On Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:39:24 -0400 (EDT) Daniel Barowy <dbar...@barowy.net> wrote:
> > Needless to say, getting an operating system to play nice with > > firmware that is in an unknown patch state is a major pain in the > > ass. The first thing you should try is getting the OpenBSD > > 4.5-current ISO since your issue may have been fixed since > > 4.4-Release was completed in Sep 08. > > I also downloaded this and booted from it. Same problem-- this > time it froze while setting up the disk, so it seems like we're still > in the same boat. BTW, here's more information on the machine: > > http://lowendmac.com/ppc/sawtooth-power-mac-g4-agp.html > > Any other suggestions? Are there any boot-time options that I > could try? As far as I've read in OpenBSD INSTALL.macppc (mandatory reading) and on the NetBSD website/docs, the suggested firmware options such as load-base and similar are geared towards just getting the kernel to boot properly. You are already past this hurdle. With the information provided, I cannot guess the reason why you're having problems with disk access, but at least the problem is fairly consistent. I'm curious if you've searched the archives of the p...@openbsd mailing list for similar issues? It would be a better list for this topic. One of the things you could try is seeing if you can get NetBSD running on the machine. My thinking is if you have an unknown hardware problem (failing disk or similar), NetBSD will most likely have similar failures. On the other hand, if NetBSD works, then we know we have a issue in OpenBSD (driver?, geometry?, flux-capacitor?, ...). -- J.C. Roberts
