Linux... again...

Whoo! I got hold of Ubuntu for PowerPC! Which is strange, really, because I'm the only person at my university who uses a Mac, and the total population of mac users in my city is well within 1%. A friend had ordered a PowerPC version of Ubuntu, since he knew I used a PowerPC based system!

Anyway, the moment I got home, I plugged the installation CD in, I fired up the installer and Wallahi! ;) It installed, asked me to restart. It also told me that my system wasn't directly capable of booting into Ubuntu (which we already know ;) ), and that I'd need to manually boot using a kernel in /boot on /dev/hda8. It also told me that I'd have to pass this on to the kernel: root=/dev/hda8

Now, I can't really use the kernel in /boot on the /dev/hda8 because BootX only shows me the kernels in the 'Linux Kernels' folder. But I passed the root= argument to the kernel, and now I'm getting another error. It says there was a failure with some VFS? And that I should try rebooting with a correct root= argument. I've even tried it without the root= thing, but this is still happening. It crashes out with: 'Rebooting in 180 seconds'...

:(
 
OK, I know I had mentioned this in the links I sent you. Once the installation is done, DON'T REBOOT. You need to mount the Macintosh partition in order to copy the kernel and initrd image that was installed in /boot by Ubuntu. This is probably why you've ben having problems with all of the Linux distros on this Mac. It drove me nuts for weeks trying to figure this out on my own. :p

In detail: When the installer tells you to reboot, DON'T. Alt-F2 will give you a command shell where you will do your damage-uh, I mean, dirty work. ;)

Once at the command prompt, you are going to have to load the HFS (or HFS+ if your Mac partition is formatted that way) kernel module that was just installed. However, you are going to have to COPY the kernel module from the location in the /target directory (this is what will eventually be your / directory once the system boots on its own) to the exact location where the kernel module would reside in the installer's / directory.

cp -v /target/lib/modules/<kernel-version>/kernel/fs/hfs/hfs.ko /lib/modules/<kernel-version>/kernel/fs/hfs
Click to expand...
(You might have to create the hfs directory on the latter location if it's not there. If you used HFS+, then replace "hfs" with "hfsplus" when making the command.)

Once you've done this successfully, do a "depmod -a" to make those modules available to the installer's loaded kernel. After that, do a "modprobe hfs" (or "modprobe hfsplus" if using HFS+) to load the module you just copied over.

Now you'll mount the Mac partition. Create a directory in / and call it whatever you want (I'll use "macpart" as an example). You'll then mount the Mac partition in this format:

mount -t hfs <hfs-partition-name> /macpart

(or mount -t hfsplus <hfsplus-partition-name> /macpart if using HFS+)
Click to expand...
Make sure you know what your actual Mac OS partition is. I'm sure you saw many partitions during the disk partitioning phase of the installation. The one to point to is usually the last one, but make sure. My StarMax, for example, has two Mac OS partitions so I can choose to use /dev/hda6 which is the main Mac OS system partition in HFS+ and /dev/hda7 which is a non-system Mac OS partition in regular HFS. I did this personally as a backup measure in case HFS+ wasn't supported properly. But it should be now.

Once the Mac OS partition is mounted, begin to copy the kernel and initrd image in /target/boot over to the mounted partition (in this case "/macpart"):

cp -v /target/boot/<kernel-image> /macpart
cp -v /target/boot/<initrd-image> /macpart
Click to expand...
Be sure you don't copy the syslink instead of the actual kernel and initrd image. To be sure of which files to copy, "cd" into /target/boot and do an "ls -l" before copying over. This will show you which is a syslink and what actual file it is pointing to.

DO a "cd" into your mounted partition directory (in this case, "/macpart") and verify that the files are in there. If they are, "cd" back to / and unmount the Mac OS partition (umount /macpart). Hit Alt-F1 and you'll be back at the screen of the installer. Allow the installer to reboot and allow the PowerBook to boot into the Mac OS desktop.

Once there, you should see the files in the Macintosh HD. Move the kernel image over to System Folder-->Linux Kernels. The initrd image can be wherever you want it (I usually put it in the same place as the kernel). Delete the kernel you used for the installation or rename it so as not to be confused. Launch BootX and select the kernel you just copied over from the Linux partition. Also make sure you select the initrd image you also copied from that Linux partition from within "Options" in BootX. Once these are set, save the preferences and boot into Linux. Hopefully you'll see the desktop.

If all you get is a blank screen or a screen with some weird characters, then it's posssible that you need to pass a kernel argument from within bootx to allow you to view the console text on boot. In the "More kernel arguments:" section, type the following:

video=atyfb
Click to expand...
That should give you output of the bootup into Linux. If not, then you might need to add some resolution options manually. Here's the link to the Linux PowerPC FAQ-o-matic with all the information you need to pass resolution and color depth information in the kernel arguments section:

http://www.jonh.net/lppcfom-serve/cache/1043.html

I think this will cover everything you need to get it going. Once you're used to the process, it's a piece of cake. Incidentally, I've taken on the task of learning FreeBSD on an x86 machine I have. Talk about feeling like a n00b! If you have any experience on that, I'd be happy to pick your brain. :D
 
Hey wow! That worked! Thanks!
Yes I know you posted a link to a /InstallOnOldWorldMacs (right?), but that link was broken :)

Anyway... being the linux newbie that I am, I'm not done with my problems :p
When I log into the ubuntu system, I get told that Nautilus couldn't start, and panel couldn't start and this couldnt start and that couldn't start! In the end, I'm just stuck with a beige screen with a mouse pointer! :p

BUT, I CAN log into the terminal! So, is this a problem with the desktop thing? Is it possible for me to re-install the desktop stuff? I'd especially like to install the KDE desktop instead of the bundled GNOME. I tried mounting a FC4 CD and installing the kde-base RPM package using 'rpm', but I couldn't... any help with that?

Thanks in advance! And thanks for bearing with me!
 
Hmm....sounds like you need to reinstall everything. Just go through the steps I provided.

If you wanted KDE as the desktop environment, you should have downloaded Kubuntu as it uses KDE as its default desktop. You CAN download KDE into your Ubuntu system, but since you are on dialup it's going to take a while.

Also make sure that the xorg.conf file in /etc/X11 has the right video driver. It should be in the section called "Device" which is located close to the end of the file. The driver should be set to "aty" or "r128" depending on the chipset. Try the "r128" and if that doesn't work change it to "aty".

FC4 and Ubuntu use a different packaging method. FC4 uses RPM packages and Ubuntu uses .deb packages since it is based off of Debian. Personally, I prefer the Debian way of doing things with packages. Apt-get is a wonderful tool, and Synaptic (which is the GTK front-end to apt-get) is just as wonderful.

If you do have command line access as well as network access, you can add the packages using aptitude which is a text-based utility for using apt-get. From there you can add the KDE packages and download them. Of course, you would have to add the "universe" section in the repositories listed. It's just a matter of adding the word "universe" after the word "restricted" for the repositories in the list.
 
Hey, thanks for the reply! Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, but there was 'khar khar' in my phone line due to rain (yep, Karachi isn't designed for rains at all! :p)

Turns out there was a problem with my system clock :p The date was set to 1905 :p Now it's working SMOOOOTH! Now I just need to figure out how to connect to the internet :p
 
HAhaaaAHH...sometimes the simplest of things tends to cause the complicated problems. :p

Anyways, depending on the desktop environment, you could probably use the GUI tools to configure it. What distro are you using again?
 
OK, you can either use the Gnome Networking app to configure the NIC, or you can open up a command shell and try "sudo netconfig." You should then be prompted for your password and it should launch a text-based wizard to configure the NIC.

Let me know how it goes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top