Re: Performing installer tests on PowerMac with USB sticks
As far as I know, only newer machines are able to boot from USB.
I was able to boot from USB on a PowerMac G5 (PowerMac11,2), but I was
not able to boot on an iMac G3 and on a eMac G4.
In the case of the G5, if the machine is booted with a USB stick in it,
it should be possible to see the "ud" alias in the "devalias" output.
If this is the case, it should be possible to boot the USB stick like a
CD-ROM, but of course specifying the proper alias/path. For example:
boot ud:,\install\yaboot
Here, the alias "ud" is followed by the path to the yaboot executable.
In case of GRUB I would try to look for the path of it by using the command:
dir ud:,\
In my experience, the command:
ud:,\\:tbxi
sometimes works, sometime does not. I suppose it depends on how the ISO
file was created.
I find the documentation from NetBSD be the best companion to exploit
OpenFirmware, in case of problems I suggest to take a look at it [1,2].
[1] https://www.netbsd.org/ports/macppc/faq.html
[2] https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-8.0/macppc/INSTALL.html
P.S: Are ISO images capable to boot with GRUB instead of yaboot already
available for the masses? If so I would like to try to boot one.
Regards
A.
Il 30/04/19 12:54, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz ha scritto:
> Hello!
>
> I have dug out one of my iBook G4s now so I can perform installer tests
> on the PowerMac target. While the machine has a built-in optical drive,
> I would avoid having to burn CDs for every installation test run (even
> when using CD-RWs), so I was wondering how well booting from USB sticks
> works on these machines.
>
> Does anyone have experience creating bootable USB media for PowerMacs
> to install Debian?
>
> Adrian
>
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