Ubuntu/Kubuntu on Mac G5.

[Larry Grover]

Brian Durant wrote:
> On 22. jan 2006, at 19.10, Larry Grover wrote:
> 
>> Brian Durant wrote:
>>
>>> BTW, I tried installing Ubuntu Dapper PPC Flight 3 on my G5. I  have  
>>> switched the SATA drives so that OS X is now located in the  lower  
>>> drive bay. As I also had my Firewire external drive turned  on and  
>>> attached so that Ubuntu would register it as well.  Therefore, the  
>>> drive I installed Ubuntu on was registered as / sdb. Everything went  
>>> find until Ubuntu tried to install yaboot.  Here are the messages, 
>>> in  the correct order, but maybe not total  content as I had to write 
>>> it  on a piece of paper from tty3:
>>
>>
>> Unless you were planning to install onto the firewire drive, there  
>> was no reason to have it connected during the Dapper install.  You  
>> don't need to "register" the firewire drive during the install in  
>> order to use it later -- firewire drives work fine as hotpluggable  
>> devices under linux.
>>
>> I'm confused about which drive is what:  was the firewire drive  
>> assigned to sda? is sdc the original OSX system drive? is sdb the  
>> drive you are trying to install Ubuntu onto (along with the FAT32  and 
>> HFS+ partitions you mentioned in previous messages)?
>>
>>> "Failed to install boot loader."
>>> "Please check system log or the output of the third console (tty3)"
>>> [2075.240927] ioct132(nvsetenv:4417): Unknown cmd fd(7) cmd(20007043)
>>> {` ´} arg(00000000) on /dev/nvran
>>> mkofboot: Finding OpenFirmware device path to `/dev/sdb2´...
>>> mkofboot: Finding OpenFirmware device path to `/dev/sdc3´
>>> ofpath: Driver: sg is not supported
>>> mkofboot:  Unable to determine OpenFirmware path for macosx=/dev/sdc3
>>> mkofboot:  Try specifying the real OpenFirmware path for macosx=/ 
>>> dev/ sdc3 in /etc/yaboot.conf
>>> mkofboot:  Failed with exit status 1
>>
>>
>> I'm afraid I don't understand yaboot well enough to explain the  error 
>> you got.  Perhaps having the firewire drive attached caused a  problem?
>>
>> Was sdc3 the partition housing your OSX system?  What is supposed  to 
>> be in sdb2, the / directory of your linux system?
>>
>>> I tried to reinstall the installer 2 more times with the same  
>>> result,  while inside the install procedure, with the same result.  
>>> Then I  continued with the install procedure and received the  
>>> following message:
>>> "boot manuallty with the /boot/vmlinux kernel on partition /dev/ 
>>> sdb3  and root=/dev/sdb3 passed as a kernel argument."
>>
>>
>> If yaboot is correctly installed, when you boot the system you will  
>> get a plain text prompt asking whether you want to boot OSX, linux  or 
>> from CDROM.  If you select linux, then you get a second plain  text 
>> prompt. At the second plain text prompt, hit the "tab" key  once, and 
>> you will get a listing of the kernels which are installed  and 
>> available to boot from.  I think the default kernel is labelled  
>> "Linux".  You can pass arguments to the kernel from this second  text 
>> prompt.  For example, by typing:
>>
>> Linux root=/dev/sdb3
>>
>> and then hitting the enter key.
>>
>> If yaboot did not get installed properly, then you won't be able to  
>> do this.  I believe you can still get into your linux partition and  
>> boot the system by booting into open firmware (a shell-like  interface 
>> that accepts a variety of rather cryptic commands).  You  can boot 
>> into open firmware by holding down the command-option-O-F  keys when 
>> you boot.  I don't know open firmware well enough to tell  you how to 
>> boot your linux partition, however.  :(
>>
>> You may also be able to boot from your linux partition if you boot  
>> while holding down the option key.  After a few minutes you should  
>> get a graphical window which lets you select the boot device.
>>
>>> So, the question is where do I go from here? I imagine I could  boot  
>>> from the Ubuntu Dapper PPC Flight 3 live-CD and go into etc/  
>>> yaboot.conf which should reside on /dev/sdb2, correct? But what  
>>> else  do I need to do? Remember, I am a newbie. I would want  yaboot 
>>> to  default to OS X, but to be able to boot into Ubuntu.
>>
>>
>> I'm not sure if Ubuntu sets OSX up as default or not (I think not),  
>> but it's easy enough to set it up yourself (basically, you edit the  
>> yaboot.conf file, in /etc, and then run the ybin program).  But I  
>> suggest getting you dual booting systems both installed correctly  
>> first, and then worry about this issue later.
>>
>>> Lastly, I now get prompted when OS X has started up about my  Ubuntu  
>>> install HD not being able to be read by OS X.
>>
>>
>> OSX can't read ext2/3 filesystems (nor as far as I know, reiserfs,  
>> xfs, etc).  There is third party support for ext2/3:
>> http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsx
>> but as far as I know, it doesn't work under OSX 10.4 yet (just 10.3  
>> and earlier).
>>
>>> I hope you have some ideas :-)
>>
>>
>> I'm sure you could fix things by a less drastic method, but unless  
>> you get better ideas from someone else, I would suggest you try  
>> reinstalling Dapper, but this time *don't attach the firewire  
>> drive*.  Also, be sure you have your internal hard drives in the  
>> order you want them (sda, sdb), and be sure you know the drive/ 
>> partition where your OSX system is and where the /  directory of  your 
>> linux system will be.  I haven't installed yaboot on dual  drive 
>> system, so I'm not sure if it needs to be on the first drive  (sda) or 
>> not.
>>
>> HTH,
>> Larry
> 
> 
> I am also not sure if yaboot was installed properly. I don't get a  
> prompt at startup. I was hoping that the Firewire drive would be  
> configured to mount properly by including it at install time so it  
> would just pop up on the desktop without having to set mount points.  I 

There is no need to do this.  The system will automatically mount your 
hotplugged external firewire drive and create an icon on your desktop. 
Just like in OSX.  At least, this is how it works in Breezy and I 
presume how it is supposed to work in Dapper.

Do yourself a favor and keep things simple during the install: 
disconnect the firewire drive.

> did boot with the Ubuntu Dapper PPC Flight 3 live-CD and was able  to 
> find the yaboot.conf file. on my Ubuntu HD. As far as I can see,  
> everything looks OK, but maybe I just don't know enough about yaboot,  
> as I don't know where it is supposed to reside. Here is a copy of the  
> yaboot.conf file. I can also try to take some snapshots of how the  
> drives are listed in GParted a little bit later. As far as I can see  
> the list accepts attached files.

No need to attached a plain text file -- just copy and paste it into 
your email.

To my eyes your yaboot.conf file looks OK, *except* that I think your 
hard drives should probably be sda and sdb, not sdb and sdc. 
Information from gparted for each of your drives would help, or else the 
output from fdisk:

sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb
sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdc

If you can fix your yaboot.conf file, you can install yaboot using the 
"ybin" command.  This may be as simple as changing "sdb" to "sda" and 
"sdc" to "sdb", but let's see some information on how your drives are 
partitioned first.

Regards,
Larry