Re: G4 support?

[Bill Studenmund <wrstuden%nas.nasa.gov@localhost>]

On Fri, 2 Jul 1999, Brian C. Grayson wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 01, 1999 at 01:53:31PM -0700, Bill Studenmund wrote:
> > 
> > Unfortunatly the new CHRP-ish OF doesn't seem to like our boot.fs much.
> > I'm working on other things to try. So please get in touch when you try
> > this.
> 
>   I tried the floppy, but the Mac looks at it, spits it out, and
> then prints an unhappy Mac face, replaced by a happy Mac face
> once it finds the hard drive, at which point it goes into
> MacOS.  The machines in question have Zip drives also, if that
> would be more likely to work -- point me to an image of a working
> port-powerpc Zip disk image, and I can dd it on to a Zip disk
> from a Linux box, and boot that way, right?

Oops. Rule 1 of unix-on-powermac: you need to be in open firmware to
override the OF boot process. :-)

Hold down command (the clover leaf), option, O, and F when booting. Like
RIGHT at power-up. If you get a gray screen (and especially if it makes
MacOS faces at you),  you weren't fast enough.

>From there try boot fd:0   or maybe boot:1,%boot.

>   The G4-based systems are like the blue-and-white/clear G3 ones,
> and we also have a G4 system like the beige G3 ones, if that
> helps y'all identify the capabilities of the systems.  I was told
> they are similar to the iMac.  Hopefully those statements don't
> contradict each other....

>From the point of view of firmware, they do. :-) But if they're "similar
to the iMac," then they have a chance of being ok. :-)

Take care,

Bill