Installing Debian on PowerBook

[Daniel Jacobowitz]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2000 at 10:46:51PM +0000, Alan DuBoff wrote:
> I finally got a new PowerBook (geez, that took some time;-) and can't get it
> to recognize the Debian CD as being bootable.
> 
> I looked over the FAQs and such, and did get into the Open Firmware, but
> couldn't change anything that would let it boot from the CD.
> 
> Does anyone know the secret to installing on a PowerBook?
> 
> I'll cc Daniel Jacobowitz as he is probably the person to answer this...just
> thought some of you in the Bay area might have done this before...Dan, you
> gave me 2 CDs at LinuxWorld in March/April, and I ended up downloading the iso
> image to make a CD here, thinking it may have changed, but I get the same
> results, MacOS tells me it's not bootable. Do I need to change something in
> Open Firmware?

Is this a new powerbook?  If so, you've got two options.

Download a 2.2r2 CD when they become available (within the next
several days, I hope!) or boot the machine into Open Firmware
(hold down command-option-o-f) and type "boot cd:,\\yaboot" at the
prompt.  That should do it.

> For extra credit, the PowerBook has a keyboard and mouse on it, I was thinking
> I couldn't use a second keyboard unless I upgraded to the 2.4 kernel (which is
> where I remember USB support being). Is that correct? The Mac uses USB for the
> serial though, so it might not allow me to use one of the USB->Serial adapters
> without the 2.4 kernel. Maybe someone can set me straight on that...

Nope, should be fine either way, I think.  Certainly if you use
2.2.18pre21, the 2.2r2 kernel packages.

Dan

/--------------------------------\  /--------------------------------\
|       Daniel Jacobowitz        |__|        SCS Class of 2002       |
|   Debian GNU/Linux Developer    __    Carnegie Mellon University   |
|         dan@debian.org         |  |       dmj+@andrew.cmu.edu      |
\--------------------------------/  \--------------------------------/