Re: newbie trying to install debian linux on oldworld mac
About 3 weeks ago I installed potato Debian from the CDRom onto my
Apple 7200/90. It was my first Linux installation. As David Roundy
mentioned, you really need to use BootX, the necessity of which is not
even mentioned in the installation guide, which is a serious oversight
of the PowerPC documentation.
Booting directly from the CDRom is not possible (as I understand it),
but I don't know anything about Quik. Old World Power PC users cannot
directly boot floppy images using the firmware booting process because
it is somewhat broken.
After many hours struggling with an installation according to the PowerPC
installation guide, I did some research (web searches, mining mailing
list archives) and found repeated references to BootX. Oddly (or not!)
the official CDRom set contained a copy of BootX, but it was not obvious
that it was required.
Installing BootX on my Mac, reading its terse documentation, got things working
fairly quickly, although in the early stages of Linux play, an awful lot
of the terminology is incomprehensible. (Do I need kernel parameters?
Should I click the "No video driver" box? [no])
Anyway, the path is "simple" once you've finally found the one right
path after taking 50 wrong ones. And my limited experience with the
PowerPC platform is that you can get a good deal of it to work,
but it may be difficult and painful finding out how. Much of the
"documentation" for our machines is tucked away in mailing lists,
personal web sites, and the heads of experienced gurus - and not
in the "official" documentation (Debian guides, HOWTOs).
I've struggled for days getting my printer working, and for at least a week
getting my monitor configured for XFree86. Be prepared for lots of
research finding the solutions your own PowerPC problems. Usually someone
has done the work, but it's not always easy to find the solution.
Many of the answers in mailing lists assume you know 3 times as much as
you already do. Not everyone can write documentation. No one has your exact
configuration, so you have to synthesize the best solution according to the
facts you suspect might be relevant. But if you're a newbie, you don't really
*know* what is relevant. It's a lot of trial and error.
This is not in any way intended to malign to good work of those people who
have given so much to the Power PC platform. Just a reality check to those
who might have overly high expectations of an easy installation.
-- Bill
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Bill Brennan
Wayne, PA
brennanw@pond.com
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