hello, So here's what I did:
I booted from the LinuxPPC 2000 CD. then on my P166, I gunzipped the debian ramdisk.image.gz, mounted it, and got the mac-fdisk. I was rewarded by a miracle: I could use mac-fdisk to create and WRITE the partition map!! Then I could use the LinuxPPC Xinstaller to install LinuxPPC.... but, now, how can I boot without MacOS? yaboot isn't an option, this not being a NewWorld machine. I heard/read about miboot, but never found any hard and useful information. Where do I get it? How do I install it? Still bear in mind that I have no MacOS, and no other way of booting my powerbook other than with the LinuxPPC installation CD. I know I have to create a /boot or /miBoot hfs partition for miBoot and install a kernel there. Ok, that's done. what now? Thanks, Patrix. On Tue, 5 Sep 2000, Ethan Benson wrote: > On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 08:51:40PM -0400, Patrice LaFlamme wrote: > > Hello *, > > > > I want to install debian (or any PPC Linux for that matter, I am > > becoming very desperate) on my PowerBook 3400. > > > > LinuxPPC can't install because I can't partition my hard drive. > > Debian can't install because (why oh why???????????) the CD isn't > > bootable! (at least, the binary-powerpc-1.iso I just downloaded). > > the CDs are only bootable on `newworld' powermacs (and PreP i think) > oldworld bootable CDs would require alot of extra bootstrap code to be > written. Debian will not use and rely on non-free software to build > its CD images. > > > A little info: it is a powerbook3400, with a 12x cdrom and no floppy > > drive. I installed a new 4GB hard drive (removing the older 1.4GB one), > > and have no MacOS media to reinstall and repartition. > > this is bad, you need either a macos installation or a floppy drive to > boot your system into dbootstrap, period. (or an existing quik booted > linux install) > > > I've been trying to get Linux on this for more than a month. pdisk (in > > LinuxPPC 2000) can't partition the hard drive (it came from a > > NetWinder - PC-style partitions.. but still, it should be able to, > > shouldn't it? I can create the partitions in pdisk - even though it > > only sees mny 1st of 4 GBs, but I can't write the partition map! WHY??), > > and I have no other way of partition. > > you need to create a new empty partition table first, to do this you > need to use the `i' command in mac-fdisk (mac-fdisk in debian will do > this, i have seen other versions of pdisk such as linuxppc's that > won't touch the disk unless it already has a valid mac partition > table) > > the only problem with debian's mac-fdisk is it often miscalculates the > number of blocks on the disk, so you should find that info yourself > (look in /proc/partitions, find the number next to the device, say > hda, and double it, to get the correct number of 512 byte blocks.) > > > So I need suggestions on how to install. > > well i see a couple problems here: > > 1) no floppy drive which means no means to use the debian boot > floppy. > > 2) no macos which means you MUST use quik. > > i don't think you can install LinuxPPC 2000 on this machine this way, > even if you can boot the CD you cannot make it bootable from the hard > disk since LinuxPPC 2000 does not have a working quik. (they insist on > BootX or miboot, but miboot requires that MacOS drivers be present on > the disk and for that you need to use the Apple partitioning tool) > > the only other option i can think of is netboot but im not sure if the > firmware on that machines supports it (or if it purports to support it > whether its totally broken support) > > unfortunatly oldworld hardware is really a bitch to bootstrap without > macos, newworld hardware is a different story you don't need macos for > anything from bootstrap to install to hard disk bootability. > > can you get a floppy drive for this machine? i know they made an > external drive for them. could you possibly install this disk into > another powerpc box already running GNU/Linux and then install the > debian kernel and root image, install quik and then reinstall the disk > back into the powerbook? > > -- > Ethan Benson > http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/ > http://www.patrix.org "You can have Peace, or you can have Freedom. Don't ever count on having both at the same time." - Robert A. Heinlein
