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[tickmike]

I had an old 'I-Mac' (G3, Blue & white case, made in 1998) computer off freecycle the other week. (and yet again it was full of personal data, letters ,emails etc. )

As anyone ever got one to run off Linux, I do not think they use a boot loader so there is no 'Bios'
I can not get any response by pressing the 'apple key' or 'C' when it's booting to change onto CD booting first.

Any help please.

[roseway]

I've no experience with any sort of Mac, but does this help at all: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/apple-desktops/63944-imac-g3-will-not-boot-cd-help.html

[tickmike]

Thanks Eric .
From the link and other links I found I have to press a small button on the side and then turn on the computer and I get to a 'Prompt' screen, if I put ...
> dev / ls     you'll get a list of devices, but its too long how can I display one page at a time ?.

[asbokid]

When you press 'C' immediately after the startup chime can you tell whether the CD drive is spinning up?

Do the other startup key combinations work? [1]

Is the CD image you burned any good? 

The CDR might be readable on the drive it was burned but maybe the Mac's CD drive is worn out, or finicky about CDRs.

It is a common problem with older CD drives, not just on Macs. [2]    The CD drive in the Sun UltraSparc 10/20 which is about the same vintage, cannot read CDRs or CDRWs at all.

One option is install bootp/tftp servers on your PC so you can boot the iMac over ethernet, and then do a 'netinstall' to its hard disk  [3]

Debian is usually the best Linux distro for supporting non-x86 architectures.

Good luck 

cheers, a

[1] http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1533
[2] http://www.applefritter.com/node/17766
[3] http://agentoss.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/ubuntu-12-04-precise-pangolin-on-imac-g3-powerpc/

[asbokid]

Thanks Eric .
From the link and other links I found I have to press a small button the turn on the computer and I get to a 'Prompt' screen, if I put ...
> dev / ls     you'll get a list of devices, but its too long how can I display one page at a time ?.

Apple Open Firmware is apparently another name for Sun OpenBoot.. [1][2]

cheers, a

[1] http://www.firmworks.com/QuickRef.html
[2] http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/arch_boot.html

[tickmike]

Hi.
It seems that I was not pressing 'C' for long enough while booting  , The Debian disk I burn't seems to be doing something, I have now go to find out what.

Edit.. It started loading the kernel but ran out of space, so I have to look for a larger hard drive .

[burakkucat]

I applaud your efforts in attempting to give a new life to discarded vintage equipment.

Please keep us updated with the progress.

[tickmike]

Thanks for the useful links

[tickmike]

I have Debian Wheezy/sid installed, how do I get to the desktop.
It boots to a single user login
I have tried  'startx'  but it does not work.
?

[asbokid]

I have Debian Wheezy/sid installed, how do I get to the desktop.
It boots to a single user login
I have tried  'startx'  but it does not work?

Debian wheezy is installed on the PC or the new iMac?

Have you installed the X server and a display manager (kdm/gdm), etc?   What happens when you run startx?  It's normally just a shell script.  What error message is reported?

cheers, a

[tickmike]

I have Debian Wheezy/sid installed, how do I get to the desktop.
It boots to a single user login
I have tried  'startx'  but it does not work?

Debian wheezy is installed on the PC or the new iMac?

Have you installed the X server and a display manager (kdm/gdm), etc?   What happens when you run startx?  It's normally just a shell script.  What error message is reported?

cheers, a

re.. "Debian wheezy is installed on the PC or the new iMac?"       =iMac
I have never used Debian before, is it a distro where you install the base  kernel and then install what ever ?.
re..."What happens when you run startx? "   command not found

Late last night I did try from root   'apt-get install gnome-session'   it took age's to install but like you say I have not installed anything else .
What is the syntax to install x server ?

[roseway]

What Debian ISO did you actually use for the installation? There are many different variants, and they have many installation options. The normal default installation will install a Gnome desktop and an appropriate X server. It sometimes happens that the installed X server doesn't work, in which case you will end up with a text login, but there should be some error messages to indicate what happened.

But it's also possible to install a minimal text-only version, which may be what you did. In this case, in addition to the gnome-session package you will need to install the packages xorg and gdm3:

Code: [Select]

apt-get update
apt-get install xorg gdm3

[tickmike]

What Debian ISO did you actually use for the installation?

But it's also possible to install a minimal text-only version, which may be what you did. In this case, in addition to the gnome-session package you will need to install the packages xorg and gdm3:

Code: [Select]

apt-get update
apt-get install xorg gdm3

It was an net install iso I burn't to a disc and it installed Debian wheezy
uname -r = 3.2.0-1 powerpc

I put your above code in then after did startx, the hard drive made a few noises then just get black screen. 

Edit .... I re-booted but just get black screen , can not get to single user log in or promt 

[roseway]

It sounds as though your X server isn't working correctly - maybe it's trying to start with an invalid resolution or something like that. This is going to need some serious diagnosis which is probably beyond my capabilities. The Debian forum is at http://forums.debian.net but be warned - they can be a bit unforgiving towards people who have failed to search the forum first to see if their question is answered.

[tickmike]

I did a re-install and got it to run 'Debian Wheezy' base, I can now get to a single user 'prompt' again.

Does Debian support a PC emulator called 'qemu'  ?, if so how do I load it on the mac ?.


I have been working with a small footprint PCLinux distro and was going to try and get it working on the mac via a emulator.