Linux on PPC?

[ravuya]

The iBook is a great machine. Fast, small, and generally durable. However, it is a laptop and quite small. I find that I can't really use it without a full-size keyboard plugged into it.    

I recommend that before you get any ideas about buying the thing, that you run out to the shop and see if they'll let you test-drive it.

Yeah, Yaboot is what took out my firmware. It's a real bitch of a bootloader.

I haven't heard much about the internal softmodems on most Apple hardware, but from what I understand, YDL has support for them. You might want to email them and back that point up.

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: Ravuya ]

[Zombie9920]

quote:Originally posted by Ravuya:
The iBook is a great machine. Fast, small, and generally durable. However, it is a laptop and quite small. I find that I can't really use it without a full-size keyboard plugged into it.        

I recommend that before you get any ideas about buying the thing, that you run out to the shop and see if they'll let you test-drive it.

Yeah, Yaboot is what took out my firmware. It's a real bitch of a bootloader.

I haven't heard much about the internal softmodems on most Apple hardware, but from what I understand, YDL has support for them. You might want to email them and back that point up.

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: Ravuya ]

So, Linux boot loaders don't only fuck with Windows...they also fuck with MacOS, ehhh(just like I said to lazy g in another thread..it was Lilo's fault that his Windows boot record got taken out)? Isn't there some way for you to clean your Master Boot Record on a Mac? With Windows you would just boot to DOS and run fdisk /mbr(this doesn't take out Windows since Windows does write it's boot info in the MBR..it uses system files on the regular partation to boot) then poof the Linux boot loader is gone....I couldn't imagine Apple not giving MacOS users a way of cleaning thier mbr without taking out the whole partation.

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: Zombie9920 ]

[voidmain]

FDISK /MBR does not remove the boot loader, it just puts the backup copy of the MBR over the primary copy. The MBR is just the first sector of the disk consisting of 512 bytes and is really nothing more than a pointer to somewhere else on disk where the actual boot loader code resides. Having said that, Windows only has the capability of booting other Microsoft operating systems so the need for an alternate boot loader is necessary (such as LILO, GRUB, System Commander, etc). Apparently MacOS is the same, but I do not have experience with MacOS so I can't speak for it.

If you understand the boot loader, and the boot process of each operating system in question you should have no trouble with it. And I have *never* had a case where I had to dump a partition because of boot loader problems as boot loaders only really mess with boot sectors on the partition. And I have multi booted many OSs in my time from just about every version of Microsoft OSs to many different Linux distros, to OS/2 Warp, to Solaris x86, to BE, to etc..

You do have to know what you are doing though in many circumstances. For instance, if you know what you are doing you would also know that there are other ways other than "FDISK /MBR" to replace the master boot record. For instance you can use "dd" rather than "FDISK /MBR", or just install another boot loader which will place it's own pointer code in that first 512 bytes of the disk.

The easiest way is to set up the boot loader of each OS to load said OS from the "partition" boot record (first 512 bytes of the partition that the OS resides on). Then you use a master boot loader (such as LILO, GRUB, System Commander, etc) to load each of those partitions and be the loader called from the MBR.

[psyjax]

The way to manuly edit the boot record on a Mac is to boot into the firmware and change it there. I did this, but it never seemed to work.

I could boot OSX, but not classic. I'm almost certain it was yaboot's fault and to clean up the problem I would have needed a magnet.

None the less, I got stuff workin hunky dory naw adays so who's counting  

[ravuya]

I fixed it by removing the battery for 15 minutes, walking around, watching TV. When I came back and reinserted the battery and plugged the machine back in, the firmware was fine. The drive was still dead, however. I really miss that drive.

[heljy]

I was just wondering about buying the powerbook from ubid, I realized its under customer exchange, meaning that ubid is actually not responsible for any of the sales that under customer exchange.

Well, thats not a problem, just that alot of the ppl selling the powerbook are new sellers. And they list payment options: MoneyOrder, Personal Check, Other.

Is there anyway that I can protect myself in case the sale didnt go well? (like I sent payment, but item not sent, etc)

Anyone here have any good experience with it?

Thanks

[TheGreatPoo]

I noticed that YDL has support for older Macs down to the 7500.  I have a Performa 6360 (for those of you who are familiar with the classics    ) that I have upgraded the hell out of.  I'm pretty sure that it will work with my video card (ATI Rage Plus w/8MB VRAM) but my only concerns are will it work with my processor and my ethernet card?  My processor is a 400MHZ Sonnet Crescendo Upgrade made to fit in the L2 Cache slot.  Works great!  My ethernet is a genuin Comm slot II 10/100 MBPs Apple ethernet card.

Also, do I have to set up YDL in a dual boot or can I just have it be stand alone?  I wish I could run OSX but unfortunately OS 9.1 is the latest I can go

Any help on this will be GREATLY APREACIATED!!!  

[Pantso]

Hmm, I don't know if your hardware is supported or not. Why don't you take a look at YDL's support page?

As for the second part of your post, the answer is that you can have YDL standalone on your machine, but I would suggest making two partitions, one for OS 9.1 and the other for YDL. You can then install OS 9.1 on the first partition and YDL on the second. The YDL manual also suggests that you create three partitions inside your Linux partition, one for the boot manager (Xboot or yaboot) eg /dev/hda9 and assign it about 10 MBs, another one for swap eg /dev/hda10 and the last one for your root partition eg /dev/hda11.

The main reason for having OS 9.1 installed is MOL , short for Mac On Linux, a program that lets you run Classic from inside Linux. It's really easy to set up and fun nonetheless.

Hope this helps  

[psyjax]

Actually, since your machine is an "old world" mac. You MUST have OS 9 installed. What you do is launch the boot loader from OS9, this dumps the OS and initiates Linux.

The reason for this is that YDL must load up the mac ROM present in those old machines and OS 9 is the only thing thing that can do it.

[Calum]

so what's the most recent mac that can have onlylinux on it, if you so choose to make it that way?

[Pantso]

quote:Originally posted by Calum: Linux Commando:
so what's the most recent mac that can have onlylinux on it, if you so choose to make it that way?

I think that every "new world mac", that was built from 1999 onwards, can have only linux on it. I'm not so sure though. This article also, explains the difference between "old world" macs and "new world macs"

[psyjax]

iMac first gen and up can be Linux only. The beige G3's still used the oldworld rom, as well as the educational edition.

[TheGreatPoo]

Sorry I didn't post it earlier but thanx for the replies!  I already checked YDL's support page but it didn't have what I was lookin for.