Ok. You should the the following:
- Get and install StuffIt
We're sorry, but the only way to get this is to get a Mac-formated
disk from another Mac. After copying StuffIt on the machine you
should try to start the program and place it in the 'System
folder' (don't know what this is called in english, 'cause I had a
german MacOS, -Joey).
After that you can copy *.hqx files using a simple msdos formated
disk. Insert the floppy in the PPC and use drag-and-drop, just
select the file, hold the left mouse button down and move it onto
the StuffIt symbol on the desktop.
- Get and install pdisk from MkLinux
Ftp to ftp.mklinux.apple.com, it has a package called pdisk in the
directory Other_tools within the DR2.1 directory.
- Partition your disks
Start `pdisk' and press 'L' (show maps from all disks). If you
get nothing here you just have encountered a big problem. You
need to have scsi disks - (e)-ide disks aren't recognized.
If you have fresh disks or disks that come from other platforms,
just 'e'dit the map and create a new one. Don't forget to write
the new one.
- Boot Variables 1.3
You can get them from
ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/linux-pmac/bootvars-1.3a.sit.hqx.
This program is an interface to Open Firmware (OF) that
offers you a basic interface to the system. Here you can
define from which disks the machine should boot and which
parameters are passed over to the booting system.
Later on you can set these variables from within Linux or
directly within Open Firmware. The most important values
are:
input-device - Set from which disk/partition the machine boots
output-device- Set from which disk/partition the machine boots
boot-device - Set from which disk/partition the machine boots
boot-file - Define the boot file, i.e. the kernel to use
auto-boot - Define wether the machine should not wait at OF
The default setup for OF is to interact with a serial
console. The appropriate name for it is ttya.
In order to be able to read and write on the console you have
to set input-device to kbd and
output-device to screen.
Posssible values for boot-device are
ata/ata-disk@0:0 for the first IDE disk and scsi/sd@3:0 for a
SCSI disk that has ID 3.
The second variable, boot-file, points to the
file to boot on the given device. Using Linux this points to
a kernel. As usual you can pass additional variables (such
as root=/dev/sda2) to the kernel.
These values can be set within OF with the
setenv command or within Linux with the
nvsetup program. Issuing it without an argument
gives you the current setting. Within OF this is achieved by
the printenv command.
- Booting Linux
When there is no Linux running on the system this could be
difficult and need some fiddling. You'll have to find some
boot disks and boot from them. Unfortunately I have sort of
forgot the exact paths.
Basically you can use the boot disks from ftp.linuxppc.org.
If I remember correctly you have to fetch the installer.coff
or partition.coff file and drag it under MacOS and drop it
over the floppy symbol. Later on after a reboot you have to
enter Open Firmware (OF) by pressing Option-Command-O-F (iirc)
after you hear the harps. There you have to type "boot
fd:partition.coff" to boot from floppy.
- Installing the base
After you have managed to partition the disk and create a
file system on it you can continue to install the base
system. Harmut Koptein has created an actual base at
ftp://ftp.infodrom.north.de/pub/Linux/linux-pmac/debian/current/base-powerpc.tar.gz.
You can install it using gunzip and tar. Please remember
that it might not contain a working Linux kernel. So you
have to fetch one yourself - from the boot disk for
example.
The current base system lacks an awk so dselect won't work
out of the box. Please fetch an awk from the Debian FTP site
and install it via dpkg -i.
- Activating the kernel
After you have copied the kernel onto the new system you need
to activate it and install the Linux loader. This can be
tricky. If you need Quik (you don't need it if you have a
PReP system) you have to get /etc/quik.conf to look like
something like
timeout = 10
root = /dev/sda2
image = /boot/vmlinux-2.1.115
label = linux
After that you have to call quik with -r /mnt to
tell it where the new root system resides. After a reboot
you have to adjust OF by entering something like:
setenv boot-device=scsi/sd@4:0
setenv boot-file=linux root=/dev/sda2
This tells OF to boot from the scsi disk with SCSI ID 4 and
LUN 0 (whole disk). After that you have to type "boot" to
let Linux boot. It's possible that you can skip the root=
assignment.
- Compiling your own kernel
In order to reduce kernel size and to add support for your
environment I propose that you compile a kernel of your own.
We currently use 2.1.115 which works fine for us. You'll
find it at
ftp://ftp.linuxppc.org/linuxppc/powermac/v2.1.115/
sure if that's the pristine kernel or if it contains special
PowerPC patches.
Since there is a problem with some late 2.1.x kernel
concerning chown()/lchown() you should use a kernel newer
than 2.1.102. The next glibc-pre2.1 release will have an
experimental patch that will fix
this problem.
- Comments
This receipe is not complete. It's written from memory and
knowledge that I gained through the years. There are some
details missing and I assume that some descriptions are even
incorrect. Please bear in mind that I've initially installed
my machine some two years ago. After that we had a running
Linux or Debian system on it.
The purpose of this document is that I don't have to tell
individual people how to install it over and over again.
- Further questions
If you have questions, please don't mail me personally but
mail to debian-powerpc@lists.debian.org instead. I'm reading
and I'll answer if I have time and sufficient knowledge. If
not the other team members will drop you a line.
