Yellow Dog Linux

Version 4.0 is based on Fedora Core. Downloaded the 4 iso's and burned to cd. However it does not support old world machines with the new open firmware. Oldest machine it supports directly is Blue & White. The target machine is the beige G3 266 w 768mb ram. The workaround is to install a minimal macos partition and use the bootX utility to boot to linuz. I installed a 2gig scsi drive on an adaptec 2930 to use as the mac partition and put 8.6 on it. The linux target drive is the 8gig IDE hd (hda0)

I downloaded the kernel file vmlinux-2.6.8-1.ydl.7 and the ramdisk image file ramdisk.image.gz and put them in a folder called Linux Kernels in the system folder. The booX app was placed in the control panels folder.

Next came setting up the bootX parameters.

kernel: smlinux-2.6.8-1.ydl.7
options:
Ram disk: ramdisk.image.gz
change ramdisk size from 8192 to 65000 do NOT save preferences
click on linux to reboot

nice it detects the usb scroll mouse
runs anaconda, the graphical installer
finds ati video card but can't probe the apple 17" multiscan monitor...screen goes blank...we wait and go make a sandwich...back and no change. hit the reset. We could change monitors or...move on over to the PPC 8600 with the apple 15" AV monitor. This is a 604e running at 200mhz with 256mb ram and two 4 gig scsi drives running 9.2.2

Ok copy bootX over to it and install images into system.
ok this boots into X and the ananconda graphical install. The problem may have been it couldn't use the usb mouse, so let's install the adb mouse and try again once we finish the install on the 8600.

Ok, it's done and red hat linux is running on the macintosh.

1. Used mac drive setup to partition 2nd hd into ext2 and swap (512mb) paritions. Bootx and OS 8.6 on the other hd
2. Set bootX parameters to use vmlinux.2.6.8-1.ydl.y kernel and ramdisk.image.gz and set ramdisk size to 65000 and did NOT save prefs. Choose Linux and machine rebooted into Anaconda install
3. Choose personal desktop install with manual partition
4. Choose /dev/sdb6 as the / mount point
5. Choose /dev/sdb8 as the swap space and Left the 32mb hfs /dev/sdb7 as is
6. Set up eth0 as DHCP and root user with usual password
7. Installed default packages which turns out to install KDE but not Gnome. I think i want to change this and select custom next time. Does a pretty good choice of packages
Error message - partition map has no partition map entry was displayed but installed fixed and continued. Once all the packages were installed Anaconda crashed with an unhandled exception error - 'bootload has no attribute macosx' caused by the fact this is an old world mac w 8.6
8. Restarted system into macos, ran bootX and entered /dev/sdb6 as the root partition and SAVED the prefs, choose Linux and machine rebooted
9. Booted into text mode and logged in as root. Changed directory to /etc and issued command vi innittab and changed the runlevel from 3 to 5. (i hate vi). Gave reboot command and X login screen came up.

ok the g3 install crashed w adb mouse. so back to the 8600.

logged in and setup a printer, samba etc etc. Once the special effects are turned off it runs quite snappily but i really don't like KDE so may have to remove and install Gnome in the package manager or just do a custom reinstall.

I have an idea about the G3 install, the ATI graphics could be the problem, will try switching to terminal 7 when the screen goes blank.

Comments

The ubuntu 5.10 live CD works perfectly on the ibook G3 clamshell. Maybe i should think about replacing os9 with it...

gord