Greetings, I have tried and failed to install Debian on my powerbook. Please review my procedure and suggest revisions.
SPECIFICATIONS powerbook6,8 - 1.5 GHz PowerPC 12" Mac OS 10.4 Dead SuperDrive No USB Boot (Open Firmware doesn't recognize external disks) Internal 150GB drive formatted with Disk Utility years ago into 2 drives -- 1 UFS, 1 case-sensitive HFS+. Disk Utility also created an 8MB Apple_Boot partition for each of these partitions, for a total of 4 partitions. Open Firmware only recognizes Apple_Boot partitions. Presumably it does not see my HFS+ partition because it is case-sensitive. I cannot rewrite the disk partition map because I cannot run off-disk (no CD drive, no bootable external drive). Debian distro: debian-500-powerpc-businesscard-1.iso, downloaded from http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/ SITUATION The downloaded yaboot assumes the rest of the files are on the same partition. Open Firmware only sees Apple_Boot partitions, which are too small to hold vmlinux AND initrd.gz. Modifying yaboot.conf/yaboot requires ybin, which requires a running Debian, which I don't have. Manually loading the kernel should work: http://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/inst/yaboot-howto/ch9.en.html#s9.3 I should be able use root=/dev/hda5 (case-sensitive HFS+ partition). PROCEDURE MAC OS X Double-click Debian ISO to mount it. In Terminal, mount first Apple_Boot partition and copy vmlinux to it: % mkdir /Volumes/apple_boot % mount -t hfs /dev/disk1s2 /Volumes/apple_boot % cp -a /Volumes/Debian:PowerPC_lenny/install/powerpc/vmlinux /Volumes/apple_boot/ % cp -aR /Volumes/Debian:PowerPC_lenny/install / Reboot into Open Firmware (cmd-opt-o-f) 0 > boot hd:2,\vmlinux root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/install/powerpc/initrd.gz initrdsize=10240 append="--" Loading ELF Claim failed. This happens whether I put initrd.gz on HFS+ or on 2nd Apple_Boot. I also looked into netbooting, but documentation is inconsistent and I could not find netbootable binaries. QUESTIONS Is /dev/hda5 right for root=? Is HFS+ drive being case-sensitive the reason Open Firmware, vmlinux or both cannot see it? Even if I could boot the kernel, would the installer be able to use the UFS partition? Am I using the wrong distro? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Here's to dipping into Debian! Ross -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-powerpc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
