Playing with Powerbook G4:)

Architecture specific questions.

Playing with Powerbook G4:)

Postby billb » 01 Jan 2011, 15:16

I've borrowed a Powerbook G4 1.33 GHz 12.1" w/512MB RAM that needed a new HDD and am installing YDL 6.2 on it. Getting into the case to install the HDD was a pain, but so far the install seems to be going OK. :mrgreen: If it works well enough I might want to buy it so I'll finally have a PPC Mac.

EDIT: hrmm... install seemed to go fine, but after rebooting I still get the Finder/? screen :?

EDIT2: Trying install again ... the drive I used is a 40GB IDE from an old Windows notebook. I'm trying to do a YDL-only install. I wonder if there's anything special I need to do for it to boot properly?
PS3 60GB [CECHA01], FW 3.15, YDL 6.2, Samsung T260HD @ 1920x1200
Powermac G4 1.25 GHz x2, 2 GB RAM, YDL 6.2
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Re: Playing with Powerbook G4:)

Postby aguilarojo » 01 Jan 2011, 16:51

billb wrote:I've borrowed a Powerbook G4 1.33 GHz 12.1" w/512MB RAM that needed a new HDD and am installing YDL 6.2 on it. Getting into the case to install the HDD was a pain, but so far the install seems to be going OK. :mrgreen: If it works well enough I might want to buy it so I'll finally have a PPC Mac.

EDIT: hrmm... install seemed to go fine, but after rebooting I still get the Finder/? screen :?

EDIT2: Trying install again ... the drive I used is a 40GB IDE from an old Windows notebook. I'm trying to do a YDL-only install. I wonder if there's anything special I need to do for it to boot properly?


Hi Bill!!

Happy New Year's Day!!

There are two different means of preparing a G4 for YDL 6.2.

If you don't care to have OS X, then first use the Apple Install DVD, boot from it so that you access from the menu the application called Disk Utility. Use this app to select the HD you want to have YDL installed onto. You'll notice that you'll need to choose the Erase or Partition tab before you can see exactly how the HD is actually partitioned. Choose Free Space as your partition type and it will be named Untitled which is fine, then select the HD to be prepared for YDL. After this is complete then install the YDL Installation DVD and boot from the internal DVD drive of the G4, allow Anaconda to proceed to install onto the whole drive. That's pretty much it as you'll boot from it, remember to create your root password and user ID/password when prompted.

If you do you then need to chose which portion of the HD will be reserved for OS X (partitioned as hfs+, not journaled) and Free Space. Again Disk Utility is utilized as above and proceeds to partition the HD for both hfs+ and Linux - at the same time. The rest regarding Anaconda is the same as it will install YDL onto the partitions it recognizes.

There are other partition tools of course, but I'm relying on memory to write this overview. If my memory is correct Apple's Disk Utility never caused problems for me whenever I installed YDL onto a G4.


If you don't have another partition tool I believe you have the option within Anaconda to completely erase/partition the HD you want to install YDL onto. I'm not sure that I'm remembering this correctly, this is also a two step process but with the difference that Anaconda can erase anything and then install ext3 onto that newly created partition. It cannot however create hfs+ partitions.

All the best...

Everything on the Earth has a purpose.
Every disease an herb to cure it.
And every person has a mission.
This is the Indian Theory of Existence.
-- Morning Dove, Salish (1888-1936)
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Re: Playing with Powerbook G4:)

Postby billb » 01 Jan 2011, 18:50

Thanks -- sounds like I may need to get an OSX (10.4?) install DVD and play with the partitioning utility. On the YDL install I did choose to erase all existing partitions and had the only drive selected as the boot drive. The install itself seems to go perfectly fine.
PS3 60GB [CECHA01], FW 3.15, YDL 6.2, Samsung T260HD @ 1920x1200
Powermac G4 1.25 GHz x2, 2 GB RAM, YDL 6.2
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billb
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Re: Playing with Powerbook G4:)

Postby aguilarojo » 01 Jan 2011, 21:51

billb wrote:Thanks -- sounds like I may need to get an OSX (10.4?) install DVD and play with the partitioning utility. On the YDL install I did choose to erase all existing partitions and had the only drive selected as the boot drive. The install itself seems to go perfectly fine.


Anaconda interprets that choice, "to erase all existing partitions", as erasing all existing Linux partitions; it doesn't touch the others unless explicitly directed to do so. To explicitly erase all partitions and install ext3 onto the entire drive you have to access the partition manager within Anaconda and explicitly select that sequence of events to be implemented. If you do this right you'd eliminate the need for an Apple Install DVD!!

Ah computer logic, don't you just want to hug the motherboard??

BTW, you may have to work with the official release from Apple known as Panther (10.2 or 3) or Tiger (10.3 or 4); I don't think there is an Apple Install DVD of 10.4. Besides you only need to borrow the DVD to access the Disk Utility from within the Apple boot DVD itself.

Everything on the Earth has a purpose.
Every disease an herb to cure it.
And every person has a mission.
This is the Indian Theory of Existence.
-- Morning Dove, Salish (1888-1936)
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