[Welcome to O'Grady's PowerPage. The Ultimate PowerBook Resource!][MacResQ to the rescue!] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Font Agent: Organize and Repair Your Font Library in Minutes!] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PowerBook Linux modified 08/6/98 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks to "dcsmith" for sending in information about how to use MkLinux on a PowerBook 1400. I was reading on your page only one instance of using Mklinux on a powerbook 1400, I've also found this information which may or may not be useful. from: ftp://shell7.ba.best.com/pub/bandr/MkLinux-PB1400/ The kernel here was built from the DR3alpha5 sources using the PRODUCTION+KDB configuration with the following 5 patches applied: pb1400.patch startup.patch pmu.patch clock.patch busspeed.patch The file Mach_Kernel.map has the "nm -n" symbol list. 1. pb1400.patch This patch is required to make the powerbook boot. It adds the 1400 to the list of powerbooks; otherwise, it defaults to being a PCI class machine which doesn't work at all. 2. startup.patch This patch delays the initialization of the serial ports when not using the serial console. This allows messages to get to the screen that might not otherwise. Not needed for the 1400, strictly, but useful for figuring out what's wrong. 3. pmu.patch This patch changes a "panic" to a couple of "printf"s. At least until such time as someone figures out the real problem. 4. clock.patch This patch fixes the PRAM reading code in pmu.c. It also changes the probe code in pram.c; this isn't strictly necessary since the default case happens to work. 5. busspeed.patch This patch changes to default bus speed to 33.33 MHz for powerbooks; for non-PCI machines, the default was 40 MHz which makes the powerbook clock run 20% slow. NOTES: Not everything works as expected. In particular the IDE disk seems to stall from time to time, and then continue on. The message "{IDE TIMEOUT}" may be printed. The delays can be frustrating (everything seems to stop for a moment) but seem otherwise benign. Using "option-mousebutton" acts like the second mouse button. "option-2" and "option-3" act like the second and third mouse buttons respectively. The file mach-980606.tar.gz contains the Mach kernel, the symbols for the kernel (should a backtrace need to be interpreted) and the patches that had been applied to make the kernel. It is a work-in- progress sort of thing. The CDROM drive seems to work now. Eugene Brooks comments on his experience with a PowerBook G3 Series: The following is a record of my experience booting LinuxPPC on a PowerBook G3 Series (292). It is intended for newbies who are trying this out for the first time on a PowerBook, and possibly another G3 system. Eugene Brooks ********************** I recently navigated the installation of LinuxPPC on the PowerBook G3 Series and have written this pedantic record of the install process, including safety measures, in the hopes that it will help others who have the same level of experience with LinuxPPC as I had when embarking on this task. I had installed RedHat Linux 5.0 on a ThinkPad 560 many months ago, so much of the RedHat installer was familar to me. At the time, I only had access to the LinuxPPC distribution available on the net during middle/late of July. Several critical patches which support the hard disk drives for the G3 PowerBooks appeared during this time period and these made it a go. I understand that the LinuxPPC CD ROM released in late July may contains the correct versions of all of the needed files. A lot of network download time can be saved by ordering the CD ROM if this is the case. I plan on ordering the CD ROM just to find out, and my T Shirt, without delay. Free software has more to do with FREEDOM that it has to do with saving a few dollars! My PowerBook G3 Series (292 MHZ, 64MB MEM, 14.1 inch display, 8GB disk) arrived in late June/early July 1998. I had the advantage of partitioning the disk before making any investment in setting up MAC OS, but will document tested safety proceedures for recovering your MAC OS file system from a dump taken with Retrospect. I always test my dump-restore methods on new machines and you should to. This document is pedantic in this regard and it is directed at saving the less experienced from that feeling you get on your first occurance of massive file loss. SKIP TO "!!!!POINT OF NO RETURN!!!!" IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SAVE THE FILES ON YOUR MacOS FILE SYSTEM. IF YOUR POWERBOOK IS JUST OUT OF THE BOX, THIS COULD BE A VIABLE OPTION. THERE IS AN "AS SHIPPED" DISK IMAGE ON THE CD ROM THAT YOU CAN MAKE USE OFF IN THIS EVENT. I USED THIS OPTION AFTER CONFIRMING THAT RETROSPECT CAN DEAL WITH BOTH HFS AND HFS+ PARTITIONS. The first order of business is to perform a full system dump using Retrospect 4.0, in my case. You should perform the equivalent operation with any dump-restore strategy you trust. A simple disk to disk copy operation using removable media of adequate capacity could be sufficient for MacOS. Upon unpacking the system, I cancelled the MacOS Config script, installed Retrospect, re-booted, and performed a full system dump on DAT tape, my media of choice. If your starting point is with a fully configured MacOS with lots investment, you will have to use some sort of dump/restore process to shrink the MacOS file system. Even if you are working with a PowerBook right out of the shipping box as I was, it is a good idea to test dump-restore strategy you will depend upon. A little adjustment is required with each new machine and system archiecture. Learn the glitches early, before you have lost files from your hard disk. If you don't have additional bootable drives to assist in bootstrapping a full system restore you can use a system in RAM Disk to perform a restore from the dump you have made. Using a RAM Disk is also a convenient way to handle partition adjustments later on. You can make setting up a bootable RAM Disk convenient by creating a directory RAM Disk on your MacOS partition and copying the needed files to it. Should you lose your MacOS partition for some reason you can install from the CD ROM, piece together what you need for the RAM Disk, create it and them boot it to perform the restore. Should you do something destructive to your MacOS partition it might still be possible to enable the RAM Disk and copy the contents of the RAM Disk folder to it and then boot from the Ram Disk to then commence a recovery. Create a folder named RAM Disk and place a System Folder there containing a copy of Finder, PowerBook G3 Series Enabler and System in it. In an Extensions folder in the System Folder, place a copy of the Appearance Extension and the Text Encoding Converter. In a Control Panels Folder, place a copy of the Memory and Startup Disk control panels. At this point you have the minimal contents of a Ram Disk that is bootable without complaint on a PowerBook G3 Series (292). To this you may want to add SimpleText, any SimpleText data files containing instructions, Disk First Aid 8.2 (Disk First Aid 8.1 which was shipped with the system is not as useful), Apple Drive Setup, Mac pdisk from the Linux distribution, and of course, an installed version of your dump software of choice. A good way to get that into place is to boot the RAM Disk, install the dump software to the RAM disk, and then copy the RAM Disk back to the hard disk. With all of this in place you can conveniently do the things that you need to do to repartition your hard disk, recover your MacOS file system you saved on the dump image, convert the extra partitions something suitable for Linux, and so forth. It used to be the case that this sort of stuff would fit on a bootable Floppy, but this is no longer true. Perhaps higher capacity bootable/removable media will change this situation in future machines. At this point boot your PowerBook from the hard disk with the tape drive connected and powered on. You have to connect the tape drive this before attempting to build and use the RAM Disk as powering off will lose the contents of the RAM Disk. Create the RAM Disk using the Memory control panel and then restart, without cold booting. The RAM disk should be on the desk top at this point. Select ALL in the RAM Disk directory on the hard disk, and then copy the contents to the actual RAM Disk. Change the Startup Disk to the RAM Disk and then restart. If all is well, you should find yourself running on the RAM Disk. Check that you can run Retrospect and that you can see the tape drive. Recreate the catalog of the dump image to prove that you can read the tape. You have to do this before restoring, and it proves that you can read the tape before taking the next step that will destroy the data on the hard disk. !!!!POINT OF NO RETURN!!!! Use the Apple Drive Setup utility to repartition the hard disk. This will destroy all data on the hard disk, so do not do this unless you are secure about your dump data. You could be doing this using the utility on a booted RAM Disk if you saved and restored your MacOS as per above, or you could be booting from the CD ROM and using the Apple Drive Setup utility found there. You will create a custom partition map. You have to select the name of your hard disk and then select Initialize. You then select Custom Setup, and not Initialize, in the next menu. In the button showing Current Volume, select two partitions at least because you have to at least divide the drive into a smaller MacOS partition and a second partition that will be divided with pdisk later, or the number of partitions you will eventually end up with if you want a full partition table to look at when running pdisk. I set the size of the first partition (for MacOS) to 2000 MB or smaller. I have seen some postings indicating problems for large partitions, and old MacOS applications written during an era of smaller disks tend to get confused with a larger MacOS partition. Your milage may vary. When you do select your MacOS partition size, make sure to leave as much as 400 MB of disk space free in addition to the space required by any MacOS application software you will use. This space will be used to hold the RedHat directory if you are not installing directly from the CD ROM. I have yet to try installing from the CD ROM, but will do so as soon as mine arrives. It was reccomended to set up MacOS partitions matching your eventual Linux partitions, I would at least suggest a 200MB swap, a 200MB root, a 1000MB usr, and then leave the rest as a user file space. By seperating the user files from the root and usr Linux system partitions you can reinstall Linux at any time without worrying about data stored in the user partition as long as partition sizes don't need to change. There is no doubt that you will end up adjusting sizes a bit in the end, especially if your hard disk is smaller than 8 GB. My first install was done with just a swap and root partition. Linux installs quickly if you don't have to check the disks for bad blocks. You only need to check for bad blocks the first time around. After you are happy with the partition sizes and have made sure that all the partitions are selected to be Mac OS Standard, and NOT Mac OS Extended, click ok and let the Drive Setup application do its thing. After exiting the application, restart without delay. The partitions you have created should now appear on the desktop. You can select each one and use Get Info under the File menu to confirm that the format is Mac OS Standard. If not, you can erase the disk using the Mac OS Standard format. I was paranoid and did all of the above... At this point you can restore your MacOS file system on the first disk partition and reboot to the hard disk. Either you restore using the mechanism you have selected for backup and restore of your MacOS file system, or if you did not need to restore a file system from a dump because you just took your PowerBook out of its shipping box and performed disk partitioning from the CD ROM, click on the shipped system disk image in the Configurations directory to mount it, select all and copy to the new hard disk partion. You can then boot the new hard disk image. If you copy from the shipped system image on CD rom, you will lose the desktop links to Microsoft Explorer and Mail that were on the shipped system. Some regard this a bug, others regard it a feature. After restoring the MacOS partition check it with Disk First Aid 8.2. If all is well, reboot the system from the hard disk, erase the RAM disk if you used one and remove it using the Memory control panel. At this point you can configure your MacOS if you haven't and begin collecting all that you need to install LinuxPPC. I repartitioned my disk right out of the box, but collected the files and information I needed to install LinuxPPC many weeks later. The instructions below assume that you are installing from files located on your hard disk. Using the recent CD ROM distribution should be equally viable, or at least be a good source of files to place on your hard disk. I assume at this point that you have resized your MacOS file system successfully and are ready to try installing LinuxPPC. To install LinuxPPC, you need the following: 1) A copy of installer.coff on a 1.4MB floppy. If you collect this file over the Net, make sure that you use a raw binary transfer mode (not mac binary). Postings to the net also advise that you also need to erase (format) the floppy in 1.4MB MacOS mode before copying installer.coff to make sure the blocks of the file are well ordered and that Open Firmware does not get confused reading it. Use a new floppy, Open Firmware may not be that good at retrying after soft errors. I have had lots of problems with "less than reliable" floppy disks. 2) A copy of vmlinux.coff on a 1.4MB floppy, prepared as for 1) above. Again, use a binary transfer mode to fetch the file over the Net if you are not using the CD ROM distribution. 3) A copy of the RedHat/RPMS and RedHat/base directory trees starting with the folder RedHat placed in the main directory, not the desk top, on your hard disk. Collecting these over the net can be trying, and you can forget collecting them over a phone line. Get the recent CD ROM... 4) A copy of the Mac pdisk utility and its documentation file, if you do not already have this in your RAM Disk directory. At this point you use Mac pdisk to convert/repartition your hard drive while running a MacOS system on it. It is safe to assume that this is dangerous, and you could alternatively perform this operation from RAM Disk before going to the effort to restore your MacOS file system. I am sort of amazed that one can mess with the partition table while running a MacOS system on part of the disk, but it worked... Here is a sample Pdisk.1 experience, running under MacOS. The stuff delimited by *** is output from the pdisk.1 application. Look for things enclosed in <<<< >> to see where you type input. DoubleClick on pdisk.1 ******************* This app uses the SIOUX console library Choose 'Quit' from the file menu to quit. Use fake disk names (/dev/scsi<.<; i.e. /dev/scsi0.1, /dev/scsi1.3, etc.). Top level command (? for help): ? <<<> Notes: Disks have fake names of the form /dev/scsi<.<. For example, /dev/scsi0.1, /dev/scsi1.3, and so on. MkLinux style names are also allowed (i.e /dev/sda or /dev/hda), and these names follow the MkLinux DR3 conventions. Commands are: h print help v print the version number and release date l list device's map L list all devices' maps e edit device's map E (edit map with specified block size) r toggle readonly flag q quit the program Top level command (? for help): l < Name of device: /dev/hda < Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/hda' #: type name length base ( size ) 1: Apple_partition_map Apple 63 1 2: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 54 64 3: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 74 118 4: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 54 192 5: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 74 246 6: Apple_Patches Patch Partition 512 320 7: Apple_HFS untitled 4096000 832 ( 2.0G) 8: Apple_UNIX_SVR2 swap 409600 4096832 (200.0M) 9: Apple_UNIX_SVR2 root 11500598 4506432 ( 5.5G) 10: Apple_Free Extra 10 16007030 Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=16007039 (7.6G) DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0 Drivers- 1: @ 64 for 21, type=0x1 2: @ 118 for 32, type=0xffff 3: @ 192 for 19, type=0x701 4: @ 246 for 31, type=0xf8ff ******************* You decend to the edit level with e, at this point ******************* Top level command (? for help): e <<<> Name of device: /dev/hda you type <<<> Edit /dev/hda - Command (? for help): p <<<> Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/hda' #: type name length base ( size ) 1: Apple_partition_map Apple 63 1 2: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 54 64 3: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 74 118 4: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 54 192 5: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 74 246 6: Apple_Patches Patch Partition 512 320 7: Apple_HFS untitled 4096000 832 ( 2.0G) 8: Apple_UNIX_SVR2 swap 409600 4096832 (200.0M) 9: Apple_UNIX_SVR2 root 11500598 4506432 ( 5.5G) 10: Apple_Free Extra 10 16007030 Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=16007039 (7.6G) DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0 Drivers- 1: @ 64 for 21, type=0x1 2: @ 118 for 32, type=0xffff 3: @ 192 for 19, type=0x701 4: @ 246 for 31, type=0xf8ff *********** We delete a partition at this point, starting with 8 so that we don't lose data from the prior table as adjacent Free partitions will merge. I believe that you have the hang of the input opportunities so I will not document them with <<<<..>> any further. *********** Command (? for help): d Partition number: 8 Command (? for help): p Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/hda' #: type name length base ( size ) 1: Apple_partition_map Apple 63 1 2: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 54 64 3: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 74 118 4: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 54 192 5: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 74 246 6: Apple_Patches Patch Partition 512 320 7: Apple_HFS untitled 4096000 832 ( 2.0G) 8: Apple_Free Extra 409600 4096832 (200.0M) 9: Apple_UNIX_SVR2 root 11500598 4506432 ( 5.5G) 10: Apple_Free Extra 10 16007030 Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=16007039 (7.6G) DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0 Drivers- 1: @ 64 for 21, type=0x1 2: @ 118 for 32, type=0xffff 3: @ 192 for 19, type=0x701 4: @ 246 for 31, type=0xf8ff ********* c is used to recreate a partition, with Apple_UNIX_SVR2 type ********* Command (? for help): c First block: 4096832 Length in blocks: 409600 Name of partition: swap Command (? for help): p Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/hda' #: type name length base ( size ) 1: Apple_partition_map Apple 63 1 2: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 54 64 3: Apple_Driver43*Macintosh 74 118 4: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 54 92 5: Apple_Driver_ATA*Macintosh 74 246 6: Apple_Patches Patch Partition 512 320 7: Apple_HFS untitled 4096000 832 ( 2.0G) 8: Apple_UNIX_SVR2 swap 409600 4096832 (200.0M) 9: Apple_UNIX_SVR2 root 11500598 4506432 ( 5.5G) 10: Apple_Free Extra 10 16007030 Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=16007039 (7.6G) DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0 Drivers- 1: @ 64 for 21, type=0x1 2: @ 118 for 32, type=0xffff 3: @ 192 for 19, type=0x701 4: @ 246 for 31, type=0xf8ff Command (? for help): ******************* You perform a similar operation for each of the Apple_HFS partitions that need to be converted to Apple_UNIX_SVR2 partitions. You can delete all of the Apple_HFS partitions to be affected up front, which will coalesce into one big Apple_Free partition at the end, which would be partition 8 in this case if you were to do this. You can then create partitions one by one, carefully starting with the base+length of the Apple_HFS untitled partition for the base of the first Apple_UNIX_SVR2 partition, setting each length as desired and accumulating the lengths to get the base for the next partition. The creation of each partition will chop off its length from the Apple_Free partition at the end. If you are careful about the choices of base for each partition, there will be no gaps. When done with creating the new partion map, you use the w command to write it to the disk. Make sure that that you have not molested the Apple_HFS untitled partition and the Apple_Driver partions before you do this. The w command will scribble on the disk in a very sensitive place and there will be no return from a damaging error. Pdisk will likely let you nuke the Apple_HFS partion you are running on without complaint. If you are unsure about the edit, use q to jump back up the top level without writing changes. If you are sure about the edit, use w first. Finally, use q to quit the top level. NOTE: Be very careful when using pdisk. This application can be quite unforgiving with regard to an error in input. Even typing a [return] instead of a correct command has caused it to crash and freeze MacOS when I have done this. You can end up losing work at the least, and cause severe file system damage at the worst. After writing your edited partition map to the hard disk and quiting the pdisk application, you should reboot your computer without any further delay so MacOS does not attempt to mess with disk partitions that you have just modified. When MacOS boots, the partitions which you modified will not mount because they are no longer Apple_HFS partitions. You should also run Disk First Aid 8.2 on your MacOS partition to make sure that you did not damage it in some way. Now you are ready to boot the floppy which contains installer.coff. Some postings have indicated that you have to put this floppy in the right hand drive in order to use the fd: device, which is true, but using the right hand drive as a boot device has been very unreliable for me and I do not reccomend it. You should boot the floppy from the left hand side, using the device fd2: instead, which has worked flawlessly every time I have tried it. The first task is learning how to boot and use Open Firmware. To do this reliably, you have to train your fingers. Its much like learning how to do the Vulcan sign by splitting your middle ring fingers smoothly. After some practice you can get it right every time... To boot Open Firmware, you need to press and hold down the [Apple Command], the F, the Option and the O keys after starting the computer with the ON button. Getting good timing is critical, but if you you take a careful look at the keyboard and the fact that there are two option keys you can get the timing right every time. Place your your thumb of your left hand on the [Apple Command] key, and the index finger of your left hand on the F key, but DON'T PRESS THEM YET. Place your thumb of your right hand on the right option key (right side option key) and the index finger of your right hand on the O key. Now, while keeping these four fingers correctly placed, you will not have time to check the placement when you go for it, you press the power button with any remaining finger that allows you to press the power button without moving your fingers on the 4 keys you have to press and hold. Press and release the power button, and then press down and hold those four keys after you have released the power button cleanly, but reasonably quickly after release. If you have to look at the keyboard to confirm finger placement you will not get the four keys down in time. Hold the four keys down until Open Firmware shows a prompt on the display. It takes a little dexterity, but you can quickly learn to get it every time. You have to beat the gong with the four key press with a good margin and then it will take about 10 seconds for OpenFirmware to print to the screen. Hold the four keys down during this time. You can try this without the desired floppy in place several times and type boot[return] to the Open Firmware prompt to have MacOS come to life. Shutdown and then try the proceedure again. After a couple of trys you should be able to get it every time. Open Firmware will print something along the lines of: ************** Open Firmware, 2.0.1 To continue booting the MacOS type: BYE< To continue booting the default boot device type: boot< For Open Firmware serial I/O type: TTYA IO< ok 0> ************** Open Firmware provides, among other things, UNIX environment like commands for adjusting Parameter RAM. The command printenv will list a set of values. Here is a portion of the list I get: ************** 0> printenv <<<> ok VARIABLE CURRENT DEFAULT boot-device /AAPL,ROM /AAPL,ROM boot-file input-device kbd kbd output-device screen screen boot-command boot boot 0> ************** You use setenv to adjust appropriate current values. To boot the RedHat installer, installer.coff, which you put on a floppy using directions above, place this floppy in the left hand drive while the machine is off and boot Open Firmware. Type the following: *********** >0 setenv fd2:installer.coff >0 boot *********** The floppy will be read with a rotating ASCI symbol indicating progress and the LinuxPPC version of the RedHat installer will come up with a screen display. I do not know of any method of terminating the installer other than holding [shift][fn][ctrl] keys down and pressing the power key. You should not run the installer until you have the correct contents of the RedHat directory established on your hard disk, or have the LinuxPPC 4.0 release CD ROM in the CD ROM drive on the right hand side. I imagine that one might be able to boot directly from the CD ROM, but I don't have one yet to try, and the floppy mechanism does work well if you use the directions here. If you plan to network your Linux system using 10baseT ethernet, you should have the PowerBook connected to the network before booting the installer. The RedHat installer will do a fair job of polling the network and coming up with subnet masks, gateways and DNS servers by itself if you do this. Assuming that the installer came up, your first query will be asking if the display has color capability. If it does, it will be obvious to you. Select the right answer. You will then get a welcome panel with some information and suggestions which you can read and then hit return. I selected the US keyboard, you use the up down arrow keys to do this, hit tab to get the ok box to hit return on. Reading the RedHat Linux manual will explain how the installer interface works, but it is pretty automatic once you get the hang of it. I selected the hard drive to boot from, using the up down arrow keys, hit tab to get the ok box and hit return. If you have the up to date CD ROM you could forgo installing the files in the RedHat directory of your hard disk and select a CD ROM installation. If you are set up for a install from disk, your disk choice of /dev/hda should appear on the next panel as the disk to boot from. The directory to find the RedHat tree in is also requested. If you placed in the main partition of your hard disk you leave this directory line blank and tab to Ok and then hit return. If you chose a different place for your RedHat directory, refer to to other HOWTO pages on the LinuxPPC site to learn what to type in here. If the RedHat installer finds the goods on your disk, it will be evident that it did so. You then move to choosing the mount points for swap, root, and usr if you allocated one, and you can add any additional partition mount points if you set up addition partitions. You should choose to check the disks for bad blocks the first time you install, just to close the door to this class of errors. Checking the 200 swap partition for bad blocks takes 4 min. Checking larger partitions for bad blocks takes proportionally longer. It can seem that things are just plain hung when checking a 5GB partition, but let the appropriate time expire before assuming things are amiss and resetting the computer. You can arrange to mount the HFS MacOS partition as well. Once the file systems are configured and checked, you can select the software you want to install. The first time through I just went with the defaults, but one clearly wants to add things one wants and delete things that will just take up space. The install of files from the RedHat RPM cache goes very quickly. Before you really invest time in a customized install I would suggest a quick install just to see if you have the hang of it. It does not take that much time and you will tend to make more useful choices the second time around, given the first experience. You will get asked if you want to configure LAN. If you are conntected to an ethernet, go for it. If it gets your netmask, gateway, and name server by itself you know the network interface is functioning. You will be asked to identify the name of the machine and alternate name servers. Select the clock mode and time zone, among other things. The fellows that put this stuff together have earned the article and front page in Forbes... Whether to install Quick is requested, and I selected yes, but I either did not select the options for Quick correctly because I ended up booting MacOS after "installing successfully". It would be useful to know how to get this more automatically. Next step, assuming that your root partion is on /dev/hda9: Shutdown MacOS and insert the second floppy, containing vmlinux.coff, into the left hand floppy drive. Boot Open Firmware according to the directions above. Set the following environment variables: ********** setenv boot-device fd2:vmlinux.coff setenv boot-file root=/dev/hda8 boot ********** The Linux kernel will be booted from the floppy, but the system will come to life eventually with the kde window environment on the screen. You can log in as root using the password you set up during the install process. Now, don't deluge me with questions. I don't know any more than I have written here and I am not entirely sure about all of that... I have yet to learn the right magic to boot directly from hard disk, without having to use the floppy as per the example above. One thing that I am sure about is that I've got to order my CD ROM, my T short, and find a suitably designed Red Hat... Regards, Eugene Brooks Wesley Horner comments on his experience with a PowerBook 1400: Just thought I'd mention that it is possible to put mklinux on a powerbook 1400. There is no ethernet support but kppp works for dialup. It isn't officially supported but it works by fooling the kernel into thinking it is a 5300 using the "wish I were" extention. It is a bit unstable but most things work well enough X, Netscape etc. Sound is lacking however. wes Chris Ferebee comments on his experiences: I have Linux running on my PowerBooks, a 2400 and a 3400. I installed from the LinuxPPC Valentine edition CD, and have since upgraded bits and pieces in order to be able to compile and run the 2.1.103 kernel from the source Paul Mackerras posted on ftp://samba.anu.edu.au. The most difficult part was getting Ethernet to work. On the 3400 it was fairly simple, once I figured out that I need to use the de4x5 driver instead of tulip, but on the 2400 I was unsuccessful until I discovered that some PC Cards just don't work. I was trying to use a Kingston KNE- PC2, but it couldn't successfully transmit or receive. It would send packets, but they were scrambled and didn't even have a valid IP header. Now I'm using a Farallon card (which is basically an OEM 3Com), and it works fine. (Better than under MacOS.) I ca sleep the PB 2400 and wake it up successfully, using the sleep.c code Paul posted. Interestingly, the PB 3400 will sleep also, but it gets a kernel panic when I wake it up. (I haven't paid attention to the details yet as the 2400 is my main notebook machine.) My main gripes about my current setup is that the video driver is pretty slow running Xpmac in 16-bit - it seems that most functions are running without acceleration - and that I don't have a proper German keymap. I run the German version of MacOS and use a German keyboard layout, and I would like to have a layout on the PowerBook that works exactly like the MacOS German layout, including the positions of the various []{}\| special characters. There seem to be various German layouts floating around, but they use the PC-style layout for the option-key combinations. Maybe I'll break down and do my own keymap. :-) It also would be nice to have a better touchpad driver, the response in MacOS is still smoother than on Linux, and I like the tap-click feature in MacOS. Finally, SheepShaver for LinuxPPC would be the clincher, I'd put Linux on my Desktop G3 if I had a stable way to run MacOS (or rather I should say FileMaker, Claris Organizer and QuarkXPress) on top, and I'd definitely pay $49, probably even $99 for a slick implementation. (I gather $49 is their target price for the BeOS version.) Regarding the PC Card Ethernet situation, here is what I wrote to the mailing list on the subject: --------- Thanks to everybody who responded to my question regarding Ethernet PCMCIA support in LinuxPPC. Here's a summary of which cards reportedly work/don't work with Paul's versions of kernel 2.1.103 and pcmcia-cs- 3.0.3: Doesn't work: Kingston KNE-PC2 - Chris Ferebee Motorola Mariner - Shin'ichiro Nakamura Dayna CommuniCard E - Steve Elliott Xircom CEM2 - Ryuji Ishiguro Does work: TDK LAK-CD021BX - Shin'ichiro Nakamura (hearsay) confirmed - Ryuji Ishiguro confirmed - Kenroy Harrison confirme - Tsuneya Watabe RATOC REX-R280 - Shin'ichiro Nakamura (hearsay) confirmed - Ryuji Ishiguro Xircom CEM28 EN/Modem - Steve Elliott 3C589D (EtherLink III, 3Com) - Tsuneya Watabe Farallon Ethernet PC Card - Chris Ferebee Special thanks to Tsuneya Watabe for mentioning the 3Com 3C589D. Farallon states that their Ethernet PC Card is an OEM version of the 3C589, and I have now verified that the Farallon card works perfectly under LinuxPPC. This makes it an ideal card for my purposes, since it works under MacOS (with the highest throughput of any card I've seen) as well as under LinuxPPC. It is also supported with a driver for NewtonOS, FWIW. :-) Chris Ferebee ferebee@ferebee.renderserve.de Thanks to Michael Ochs for the instructions for installation on a PowerBook 3400. RedHat MkLux Installation on PB3400 (added points over and above the install instructions) 1) Download from ftp.mklinux.apple.com/pub/pre-DR3 the MacOS utilities folder which includes the pdisk utility. 2) Format your internal hard drive (sorry, I could not get MkLinux to use the expansion bay hard drive) into three partitions.Ê I used the first (500 Mbytes, but 400 is probably adequate) and the second (50 Mbytes) for Linux and set them to Unallocated.Ê The rest I used for Mac Standard format -- it has to be standard or the RedHat installer will not read the files. 3) Run the pdisk utility and edit /dev/hda (the internal IDE drive) partitions.Ê Use the c command to create partitions on the two Linux parts.Ê It is important to name the smaller partition "swap" otherwise the RedHat installer will bomb with a message saying you have no swap space.Ê Trying to name it swap within the installer did not work for me. 4) Download (in binary) the folder and files in pre-DR3 mach_servers folder and place it (the folder with files) in the same place as your system folder (usually top level of the hard drive).Ê This can be on the expansion bay drive by the way. 5) Download the other pre-DR3 files and place them in the extensions and control panels folder as described in the instructions. 6) Download (in binary) the RedHat folder and files and place it on your Mac Standard partition on the internal drive. 7) Reboot and go into the MkLinux control panel.Ê Press the custom button and edit the line rootdev=É to rootdev=/dev/hdaX if the mach_servers file is on the internal drive or rootdev=/dev/hdcX if the mach_servers file is on the expansion bay drive.Ê Make sure you have one blank line after the rootdev line.Ê The X must be replaced with the partition number which you can see in pdisk or just note that 7 is the first partition with a file system.Ê So, if you used my format in (2) you would use hda9 (7 = UNIX, 8 = UNIX, 9 = Mac).Ê If you use the expansion bay drive with one partition it would be hdc7. 8) Set you monitor to 256 colors (you can barely read the RedHat screen with thousands of colors). 9) Reboot and at the splash screen to choose an operating system hit ESC or press the MkLinux button. 10) Just follow the RedHat installation which comes up.Ê The important points are to use tab to move through fields, to use the space bar to toggle selection flags, to choose to install from disk, and to mount the file systems as follows: Mount /dev/hdaX (first UNIX partition) to /. Mount /dev/hdaX (Mac partition) to /mac (or whatever name you wish). 11) When asked where the RedHat installation files are, use /dev/hdaX where X is the partition mounted as /mac.Ê Just follow all the instructions from here. I think I have remembered the various problems I had and their solutions (they were primarily the weird requirement on swap, the need to stay in Mac Standard file format, and the inability to use the expansion bay drive for most things).Ê I would like feedback from people who try this on what needs to be added to this description (m_ochs@fccc.edu). According to Gilbert Coville of Apple's MkLinux Team, the latest work-in-progress Kernel and MkLinux server, with source are now available. The latest Kernel includes the SCSI modifications that appeared in the binary-only 980123 wip. This kernel runs on the PowerBook 5300, and possibly the 1400, but there is no SCSI or network capability. Michael Coyle of the PowerList contributes this tip for installing Linux on a PowerBook 3400: If you haven't already, go here to get the kernel for a 3400: ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/SOR/misc/linuxppc/pb3400/ To boot into Linux, you use the "setenv" command in Open Firmware On my IDE drive, partition 8 is LinuxPPC, so I entered at the OF prompt: setenv auto-boot? false setenv boot-device ata0/ata-disk@0:8 setenv boot-file /vmlinux root=/dev/hdc8 Those variables are saved to th PRAM, so on subsequent restarts, you won't have to retype them. At startup, line one automatically drops me into OF. Then I type BOOT to go to Linux, BYE to go to Mac. PowerBook/Linux feedback from readers: [reader 1] I installed MkLinux DR2.1update4 and LinuxPPC (3400 version) on my PowerBook 2400 and runs completely except ehternet. Speed is very fast! X server Runs! It's a great experience ever scince I got my 2400. I'm now challanging to handle Japanese on Linux. [reader 2] On LinuxPPC vs. MkLinux: Convenience, MkLinux makes it only marginally easier to switch between it and Mac OS (marginally easier defined as "push a button instead of type a command"). For LinuxPPC, if one unsets Open Firmware's "auto-boot?" flag (one does that by dropping into OF(cmd-opt-o-f) and typing "setenv auto-boot? false"), and the machine will boot into OF's user interface, where one can type "boot" to boot Linux or "bye" to boot Mac OS (this has the added advantage of not requiring a partial boot into Mac OS if one wants to boot Linux). Dirk Jaeckel: Here is my experience with pmac-linux on my PB3400: 1.Installation When I installed it I had a little trouble with the kernel (installer.coff and vmlinux.coff) They recognized my internal ide-controller as ide1 and my internal disk-drive as hdc not hda as the README says. That was no problem because I read the source (ide.h) and found the major number for this device is 22 instead of 3. I heard this is fixed with the inatller.coff and vmlinux.coff in the "latest" subdirectory. It was a little tricky when the pb3400 kernel (vmlinux) which I installed after the Installation recognized my drive correctly as hda. I fixed that in /etc/fstab. The README is not clear about QUIK. It says:Quik or the BootVars don't work on the PB. But you have to use it anyway. Open Firmware doesn't "know" ext2fs. It must be told where the kernel is on the disk. Or else the bootloader has to be where OF wants it. I don't know. So copy the kernel to /vmlinux and run quik. 2. Postinstallation If You want to configure Afterstep when logged in as root you have to put /usr/local/bin into roots PATH environment variable. Wishstep is there and called by ascp (Afterstep control-panel) To use glint (the redhat rpm installation manager) You have to get librpm.so and you have to make a link from /usr/local/lib/rpmrc to /usr/lib/rpmrc. Or you fix glints source and recompile. These are known distribution flaws. 3. Crashes It is by far not as stable as i386/Linux or the SPARC port. It crashes with errors like: Socket destroy delayed (r=0 w=240) Sometimes there is no message but the PB turns itself off. Most errors occur when you use X11 and networking the same time. I thinks its because the ethernetdriver and the XServer both have bugs. I don't know if pmac-linux on desktop macs crashes as often as on 3400s. 4.Performance: Its fast. I hope this doesn't sound like I am not happy with it. I love it. It crashes more often than macos does, but it boots faster and I am very sure it will be as stable as the other linuces (sp?) in a few months. I just wanted to help anybody like me trying to install it. Some resources for installing and running pmac-linux are linux-pmac@samba.anu.edu.au and comp.os.linux.powerpc. Casey O'Donnell: Hopefully pretty soon I will be working on enhancing the available information about configuration of linux for the 3400. I've been running linux for about a month now on my 3400. I was the second or third person running it (aside from Fabio...seing as he's doing the cracking). He told me that he will soon be putting up a new kernel that adds some functionality and stability. The X-server works well, but xdm (login via X) doesn't work worth a hoot. The kernel and Xserve in the directory /3400 work acceptably, but that Xpmac still has random freezes while in X. I've been running the kernel from the /latest directory for a little over a week, and X seems much more stable. People in the US, please note that the ethernet/modem card installed on the majority of 3400/200 and 3400/240's are as of now unsupported. That's why this is comming from the MacOS side of my machine, rather than through linux. Bryan Cheung: I run both MkLinux & LinuxPPC on my PB3400. MkLinux has been running on the 3400 since Update4, but it is a pain in the butt to install. LinuxPPC is noticeably faster than MkLinux, but neither of them support ethernet on US Powerbooks with the Ethernet/Modem card (LinuxPPC is supposed to support to ethernet-only card found in European models). Although LinuxPPC is much faster, MkLinux is more convenient since it is easier to switch back and forth between MkLinux and MacOS at boot time. Also, MkLinux supports external monitors, and LinuxPPC does not. Both versions are pretty stable relative to the vanilla 2.1 Mklinux release, although I have managed to crash them both under really heavy loads. Even without ethernet support, Linux (of any flavor) makes the Powerbook the *COOLEST* portable workstation on the planet today. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Image] visitors since 09/24/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Vimage Vpower: Add a G3 to Your PowerBook 1400!] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Image] [MacAddict Network] [Think Different] [PPUG Member] Odyssey Systems Total Site Member of the Produced on a Member of Management MacAddict Network PowerBook G3 PPUG [Image] Copyright © 1995-1998 Jason D. O'Grady. All Rights Reserved. Title graphic by BadCat Design, Inc. This PowerPage publication and all PowerPage online and e-mail publications are for the intended use of PowerPage readers for the purposes of research and product evaluation. 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