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Linux on an iMac 17''

maradong

maradong

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 7, 2003
1,058
0
Luxembourg
Howdy all,

I am interested in installing linux on my iMac 17''. Actually I want to install debian on it. And I am not really interested in a discussion about why I chose debian. Well anyways. I know the x86 installer for debain ( woody ) fairly well, but installing the piece of software on my mac presents itself rather difficult.

First of all I couldn't find many sites on the net talking about people installing Linux on an iMac. Basically I couldn't find any at all. Many were talking of Debian on a Powerbook 12''. And the problems seem to be almost the same.

Nameley the normal yaboot, and the normale root.bin won't recognize the hard disc. I'm getting the all red backgroud, which says that something is not working i guess. When I try to partition the hard disc, it tells me that the Installer couldn't find any. If the wires are attached correctly and so on. Well they are. As of this writing I m back in os x.

now i got some custom kernels from
http://valla.uchicago.edu/ppc/pbG412.html
and:
http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~schmidtm/apple/powerbook.en.php
thought unfortunatly they are kernel panicing at boot time, even before the installer starts.

Here comes the last few lines.
RAMDISK: Couldn't find valid RAM disk image starting at 0.
Freeing initrd memory 3880k freed.
kernel BUG at bugger.c:2559!
Oops: Exception in kernel mode, sig: 4.


...


call backtrace:

...

kernel panic : Attempted to kill init.
Click to expand...
( The "..." are representing numerous lines full of numbers. Unless they are needed I m not really interested in writing them all down as I did for the error messages. ;-) )
Now I don't really what to do, as I can't use any of those kernels. I tried to boot them in safe mode using "video=ofonly" but that hasn 't worked neither.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
 
Apparently they're posting Red Hat's anaconda installer to Debian. This might be the sarge installer you mentioned.
 
Re: Linux on an iMac 17''

Originally posted by maradong
...Actually I want to install debian on it. And I am not really interested in a discussion about why I chose debian...
Click to expand...

You shouldn't need to explain anything. Debian is a fantastic distro :) :D ;)
 
Debian is excellent, i used to use it on my pc for ages and it was really good, id go back to it again only im really happy now with Gentoo. This is another amazing distro and it has its own implementation of the ports collection which is cool! ... also its damn damn fast!
 
Originally posted by i_wolf
Debian is excellent, i used to use it on my pc for ages and it was really good, id go back to it again only im really happy now with Gentoo. This is another amazing distro and it has its own implementation of the ports collection which is cool! ... also its damn damn fast!
Click to expand...

well i like debian better, but everybody got to choose what he thinks is the best. Isn't that the good point about dists ? ;-)
the sarge installer doesn't even boot :(
haven't found a way to install debian yet.
 
Once you get it going, you'll have to change your avatar. Get rid of that third-party laptop and have the penguin using an iMac :)

Good luck with getting it going.
 
Gentoo LiveCD just came out for the G5 and they have said it only takes 20 mins to get it up running. Anyone tried this dist yet? YellowDog hasn't came out with a G5 dist yet but may have one by end of the yr.
 
well,
anybody got some "constructiv" feedback on how I could get the debian installer to recognize my hd?
I certainly read all those sites, and tested the sarge installer as well, thought it is just not working. Actually I can't even boot of that cd.
holding c has no influence, the drive isn't appearing in the start up drives, when i hold alt at boot time, the cd rom doesn't show up. any ideas on that one ?
It seems to be much easier to get it to work on x86. :(
 
Originally posted by maradong
Actually I can't even boot of that cd.
holding c has no influence, the drive isn't appearing in the start up drives, when i hold alt at boot time, the cd rom doesn't show up. any ideas on that one ?
Click to expand...

The sarge CD isn't supposed to be bootable. It's intended only for upgrading, not for installing a fresh system.
 
Originally posted by Nermal
The sarge CD isn't supposed to be bootable. It's intended only for upgrading, not for installing a fresh system.
Click to expand...
ah ;-)
that s probably explaining my problems to get it to boot.
But in how far does it make sense to have a sarge netinstall cd than, if all you can do is upgrade your system, and the cd only holds something like 130 mb ?

Originally posted by leet1
Everything is :p

Theres gotta be something out there that can help you, all I can offer is www.google.com/linux hehe
Click to expand...
*g* thx. but I already looked after some helpful instructions on google.
 
ok i got the installer to work,
resp the of to boot the cd.
as it was impossible to boot from the cd holding down c i did the following:

Code: 
0> boot hd:x,cd\install\powermac\yaboot
but that doesn't recognize your hard disc, as it still doesn't know the chipset and some other stuff

another possibility is to copy the ofboot.b to the hard disc, and change the line where it says
Code: 
MacRISC
to
Code: 
MacRISC MacRISC3 MacRISC4
For the iMac 17'' 1ghz which I got, the chipset is the MacRISC3, though adding both can't harm.
For the G5 it definetly is MacRISC4.

Now:
The woody installer was still unable to see my hd. So i retried using the above method to install from the sarge cd and that worked fine.
I hope this might help some people.
Greets.
-
maradong
 
im intrested in installing some form of linux on my ibook 600 any advice yellow dog or debian can i keep osx in the same partition or do i have to make a partition?

if its possible i can do it if not ill try
 
I d go for debian.
the installation procedure is certainly not as easy as the yd installer, but the system is just the best out there. at least for me.

you definetly have to make a second partition.
 
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