working files for Woody install to an Old World ?

[vinai <vinai_at_@mcw.edu>]

Hi Folks,

My old 8500 has been creaking along with an extremely old linux install,
and I thought it was time to take the plunge and upgrade to Debian 3.0

I currently have system 7.5 on my upgraded 8500 (now has a Sonnet G3, 2
hard drive and 1G RAM) and have no issues keeping classic around to boot
linux.  I look at the manual at:

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/powerpc/ch-install-methods.en.html#s-boot-drive-files

section 4.4.1.  So I grabbed the ramdisk.gz (I already had a working
kernel/BootX combo and besides, the "linux.bin" from the Debian site
did not seem to work) and tried to run the installer that way.  The
installer said it was put together by Adam Di Carlo and was dated May
16, 2002.  Right at the point where the it was going to partition the
hard disk, the installer would appear to freeze.  Even when I re-tried
(to skip that stage) it would still lock up.

Am I missing something obvious, or are the installer files from the
debian site broken in some way?  And if so, where can I get a working
ramdisk that would let me do the hard disk install ?  If possible -
is there one that would allow me to partition my drives using XFS ?

Thanks much everyone.

vinai

P.S. The e-mail in the header isn't exactly correct.  I read the list
pretty frequently.