My situation is this: I'm a long time Linux user on PC architectures. I'm also a long time Mac OS X user. However, I've never tried my hand at Linux on the Mac before. So, for a challenge/learning experience, I thought I'd try my hand at LFS (Linux From Scratch) on my PowerBook. Having some early issues however. As the subject line would suggest, my Mac is not in mint condition. The DVD drive doesn't work any more. Also, I can't get it to boot to the Open Firmware console for some reason. The machine is fine otherwise, and runs Leopard beautifully. I have a blank partition at the end of the disk which I am saving for Linuxy goodness!
I tried connecting a DVD writer to a Firewire enclosure to boot that way. Holding down Option made it pop up next to my Mac OS X installation, but clicking it did nothing but flash the screen. The disk was burned in Linux on the same burner, like so:
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wodim -v dev=/dev/sr0 lfslivecd.iso
To install Leopard, I had to dd the installation disk to an old IDE hard drive which I connected up to the same Firewire drive enclosure. Slow process as that drive is quite broken, but it worked in the end. Would this method work for a Linux installer or live disk?
Is there any other way of getting just yaboot on to my drive, through Mac OS X, or by taking out the hard drive and connecting it to my PC? Should I just try setting up a TFTP server on my PC and see if I can boot off that? I also tried USB sticks and iPods to install Leopard, but couldn't get my machine to boot from USB, at least not without access to the Open Firmware console. Officially, Apple says you can't boot from USB drives on my particualr model (PB G4 12" 1GHz), but people have managed when they have OF to play with.
Does Open Firmware leave any logs which I can access from OS X which may give me a clue as to what's happening?
I may have a go at sticking YDL on if I can't get LFS Live to boot, is there a netinstall-type image available? Don't have any blank DVDs at the moment.
Thank you for your patience with my myriad silly questions.