On Fri, Jan 24, 2003 at 09:33:45AM -0700, Philip Larkin Waters wrote: > For anyone who can help, I don't know anything about my hardware and the > installation is asking me for my device driver disk. I assume it is not in > the standard woody or potato directories, and that I have to gather them > from near and far. I don't have my installation disks for MAC OS so if I > have to crack open the case to read the hardware, I'm probably dead in the > water, because if I power down I am guessing I'll lose everything. I've > already put up a swap and native partition, and they are the only ones on > the drive anymore. -- help needed.
The Debian installer is actually quite forgiving. If you have to quit, you can, and when you start it back up again it will figure out where you left off. You just have to re-configure the keyboard and the network each time. For those drivers, it's a good bet you don't need any. That was very confusing to me the first time also, I was searching all over the place because there are so many drivers listed, and I had no idea which ones might be applicable. For Macs, most drivers were very standardized (it helps to have one manufacturer) and it's likely any driver you need is already compiled into your kernel. So, just skip on to the next step, don't worry about installing extra drivers or configuring modules. The main exception I can think of is when you have an aftermarket network card - that would likely not be already in the kernel. If you have the built-in ethernet, you should be fine. Derrik does have a good point, though, when you get done installing you won't be able to boot what you have, because the boot loader operates from MacOS. You definitely need a MacOS from which to boot this machine. Also, when installing MacOS, it requires you to intialize the entire disk - so you'll end up erasing what you have in order to do that. Your key mistake, on this machine, was in completely initializing the disk, thus losing MacOS, before understanding that it's needed for the boot loader in order to launch linux. You can erase MacOS on OldWorld PowerPCs, once you verify that the somewhat cranky quik will boot them, and on NewWorld machines also; although most people keep it on for those one or two apps that can't work under linux; my example; Yahoo Messenger is what I use to keep in touch with a friend in Romania, and it's available for linux - but only in binary form, only for i386. So I have to boot into MacOS for that. Check around where you live, or google for a Macintosh Users Group somewhere near you. They will let you borrow a MacOS CD. Just a note, it took me 3 months to get a working linux installation on my Mac, being a complete linux newbie but having a 25 year career in computers and Macs. It's been worth it to stick it out ... I'm neither Steve's nor Bill's prisoner. -- "The way the Romans made sure their bridges worked is what we should do with software engineers. They put the designer under the bridge, and then they marched over it." -- Lawrence Bernstein, Discover, Feb 2003
