On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 05:00:04PM +1100, Irena & Richard Jenkins wrote:
>Hi there ...
>
>At home I have a G5 iMac ... the one with the logic board inside what
>looks like a standard lcd monitor ... with a dvd port on the right hand
>side.
>
>When I try to install debian lenny, I get to the yaboot menu readily
>enough ... and then if I just press the return key ... it starts to
>boot.
>
>After about 5 sec the screen turns white ... and starts giving me OF
>messages. Any attempt to input info from the keyboard fails ... and I
>have to do a cold reboot.
>
>I tried the video=ofonly alternative ... and the same thing happens.
>
>Anyone out there got a simple remedy for this issue??
>
>Many thanks
>
>Richard
>PS ... machine is perfectly standard ... and has only Kubuntu on it at
>present. I replaced the plastic apple keyboard with one of those
>snazzy ones ... made by apple. Very smart!
>
>I'd ;like to access the bigger ppc group supporting Debian ... so how
>can I get past the difficulty ... and get 'lenny' installed on my
>computer.
>
>Thanks for any help.
>--
>--
>Linux on a Mac... delightful
>Irena & Richard Jenkins
>Canberra, AU
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I installed Debian lenny recently and had a similar problem. It turned
out to be a problem in yaboot.conf in the NewWorld bootblock partition,
/dev/sda2 in my case. I'll report here what I did to get the G5 up and
running with Debian lenny.
After I installed Debian lenny, I used the install CD a second time to
run a shell.
N.b. The problem I had may not be the same you're having now.
1. List your system disk partition table
fdisk -l /dev/sda
/dev/sda
# type name length base ( size ) system
/dev/sda1 Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1 ( 31.5k) Partition map
/dev/sda2 Apple_Bootstrap untitled 1954 @ 64 (977.0k) NewWorld bootblock
/dev/sda3 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 debian 155078126 @ 2018 ( 73.9G) Linux native
/dev/sda4 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 swap 1232432 @ 155080144 (601.8M) Linux swap
Block size=512, Number of Blocks=156312576
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
2. Mount the NewWorld bootblock partition
mount -t hfs /dev/sda2 /mnt
3. Make a save copy of /mnt/yaboot.conf
cp -p /mnt/yaboot.conf /mnt/yaboot.conf.orig
4. This is my yaboot.conf.orig
cat /mnt/yaboot.conf.orig
## yaboot.conf generated by debian-installer
##
## run: "man yaboot.conf" for details. Do not make changes until you have!!
## see also: /usr/share/doc/yaboot/examples for example configurations.
##
## For a dual-boot menu, add one or more of:
## bsd=/dev/hdaX, macos=/dev/hdaY, macosx=/dev/hdaZ
boot=/dev/sda2
device=/disk@0:
partition=3
root=/dev/sda3
timeout=100
install=/usr/lib/yaboot/yaboot
magicboot=/usr/lib/yaboot/ofboot
enablecdboot
macosx=/dev/sdb3
image=/boot/vmlinux
label=Linux
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
image=/boot/vmlinux.old
label=old
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd.img.old
5. I manually applied the following changes to yaboot.conf by using
'nano /mnt/yaboot.conf'
diff -up /mnt/yaboot.conf.orig /mnt/yaboot.conf
--- /mnt/yaboot.conf.orig 2009-02-05 07:20:30.000000000 +1100
+++ /mnt/yaboot.conf 2009-02-04 20:29:44.000000000 +1100
@@ -6,8 +6,9 @@
## For a dual-boot menu, add one or more of:
## bsd=/dev/hdaX, macos=/dev/hdaY, macosx=/dev/hdaZ
+ofboot=hd:2
boot=/dev/sda2
-device=/disk@0:
+device=hd:
partition=3
root=/dev/sda3
timeout=100
--
"Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great
generation." Nelson Mandela
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