At 5:44 PM +0200 5/22/01, Edouard G. Parmelan wrote:

:)I will enter "PowerPC side of the Force" in two weeks, and I will
:)install Mac OS X, NetBSD and GNU/Linux on an iBook G3/500.

Welcome aboard.

:)- Is someone already install NetBSD or GNU/Linux on an iBook G3/500 ?

Not that we, of the list, know about.  You'd be our first guinea pig.

:)- which NetBSD and/or GNU/Linux filesystems Mac OS X support ?

BSD4.2 FFS, ext2fs, LFS, NFS, CD9660, and MSDOSFS.  There are tools that
let you interact with HFS (not HFS+) filesystems, but it's not mounted like
a normal filesystem.

:)- can NetBSD and/or GNU/Linux access to Mac OS X filesystem ?

NetBSD can't.  See:
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/macppc/faq.html#disk-sharing

:)- can NetBSD use an ext2fs partition as / ?

I don't know, but it's probably not a good idea if you intend to have both
flavors of unix booting from the same partition.

:)- can GNU/Linux access to NetBSD FFS partition ?

Dunno.

:)- can NetBSD use the same swap partition that GNU/Linux ?

Yes and no.  NetBSD just uses the raw partition.  Linux requires you to
make a swap filesystem on that partition.  As long as you re-create the
swap partition each time linux boots, you should be OK since NetBSD will
probably trash the swap filesystem.  If nothing else, you can set NetBSD to
use a file for swap and avoid the issue altogether.  Chances are, if you
have enough RAM you won't notice the slight slowdown of using a file vs.
using a separate partition for swap.

:)- GNU/Linux seem to need/require yaboot.  Can yaboot start NetBSD ?

There is one report of it, but there's no reason you couldn't have more
than one bootloader and choose which one to use when you start whichever OS
you want to run.

Learn how to use the nvalias command to make simple mnemonics for boot devices.
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/macppc/nvedit.html

:)- I have read that there is a Darwing version of BootX (that use Open
:)  Firmare).  Can this version start NetBSD, GNU/Linux and Mac OS X ?

Only OS X AFAIK.  One Darwin developer has offered to help port BootX to
NetBSD/macppc, but that's about it.
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/macppc/faq.html#bootx-darwin

:)[NetBSD]:  How I can burn my own NetBSD-1.5.1_BETA2 CD ?  A simple rsync
:)of last snapshot or there are some magic features elsewhere ?

Right, wait a few weeks for the official 1.5.1 release, which tv@netbsd.org
has promised will have a bootable CD image.

:)Which is the installation order ?  I have read that Mac OS X should be
:)install first, is it mandatory ?  And after, is NetBSD or Debian have
:)the same requirement ?

Order is:
partition your hard drive
install some flavor of MacOS
Install your unixes
have fun

  -- MW