Re: Installation Open-firmware error Rev B iMac
2008/4/30, Bryan Pierce <bdpierce1@bdpierce.com>:
>
> There seem to be several copies of installation instructions for PPC and
> they seem quite a bit different.
>
There are several different PPC computers.
> My original attempt was partitioning my hard-drive, thinking that I could
> use one partition for the boot.img files (shying away from the idea of
> booting off a flash drive)
>
Are you running an OS from CD? Mac OS 9? Or is it installed on HD?
> After my post I found somewhere that
> boot hd:,\\yaboot ...would force the computer to search the partitions
> (and I also realized that hd:9 was the correct partition)
>
That \\ means system folder (blessed), using only one \ would mean
root folder, which should work in your case.
Can you see your files with 'dir hd:,\'?
> After an unsuccessful install, I switched to a same model Rev D. iMac and
> got some weird things happening with OF - so I pieced together the drive
> from one iMac and the motherboard from the other - still not able to get the
> installer to boot using the above command - so I'm thinking - OK - figure
> out the paths to the USB flash drive and try it that way...
>
I'm planning to try the USB booting in near future.
>
> NOW - I'm finding different instructions that say...
> quote:
> There is an all-in-one file |hd-media/boot.img.gz| which contains all
> the installer
> files (including the kernel) as well as *yaboot* and its
> configuration file. Create a partition
> of type "Apple_Bootstrap" on your USB stick using *mac-fdisk*'s *|C|*
> command and extract
> the image directly to that:
>
> # zcat boot.img.gz > /dev//|sda2|/
>
>
> <NOTE - the same instructions 2 paragraphs later explain that you have
> to have a machine already running Linux to accomplish this :P >
>
That's the problem. I don't really understand the difference between
an Apple_HFS and an Apple_Bootstrap partition. Both are HFS. Probably
the latter is a requirement for OF booting. This may depend on OF
version, too.
>
> So I'm thinking that I need to back up and find out which of 3 possible
> approaches to invest the next 2 weeks of my life trying to figure out.
> 1) try partitioning the hard-drive and loading the boot.image files - and
> hope I can get the installer running and am able to repartition the free
> space on the hard drive
> via the installer
This should be possible. The only question really is whether you need
to make the partition Apple_Bootstrap or not. Normally partitions
created in OS 9 are Apple_HFS.
> 2) invest a few days into trying to figure out fdisk and hope I can get the
> flash drive method to work
Same as above. Probably harder.
> 3) throw a second drive in my G4 hoping that I can get the installer to
> boot off my main drive
>
Same as above.
>
> I'm all open to suggestions at this point - Either method I choose seems
> like I'm going to need to invest quite a few hours - And at this point I'm a
> bit afraid of what I'm going to run into.
> I mean, I'm already seeing stuff like...
> (?) installing modprobe on the flash drive (?) using hattrib to
> bless the yaboot file (I believe both of these are Linux
> commands)
Yes, they are. One problem with usb drives is that it can take some
time before the appear to the kernel. Blessing should not be
necessary, if you explicitly name the file on the boot command line.
> (?) using ybin... (but I'm assuming this is after the install)
>
Me too. For booting the installed system, you would need a small
(800k) partition of type Apple_Bootstrap and this is where ybin
installs yaboot. This should be taken care of during the installation.
>
> I mean, I'm feeling torn...I've spent 4 days trying to do this, and I don't
> want to give up.
> I'm not afraid of trying to learn...it's why I want to install Linux, but
> I'm not even trusting
> my own judgment at this point. The instructions made it seem like methods
> (1) and (2) were
> entirely possible. Method (3) seems like it should work even if the others
> don't.
>
Don't give up. You are probably not far from success.
Risto
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