{"id":177,"date":"2006-01-04T20:53:10","date_gmt":"2006-01-05T04:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/multimedia.cx\/eggs\/?p=177"},"modified":"2008-03-24T16:59:01","modified_gmt":"2008-03-25T00:59:01","slug":"rant-from-the-past-linux-on-powerpc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multimedia.cx\/eggs\/rant-from-the-past-linux-on-powerpc\/","title":{"rendered":"Rant From The Past: Linux on PowerPC"},"content":{"rendered":"

I dug up this old rant on my hard drive. The way it is formatted I obviously intended to publish it. The file is dated April 28, 2001. Some of you may find it interesting or amusing. More data on this episode is archived at the Yellowdog Linux mailing list<\/a>. In the end, I solved the problem and got Linux onto a PowerPC machine but it took me 9 days from the start of my journey until the end.<\/p>\n

Trying to Install Linux on a PowerPC<\/h2>\n

All I want to do is run Linux on a PowerPC machine…it’s a good thing I appreciate a challenge…<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h3>\n

I’ve always fancied myself a rather tolerant individual when it comes to diversity of computing environments. I respect the fact that there are many different computers, operating systems, and computing environments that are conducive to different people and tasks. This includes being respectful towards Macintosh users.<\/p>\n

After my experience trying to install Linux on a PowerPC machine via a clean MacOS v7.6 installation, it’s difficult to hold Macs in very high regard. To be fair, it’s not that Macintosh hardware is inferior or that Mac end users are of low intelligence; the problem lies squarely with the people who designed the OS and its applications.<\/p>\n

I wrote this little document as a therapeutic measure to help me deal with the remarkable idiocy of the situation. Maybe, just maybe, someone else will find the description of my trials useful in solving a problem that they’re having.<\/p>\n

The Setup and the Challenge<\/h3>\n

I’ve been working with Intel x86 hardware for a long, long time. I know how to work DOS, Windows, and especially Linux on an x86 CPU pretty well. I suddenly became interested in trying Linux on other hardware and I decided to start with a PowerPC machine. There’s a place<\/a> in my town that sells used Mac hardware on consignment and I picked up this machine<\/a>, except with 96MB of RAM instead of 16MB and a 24X CD-ROM drive instead of a 4X.<\/p>\n

I did my homework on how to install Linux on a PPC, thanks to LinuxPPC<\/a> and Yellow Dog Linux<\/a>. I think it’s possible to install it via the network, but I need to start an installation process on the PPC machine first. It seems that in order to kick off a Linux installation on the type of machine I
\nhave, I need to perform 2 steps: <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. reformat and repartition the hard drive so that Linux can use part of it<\/li>\n
  2. install three files onto the machine:<\/li>\n