Re: Bug#382129: Beta3 won't boot on OldWorld PowerPC Mac
i have no idea if it is possible to "upgrade" ubuntu to debian,
as far as i know, it is really a separate distribution, although
many parts are similar or shared. so appears...
this has been a long and complicated thread, if you are
doing ok in ubuntu, with an old world mac and recent software
you are lucky (right now at least) --
my once stable sarge system is pretty much in chaos now
stuck half way to upgrade. i was wanting to test that etch
would work and that support for my machine wasn't getting
lost. but i am probably needing to back up everything
and reinstall sarge as i am putting in a bigger disk soon,
so i was more or less prepared for this and know partly
(my chaotic files) is due to long over due for a bigger disk.
but, yes i do feel some need of a transition kernel. if you have
something in ubuntu though, would it help that much for me?
i could try and build an initrd around 2.6.12(or15),
and see if it
boots my machine -- but in general it would have to be the
development team in debian talking to the ubuntu people
and getting a transition kernel into the debian package
system with the correct translation for the differences
between the two distributions. perhaps these are trivial or
not but i am in no position to evaluate that, or even if it really
is need. but there was an older kernel in the sarge install cd
i feel there should be one there in etch, if it helps anyone,
it could be fixed up to be more compatible with the older
sets of hardware... also i would like to see how well the
rest of debian/etch works on my old world macs, while it is
still in testing/beta, rather than next year (there were a number
of things i wanted to try/ check ...)
just because some particular package is interchangeable
between debian and ubuntu that would not be the case in general.
if i were for myself thinking of
trying ubuntu i could without
hurting my debian system too much as i have done with
similarly the etch testing releases - i have a spare partition
for an experimental system. if i decide i want to switch then
i could copy my personal files over -- there's not that much
difference, but for instance even with the desktop aka local
packages, upstream tars and so forth i would play it safe
and reinstall them on the new system. once it was all stable
then i could go ahead and reformat the old space to use for
data or source development or whatever. note all this was
on another, new world machine, not the one i have been
complaining about here the last week.
ok, so part of the reason i have old computers is then i can
afford to have extras - which gives me more space and time
in which to try things and take risks, although i do have then
to put some effort into synchronizing my stuff...
if none of this makes sense, and you
lack time to read through
the whole thread, just stay where you are at until you hear
more, i say. although it is not a disaster if you get a kernel
that doesn't work in your regular ubuntu updates, the
system saves a copy so you can still use the old one. its
just that all further updates after that might be problematic,
until they get it work out, which is what you get when you
are running a testing system, is my impression.
hope this helps, i wasn't too sure what level to aim it at.
brian
Harold Johnson <harold.johnson@gmail.com> wrote: Hi Brian,
I appreciate your response, but I'm not quite certain about what you're driving at. Do you need a kernel or
something? I've been able to upgrade to Ubuntu Dapper on my Wallstreet PowerBook, and it's using kernel 2.6.15-26, I believe. I'll have to confirm that the next time I look. I haven't yet been able to upgrade to Debian; I'm not even sure I know how to. It should be as simple as changing the references in the /etc/apt/repositories.lst and then applying apt-get update followed by apt-get dist-upgrade, shouldn't it? Is there anything else I should be doing? There's some failure in the download at that point; apparently the repositories I'm using are failing or something.
Harold
On 8/20/06, brian <cymraegish@yahoo.com> wrote: where we resumed this thread a few days ago, this
was
exactly where i had got stuck in debian, ie
upgrading from the previous release "in place".
there are two stumbling blocks i have found here:
1) getting past the transition from kernel 2.6.8-3 to
2.6.16-2 required presently by debian. note you
having the 2.6.12 in ubuntu is i feel precisely what
i am needing/ missing now in debian.
2) the initrd or initramfs package needed by powerpc
arch (not by i386) to boot a runnning system to get
it to the state where it can mount the hard drive,
this package has something wrong.
the initrd produced by upgrading in debian from
sarge to etch (kernel related portion only, initially)
being 4 times larger got me curious. further
investigation, reveals it is trying to load every
available module. it only needs to get to ide-disk
(assuming that is what your root is on, not scsi).
the working tools to identify the needed module,
altho self-test options claim they can make the jump
with mkinitrd or mkinitramfs, they do not do the job.
the new ramdisk package, yaird, recognizes it
cannot make it and refuses to produce a bogus rd,
now i am confusing, sorry, but somewhere one
of these programs told me to try at least a 2.6.11
kernel, that is i need an intermediate kernel.
is that all clear now ?
i am not saying that this is the only way
but it would perhaps help with the hassle the
other guys were talking about, doing things
by hand and not automated ( am not sure if we
have enough detail to verify that but it sounds
like what i was considering as a last resort)
brian
--- Harold Johnson <harold.johnson@gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh, and since I forgot to mention it, the kernel
> version I currently (at
> this moment)
have installed is 2.6.12-9; that's
> after simply installing
> Breezy. Once I upgrade to Dapper again, I'll be
> using whatever version that
> is -- or I'll jump to Debian and do the same. I'll
> try to remember to post
> that version number here so that you'll know if I
> got up to 2.6.16 using my
> method. All I know for certain is that I've been
> able to get to Dapper
> using this installation method in the past.
>
> Harold
>
> On 8/19/06, Harold Johnson
> <harold.johnson@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > You have great timing; I wouldn't have had that
> answer for you earlier
> > today, because I wasn't certain which kernel
> version I had installed. I am
> > writing down the entire process of setting up a
> triple-booting system, which
> > will be running Linux, OS X, and OS 9. (This has
> been done many times
> > before, I'm sure, but not by me!) Thus far, I've
> installed OS 9, Ubuntu
> > Linux, and I'm currently installing OS X (Panther)
> on the third (and final)
> > partition.
> >
> > I'll be adding to some online documentation, but
> hopefully the following
> > info. will fill in some of the gaps:
> >
> > -- 2 Mac OS (hfs+) partitions and one unallocated
> space using an OS 9
> > installation disk. The first partition will be
> for OS X, the second is for
> > OS 9, and the free space is for Linux.
> >
> > -- After installing OS 9 and BootX, installed
> Ubuntu Server (Breezy).
> > This info. is probably the most helpful for you;
> I've tried on multiple
> > occasions to install the
latest flavors of Debian
> using BootX, to no avail.
> > The same goes with the latest Ubuntu versions
> (Dapper); only Breezy installs
> > on my OldWorld PowerBook. Once I've installed
> Breezy, it's easy enough to
> > upgrade to Dapper by simply editing the
> repositories (replacing all
> > instances of "Breezy" with "Dapper") and then
> using apt-get to update the
> > system. I imagine it's possible to use this same
> technique to update to the
> > latest version of Debian; wouldn't you think?
> >
> > Thanks for sending along your script,
> >
> > Harold
> >
> >
> > On 8/19/06, Rick Thomas <rbthomas55@pobox.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > On Aug 19, 2006, at 6:29 PM, Harold Johnson
> wrote:
>
> >
> > > > In the meantime, I can continue using BootX --
> not a real elegant
> > > > solution, IMHO, but it works.
> > >
> > > Hi Harold,
> > >
> > > What magic did you have to use to get BootX to
> boot a 2.6.16 kernel
> > > for you?
> > >
> > > Thanks!
> > >
> > > Rick
> > >
> >
> >
>
i
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