System Specs
Clamshell iBook (Blue)
300Mhz PPC, 64MB RAM
100Mb/s Enet, Sinlge USB, CD-ROM
OS 9.22 installed
OS X 10.1 ready to be installed (when I upgrade RAM)

This iBook does not seem capable of reading regular CDs, only CDA and HFS. I tried burning the latest gentoo ppc live cd and booting from it, however, it doesn't seem to work.

Does anyone know where I can get an HFS bootable linux disk or have a suggestion (i.e. using a network from boot or within OS 9 or OS X) to install gentoo, slackintosh, yellowdog, or any other linux distro?

Primarily I just need something that will run OpenOffice, Gaim, and GnuCash on this system.

What OS are you burning the CD from? I never could figure out how to burn a bootable CD from OS X.

Debian.org offers great instructions for a net install of Linux, which is what finally got Linux onto my powerbook.

This iBook of mine is a bit old. I think it's 2nd model, the one just before the special edition. It turns out that the OS and File System are transparent as far as burning is concerned (I burned the iso with XP on my PC, you can also install a linux/unix CLI burner and run it from the terminal within OS X). The problem was actually that it won't read 80 minute CDs, it makes a click click click sound. In addition it can't read any burned CDs well. The 74 minutes I have used whir click and whir but won't read. I have one CD-RW that it will read, but after about 25 minutes the drive overheats or something so it still doesn't function long enough for me to get an installation done with.

I was able to get YDL 2.3 on it, but despite detecting the display correctly during the graphical installation, when I restarted afterwards it wasn't able to load the display.

Could you please give me a direct link to the tutorial you followed for the debian installation?

I got the very same problem with my ibook, it is a special edition, the first one, so it doesnt have a cd writter or anyhting, its prolly the exact same drive

i'm trying to get yellowdog 3.0.1 to run on it
the CD loads on my dual USB ibook and 2.3 loads on my 7500, but neither work on my ibook

also, the other two 3.0.1 disks work fine, but not the first one.

Ive got the exact same problem, im able to get the ibook to see a burned cd in a external cd drive ive got but guess what! it still wont boot off of it >=( ive been working on this thing for a while now...anyone have any progress?

-HB

I think the fact of the matter is that it's just a really weird drive.
After many weeks of trying I gave up. Every once in a while I would burn a CD (70min, 80min, R, RW) that would work, but never long enough to complete an installation (overheating???).

If I may suggest, 30 minutes in the freezer will make the darn drive read CDs. I suggest either using non-burnt CDs or doing a diskless install with tftp and bootp or something like that.

Currently mine is just sitting around wasting space, but I'm willing to resurect it for some sort of project like that...

well this particular ibook came with a external iomega cd-rw drive that connects via USB and i was sure this would solve my problems..but nope, now it can at least read burned cds (from the external drive) but im still having ZERO luck installing..been working on this one for a few weeks, even have a friend of mine with a much longer linux 'lifetime' helping me out. (lol only longer because hes much older hehe...)

P.S. you know what? ive got room in my freezer..ill try it even if it was a joke, afterall i remember my old play station 1 had to sit on its side to read a game cd

-HB

--thanks for the quick reply and suggestion.

oh yeah.. if i get some time ill try out the TFTP, if it works ill let everyone know *sigh* i hope this works..i need this thing for a project lol.

well as of now, no luck at all..even tried updating the firmware which required me to update to 9.2.1 and it appears to have changed about nothing... so now im resorting to setting up tftp on my linux network fileserver =) we will see how this turns out..if it works ill let you all know.

-HB

I thought I had posted this already, but obviously I didn't, so here it is.

I recommend these diskless howto s. They seem pretty good, though I haven't had the time or resolve to apply them.

Gentoo
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/diskless-howto.xml

Debian (PPC)
http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...e-boot.en.html

Debian
http://homex.subnet.at/~max/diskless/index.php

If you get that mactop up and running, please post a n00b howto on here so the other 3 people in the universe who still have one of those beasts and want to run linux on it can put to work.



Mmmm... new-world open-firmware... gotta love it! Macs are so insanely intelligent... too bad they sucked so much before OS X - otherwise they might have a decent marketshare!

haha defentally, well im still in highschool and its 1 am so i wont have time to try that out untill tomorrow around 3:30 but ill defentally get on it, i saw something on mandrake 9.1 but ill probably end up using one of those ...darn YDL for not making it net bootable lol.....

Well it looks like ive had ZERO luck so far, ive been attempting to use mandrake linux 9.1 for my network based install and well..i cant say it suprised me but it wouldnt hit the network tftp server to boot off of, any other ideas i could try... dose anyone know if they use standard IDE connectors on the harddrive/cddrive if so i figure i can just rip the dang thing out.. heck maybe my tftp settings are jacked up?! anyone here ever set up a tftp server with the painful similar results? please reply if so. Thanks for your time.

-HybridBlue

I'm almost done with a project I'm working on, I'll try to give the tftp thing a shot when I'm all caught up.

It can be done - I feel it in my bones... watch anti-trust, it's such a good movie. Ever notice that 97.821% of all computers in every movie use Linux (or possibly OS X, but with the right skin on KDE you prolly wouldn't be able to tell the difference.)

Post some of your documentation of what you've been doing. Conf files, etc.

well im not at the system i set tftp on right now but when i get a moment ill defentally post em for you, haha as for anti-trust thats my fav. movie i own a copy of it *pops it in to dvd player* hehe.. one of the first movies i have ever seen that actually used something other than Micro$oft..

found this also: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml

cool man, ill try it tomorrow night, i dont really care what version of linux i get on it is...just as long as it works