Re: imac g3 installation problem
On Tue, 30 May 2006 21:22:42 +0200, Giulio Canevari wrote:
> In data 30/05/2006 13:26 Giulio Canevari ha scritto:
>> In data 29/05/2006 17:42 Daniel Gimpelevich ha scritto:
>>
>>> The CD drive may or may not come back to life
>>> after applying this update from within MacOS (you must reboot after
>>> applying the update, or the drive will not function at all):
>>> http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60458
>>
>>
>> I can anyway reopen the imac ( a thing that i really don't like to do
>> again ), put its hd into my x86 and copying the files ( hfs write seems
>> to be supported ), then remount the hd and try to install the updates.
>
> Done this way with hfs utils. Found out that there is also an handy
> tcltk interface, in the hfsutils-tcltk package.
You really didn't have to do this as long as using a USB drive was
possible. But since you did it anyway, you might as well have also put the
netboot files onto the iMac that way, for use as described in the link
Hans provided (the OS 9 variant). Attempting a netinstall will require a
broadband connection, so be prepared to carry the iMac somewhere else if
you don't have that. As an alternative, if you already downloaded .iso
images for installation, you can put them on the iMac the same way, except
booting with the "hd-media" installer instead of the "netboot" one.
> The CD still desn't work, the firmware was ok and the modem has been
> updated.
It was worth a try.
> Now i'll try to find some notebook with a net card and linux wanting to
> spend some time in this experiment. The imac is by far to heavy to be
> transported in places i can't reach with a car :(
To each his own -- others have carried tray-loading iMacs with one hand
over combinations of buses and trains, but that is not something I would
attempt to do.
> But a question is: isn't it possible in some ways to install the base
> system from my x86 [e.g. with qemu-system-ppc]?
It may be possible, but it is certainly not worth the time it would take
(likely at least a week if you don't have CDs), nor the effort to retool
the installed system for real hardware.
> Or this will lead to non-proper configuration when replugging the hd on
> the imac? Once i'll install the very base system i will be able to use
> the usb key within linux, so it should be ok.
If you were installing Woody, it wouldn't much matter because you'd be
specifying all the hardware, but otherwise some retooling would of course
be necessary. Once you have booted any Linux installer, the USB key
becomes somewhat superfluous, because you will be able to mount your x86
drive over NFS. I think even the hd-media installer can work this way.
> A questions before the problem appears is the following: let's say i
> want to have the same packages i have on the x86 ( dpkg --get-selections
> >list.txt ).
>
> How can i do to get the urls of the corresponding powerpc packages in
> order to be able to send the list to a friend of mine that has the adsl
> ( usually i send him a list for wget ) so he can download them?
After he downloads them, how does he get them to you? Either you take your
machine to him or vice versa. He will have to have a rather large hard
disk to store all the packages if he brings them to you. They will not fit
on a USB stick. If he burns CDs, he might as well burn the official .iso
images or use jigdo. If you take your machine to him, it can access the
network as needed by itself. Note that some i386 packages (e.g. wine) have
no PowerPC equivalent.
> Another little question: is ram usage with ppc compiled package similar
> to x86, or greater? I have tried to append mem=96m ( actually i have 256
> mb ) to the grub boot entry and with my x86 everything i plan to use
> works fine, i would like to know if the situation with imac will be
> better, similar or worser.
>
> Thank you again,
RAM usage is definitely greater than on x86. Each instruction is 32 bits,
and more instructions are used to perform the same operations.
Instructions on x86 are of variable size and may be as little as 8 bits,
and can still be equivalent to multiple PowerPC instructions. It may be
possible to install on an x86 box with 32MB of RAM, but on PowerPC, the
installer will fail to boot. However, 96MB may be enough for a light
system; just don't bother with something like openoffice.org on it.
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