Very Computer

> I've got a loaded PCP180 and I got Mandrake to install via BootX just
> fine but I'm not able to get it to boot up afterwards.  Any one had luck
> with this?  I've tried all the different kernels and initrds on the CD,
> no luck.

> It boots up to the pivot root and then complains about not finding a
> root.  Anyway to get the initrd off of the root under MacOS?  This is my
> first Linux on oldworld mac experiment

> thanks,
> Ian

>>I've got a loaded PCP180 and I got Mandrake to install via BootX just
>>fine but I'm not able to get it to boot up afterwards.  Any one had luck
>>with this?  I've tried all the different kernels and initrds on the CD,
>>no luck.

>>It boots up to the pivot root and then complains about not finding a
>>root.  Anyway to get the initrd off of the root under MacOS?  This is my
>>first Linux on oldworld mac experiment

>>thanks,
>>Ian

> which mood you're in you'll appreciate in diverse manners the last
> paragraph of the README.txt document located in the "Mandrake Linux
> Install" folder that you obtained after extracting the .sit archives. It
> reads:

> <<..Because there is a wide range of possible disk controllers, as well as
> various other pieces of hardware, it's possible this initrd may not have
> all the modules needed for your particular machine.  The course of action
> in this case is to boot the CD in "rescue" mode and retrieve the initrd
> created in /boot during the system install, and move it over to MacOS,
> either via a network connection or a shared "hfs" partition...>>

> Which you can relate to the following paragraph from the CD-ROM
> doc/mandrake-ppc.html document:

> <...This kernel and initrd will correspond to the kernel installed by Drakx,
> and the initrd contains the drivers for the integrated "mesh" and
> "mac53c94" SCSI drivers that are fairly common on "OldWorld" macs. If you
> upgrade your kernel at some point, you'll need to copy the vmlinuz and
> initrd images to the MacOS side to be able to boot the system with the new
> kernel. Some users find using a shared HFS format partition helps
> facilitate moving things back and forth between MacOS and Linux...>>

> Unless you've already installed various distros on old world mac, it takes
> some stamina to think about reading both documents and mentally merging
> them because, with Mdk 9.1, the policy is too have a "lean" kernel and pack
> stuff into the initrd. As if saving 900K was crucial on those old Macs that
> people most of the times upgraded with tons of memory.

> Hence the "...find using...helps facilitate..." becomes "IF YOU DON'T WANT
> TO BE SCREWED MAKE F...ING SURE YOU HAVE THAT G..DAMN HFS STANDARD
> PARTITION AVAILABLE...". But maybe they did not want to put that on a CD.

> This being said, assuming that you did install correctly the thing and your
> problem is in fact to get the "inaccessible" initrd to your MacOS BootX
> environment, you've got the following options:

> - Boot the install or rescue (whatever) again, until you get a kernel
> running (*)
> - Mount your installed root one way or another
> - If you do have an HFS standard (not extended) partition, mount it too
> - Copy the initrd to that HFS standard partition
> - Reboot in MacOS and use that copy as ram disk image

> (*) If rescue does not do what it's supposed to do and as long as the
> installer shows its first graphic screen, you've got a kernel running, so
> Ctrl-Alt-F2 will give you a prompt where you can mount your installed
> system and the HFS standard partition on /mnt subdirectories.

> If you do not have an HFS standard partition that you can mount but have
> other networked machines, try rcp, scp, ftp or whatever depending on their
> availability and then rapatriate the initrd to your mac. Other solution:
> you've got a spared drive somewhere, connect it to the mac, create an HFS
> standard partition. Desperate final solution: reinstall the whole thing
> (MacOS, Mdk 9.1) after reformatting your drive(s) so that one of them has
> at least an HFS standard partition.