported?
Thanks,
Noah
On Apr 3, 2005 8:47 AM, Noah Slater <nslater@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> This is just an update after talking to someone on #debian
>
> After the installer partitions the drives I dropped into the shell and
> executed the following:
>
> $ cd /target
> $ chroot .
> $ ybin -v -v
>
> This produced a few lines of output and stated that it had blessed
> /dev/sda1 with Holy Penguin Pee. Shouldn't this have read "hda"?
>
> Using mac-fdisk to look at the partition map of /dev/sda I got the
> following output:
>
> Apple_partition_map ... Partition map
> Apple_Bootstrap ... NewWorld bootblock
> Apple_UNIX_SVR2 ... Linux native
> Apple_UNIX_SVR2 ... Linux swap
>
> This all looked fine, so I did the following:
>
> $ mkdir /mnt/tmp
> $ mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/tmp
>
> This gave the following error:
>
> "Invalid Argument ... You must specify the filesystem type"
>
> After some futile attempts to get this working, I tried the following:
>
> $ mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/tmp
> $ ls -l /mnt/tmp
>
> This was the output:
>
> ofboot.b
> yaboot
> yaboot.conf
>
> So, all looks good here too.
>
> I rebooted and... nothing, yaboot presented me with the option screen,
> but "l" still didn't work and it just hangs for a while and goes back
> to the selection screen.
>
> So, I'm thinking - perhaps an issue with the kernel?
>
> So I tried all the above steps again twice over, each time using
> apt-get to install the following kernels respectively:
>
> vmlinux-2.6.8-power4
> vmlinux-2.6.8-power4-smp
>
> Even with the new kernel, I was still getting the same problem.
>
> BTW, I did check /etc/yaboot.conf and in each case it was pointing to
> the right kernel.
>
> I hope this helps shed at least *some* more light on my situation.
>
> Does anyone have an idea where this is going wrong?
>
> Thanks,
> Noah
>
>
> On Apr 3, 2005 4:21 AM, Noah Slater <nslater@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I posted here last week regarding getting the right ISO to install
> > Debian on my dual G5 PowerMac.
> >
> > I was pointed to rc5 and this worked fine when booted from cd. To get
> > it to work though I had to select "install-power4 video=ofonly" on the
> > first yaboot (?) screen.
> >
> > From there I was taken automatically through a few screens which were
> > red, grey and blue - seemed to be using ncurses or something.
> >
> > Anyway, the only information it asked me for was the hostname and
> > domain name of my new system.
> >
> > So far, so good.
> >
> > Eventually I got to the partitioning screen. After opting to erase the
> > whole disk and then being asked what type of setup I would like the
> > installer presented me with the following information of it's intended
> > partitioning:
> >
> > #1 32.8 KB Apple
> > #2 1.0 MB boot untitled
> > #3 244.8 GB ext3 untitled /
> > #4 6.2GB ext3 swap swap
> >
> > #2 had a downwards pointing arrow and a black face on the same line
> > both #3 and #4 had a skull and crossbones on the same line
> >
> > It might be worth pointing out that my system has 2 disks. The first
> > one is has OS X on and the second is used as storage space for OS X.
> > For safety I unplugged the main system disk before booting with the
> > Debian installation disk - just as a safety measure to stop me from
> > removing my old system.
> >
> > The plan was to install Debian on the second disk, and once I was sure
> > it worked as expected I would plug in the primary disk, copy across my
> > important files, wipe and use fstab to mount as my new /home dir.
> >
> > So anyway, the installer told me everything was a success - ejected
> > the CD and rebooted my system.
> >
> > When my system booted up the screens were all back for a good minute
> > or so, a little animated icon of a question mark and a OS X system
> > folder came up, the screen went black and I was then presented with
> > the following screen (where I selected the "l" option):
> >
> > ---------------------------
> > First Stage GNU/Linux Bootstrap
> >
> > Press l for GNU/Linux,
> > c for CDROM
> >
> > Stage 1 boot: l
> >
> > Loading second stage bootstrap...
> > ---------------------------
> >
> > At this point, the same flashing question mark/folder icon came up.
> > Nothing happened for a minute or so and then the screen reset it's
> > self - presenting me with the same initial option.
> >
> > I tried this several times and nothing would get it past this screen -
> > the only thing that seemed to work was inserting the Debian install
> > disk and using the "c" option - but this just takes me back to step
> > one.
> >
> > Does anyone know where I am going wrong? I reset my p-ram and it still
> > doesn't work.
> >
> > I know OS X needs to 'bless' drives etc before this work - I do not
> > understand this concept but surely this is not relevant when I am
> > installing Debian by it's self on the only blank disk the system can
> > see?
> >
> > Thanks in advance for anyone who may be able to help me out.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Noah
> >
>
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