Yellow Dog on Mac G4 Cube

[Humous]

Hi,

I have a Mac G4 cube which I have been given with no OS installed, I've
already had a fight with OS X which wouldn't install. I have managed to
get Yellow Dog installed with no errors however it's not booting, just
sits there with the folder icon in the middle of the screen.

On looking round the groups I've found numerous messages refering to
Yaboot but nothing I try seems to do anything, although I have yet to
try re-partitioning to include a 'bootstrap' partition as I thought
that was what the /boot on Linux was for.

Basically I'm lost, and have been for 3 days now. Has anyone had any
experience with installing Yellow Dog on a Mac G4 cube (or any other
Mac, if it's the same concept?).

Thank you in advance.
Humous.

[Keith Keller]

Post by Humous
I have a Mac G4 cube which I have been given with no OS installed, I've
already had a fight with OS X which wouldn't install. I have managed to
get Yellow Dog installed with no errors however it's not booting, just
sits there with the folder icon in the middle of the screen.
On looking round the groups I've found numerous messages refering to
Yaboot but nothing I try seems to do anything, although I have yet to
try re-partitioning to include a 'bootstrap' partition as I thought
that was what the /boot on Linux was for.

In this case, no. The bootstrap partition for yaboot is an
Apple-specific partition type, where a partition that looks bootable to
the OpenFirmware is installed when you run yaboot. You will definitely
need one of these to boot your G4 into linux. (That folder icon means
that OF is looking for, and failing to find, a bootable partition.)

The x86 analogue is lilo installed to the MBR. OF doesn't look for an
MBR, so something else needs to take its place; the bootstrap partition
does this. (IIRC the YDL installer will ask if you want a bootstrap
partition; you should allow it to do it for you, if it asks.)

--keith

[Humous]

Post by Keith Keller
In this case, no. The bootstrap partition for yaboot is an
Apple-specific partition type, where a partition that looks bootable to
the OpenFirmware is installed when you run yaboot. You will definitely
need one of these to boot your G4 into linux. (That folder icon means
that OF is looking for, and failing to find, a bootable partition.)
The x86 analogue is lilo installed to the MBR. OF doesn't look for an
MBR, so something else needs to take its place; the bootstrap partition
does this. (IIRC the YDL installer will ask if you want a bootstrap
partition; you should allow it to do it for you, if it asks.)
--keith

Thanks Keith, I re-ran through the YDL installation and managed to
create the bootstrap partition, must have missed that lot the first
time through.

Humous.

[Keith Keller]

Post by Humous
Thanks Keith, I re-ran through the YDL installation and managed to
create the bootstrap partition, must have missed that lot the first
time through.

I haven't done a YDL install in quite some time, but IIRC it was not
immediately obvious from the installer that a bootstrap partition was
required. It is hard, when you're porting a distro from x86, to
account for all the quirks that exist on one platform but not another.

Glad you got it working!

--keith