On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 3:48 PM, Mark Knecht <markkne...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Enlightened User <li...@nc.rr.com> wrote: >> http://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/inst/yaboot-howto/ch9.en.html >> Sections 9.2 and 9.3 show how to boot to the yaboot 'boot:' prompt and start >> the kernel with parameters. >> Hope that helps you get started. >> If you do change the yaboot.conf file don't forget to run ybin to update the >> boot partition. I would suggest increasing delay and timeout values (section >> 6.6 of the previous web document) so the default image is not automatically >> loaded so quickly. You should then be able to enter something like: >> hd:4,/vmlinux root=/dev/sda4 ro >> at the boot: prompt. >> Another thought would be to remove SCSI support from your kernel build, >> unless you have a mac mini with an SCSI interface, you should not need SCSI >> support. That should not require any changes to the yaboot configuration you >> are currently using. >> Barry >> > > Thanks for the info. > > OK - as a test I'm going a very different direction. As there is a > prebuilt Ubuntu PowerPC version I've just written a CD and it boots > fine. I'm right now in the process of letting it blow away my > non-functional Gentoo install and install Ubuntu. If that boots then I > can see what they did and redo Gentoo later with that knowledge. > > As for using Gentoo on this box I'm not sure it's really worth it any > more. My main machines now are all x86_64 - as is probably true for > most people - but fast ones - an i5-661, i7-920 and an i7-980x where I > run 5 copies of Windows 7 at the same time in different VMWare jails. > I found I wasn't updating this old Mac Mini because it was too slow > and took too much of what I call 'Gentoo effort'. If I can find a > prepackaged version of MythTV for this machine then likely I'd be > better off just to run Ubuntu. I don't really need performance for a > MythTV backend server. > > Anyway, I'll report back more when I know more. > > Thanks! > > Cheers, > Mark >
So the Ubuntu install came up running. Boots fine, logs in OK. Dosn't look like they ackage the MythTV backend for PowerPC so I need to figure out how they did it and then get Gentoo working again. HEre is yaboot.conf and fstab. m...@macmini:~$ cat /etc/yaboot.conf ## yaboot.conf generated by the Ubuntu installer ## ## run: "man yaboot.conf" for details. Do not make changes until you have!! ## see also: /usr/share/doc/yaboot/examples for example configurations. ## ## For a dual-boot menu, add one or more of: ## bsd=/dev/hdaX, macos=/dev/hdaY, macosx=/dev/hdaZ boot=/dev/hda2 device=/p...@f4000000/at...@d/d...@0: partition=3 root=/dev/hda3 timeout=50 install=/usr/lib/yaboot/yaboot magicboot=/usr/lib/yaboot/ofboot enablecdboot image=/boot/vmlinux label=Linux read-only initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="quiet splash" image=/boot/vmlinux.old label=old read-only initrd=/boot/initrd.img.old append="quiet splash" m...@macmini:~$ # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier # for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name # devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0 /dev/hda3 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 /dev/hda4 none swap sw 0 0 m...@macmini:~$ So, whatever was wrong with my Gentoo install it wasn't apparently hda vs sda... Ubuntu sure seems weird. No root password? Everything done through sudo? Strange... I'm sure I just don't understand after so many years running Gentoo. - Mark