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Re: Can't Install on new PowerBooks - NO IDE

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Andy Botting

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Nov 8, 2005, 9:50:04 PM11/8/05
to
Hi Parag,

I was thinking about getting one of the new 15" PowerBooks (hi-res, powerbook5,8, but I've been
reading about this problem.

I first found out about this problem on the Gentoo Forums from this post:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-396455.html

Then I read a little more about it on the linuxppc-dev list:
http://ozlabs.org/pipermail/linuxppc-dev/2005-October/020222.html

On the linuxppc-dev list, there are some patches to enable the ATA controller, Gigabit ethernet
and basic AGP setup. I guess it's probably a matter of patching the 2.6.14 source and booting
that.


cheers,

Andy

>Has anyone tried to install debian on the new PowerBooks yet?
>I tried and the kernel didn't detect any IDE controller, so I
>couldn't get the installer going past the select CDROM prompt.
>
>I tried loading ide-cd , ide-generic and all other ide modules
>but no success.
>
>Parag


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Parag Warudkar

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Nov 8, 2005, 10:10:06 PM11/8/05
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On Nov 8, 2005, at 9:26 PM, Andy Botting wrote:

> Hi Parag,
>
> I was thinking about getting one of the new 15" PowerBooks (hi-res,
> powerbook5,8, but I've been
> reading about this problem.
>
> I first found out about this problem on the Gentoo Forums from this
> post:
> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-396455.html
>
> Then I read a little more about it on the linuxppc-dev list:
> http://ozlabs.org/pipermail/linuxppc-dev/2005-October/020222.html
>
> On the linuxppc-dev list, there are some patches to enable the ATA
> controller, Gigabit ethernet
> and basic AGP setup. I guess it's probably a matter of patching the
> 2.6.14 source and booting
> that.
>
>

Hi Andy
If you are still thinking on buying the new PB, I would suggest to
wait for some time - there seem to be serious display problems with
the new versions and Apple is claiming some of the problems are
'within spec'. (Fortunately mine doesn't have any so far.)

On the Linux installation front, I tried the boot cd from the URL
posted in the Gentoo PPC forum (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-
t-396455.html?sid=a2970b2b2db4c89e9961b90aed629f58) but it fails to
boot. I don't have any working Linux/PPC box to build the CD myself
with the new patches. So I guess I am stuck till someone makes a
bootable CD with the relevant patches.

Thanks

Benjamin Herrenschmidt

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Nov 8, 2005, 11:00:16 PM11/8/05
to

> Problems
> a) ochi1394 - Don't know if it's a real problem but I got an error in
> dmesg - Unexpected PCI resource length 1000

That error is harmless. Something else must be going on.

> b) fdisk /dev/hda was not able to see any partitions on the device at
> all - I would think it should have shown me the MAC OS HFS+ partition?

Yup... That is weird

> c) This being an experimental CD - I got some harmless, this not
> found, that not found type messages - that's fine I think.
>
> I can post the dmesg and any other output if required. Let me know.
>
> Thanks

Parag Warudkar

unread,
Nov 8, 2005, 11:10:05 PM11/8/05
to
>
>> Has anyone tried to install debian on the new PowerBooks yet?
>> I tried and the kernel didn't detect any IDE controller, so I
>> couldn't get the installer going past the select CDROM prompt.
>>
>> I tried loading ide-cd , ide-generic and all other ide modules
>> but no success.
>>
>> Parag

Mostly good news on the new PowerBook front -

I was able to boot the machine, and here is what worked and what didn't

Works
--------
a) IDE controller was detected - Disk drive was detected as hda and
CD drive as hdb - UDMA5 and UDMA4 enabled respectively.
b) Display worked fine - without having to pass ofonly option I got
nice native resolution
c) SunGEM Ethernet adaptor worked fine - I was able to connect to the
internet.

Problems
a) ochi1394 - Don't know if it's a real problem but I got an error in
dmesg - Unexpected PCI resource length 1000

b) fdisk /dev/hda was not able to see any partitions on the device at
all - I would think it should have shown me the MAC OS HFS+ partition?

c) This being an experimental CD - I got some harmless, this not
found, that not found type messages - that's fine I think.

I can post the dmesg and any other output if required. Let me know.

Thanks

Parag

Parag Warudkar

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Nov 8, 2005, 11:10:07 PM11/8/05
to

On Nov 8, 2005, at 10:44 PM, Parag Warudkar wrote:
>
> Mostly good news on the new PowerBook front -
>
> I was able to boot the machine, and here is what worked and what
> didn't
>

Forgot to add, this was with the new PB related patches which were
incorporated into the Gentoo live CD posted here - http://
gentooexperimental.org/~pylon/ISOs/

Parag Warudkar

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Nov 9, 2005, 10:10:14 AM11/9/05
to
> > b) fdisk /dev/hda was not able to see any partitions on the device at
> > all - I would think it should have shown me the MAC OS HFS+ partition?
>
> Yup... That is weird
>

That turned out to be an user error :) ! I am told I was using fdisk instead of mac-fdisk. So hopefully I should have a working install today or tomorrow.

Thanks

Sven Luther

unread,
Nov 9, 2005, 10:20:53 AM11/9/05
to
On Wed, Nov 09, 2005 at 02:38:27PM +0000, Parag Warudkar wrote:
> > > b) fdisk /dev/hda was not able to see any partitions on the device at
> > > all - I would think it should have shown me the MAC OS HFS+ partition?
> >
> > Yup... That is weird
> >
>
> That turned out to be an user error :) ! I am told I was using fdisk instead of mac-fdisk. So hopefully I should have a working install today or tomorrow.

You should be using parted or another libparted based tool anyway.

Friendly,

Sven Luther

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