Arch Linux

e1fjl

Member

Registered: 2009-07-30

Posts: 13

No keyboard in Open Firmware on PPC [SOLVED]

Hi all,

I'm trying to install ArchPPC on a Power Mac G5. The CD boots fine and takes me to an Open Firmware prompt which asks me to type mac-boot to continue, however my USB keyboard doesn't seem to work. I've not really worked with a PPC system before but googling has told me to reset nvram and other bits but that didn't help. Just wondering if anyone had come upon this problem before and whether there's a fix.

The keyboard is an apple one and I've tried others but none work

Any suggestions are appreciated!

Last edited by e1fjl (2010-12-07 10:27:03)

e1fjl

Member

Registered: 2009-07-30

Posts: 13

Re: No keyboard in Open Firmware on PPC [SOLVED]

Ignore above. I was launching the arch image instead of arch64. I have a new problem however. After a successful installation I've altered my yaboot.conf in accordance with This Post adding "_64" to both the image= and initrd= lines. When I reboot I get an error exactly the same as post #7 here however that post is marked as solved due to an update.

I'm a bit lost as to the cause of this error or any potential fixes.

Has anyone had any similar issues?

Last edited by e1fjl (2010-12-06 18:05:43)

e1fjl

Member

Registered: 2009-07-30

Posts: 13

Re: No keyboard in Open Firmware on PPC [SOLVED]

For anyone who comes across this post whilst trying to get a G5 to work this is what I did to solve the problem:

To boot from the cd initially type "arch64 nomodeset" at the yaboot prompt

All the other errors I faced were with the yaboot config. When you install the boot loader as part of the normal setup process you will be shown the yaboot.conf file.

To get mine working I used this as my device line:

device=hd:

I added this line:

ofboot=hd:

Then changed the image= lines to /boot/vmlinux26_64
And the initrd= lines to /boot/kernel26_64.img

Also added append="nomodeset" underneath partition=3 on both boot profiles

Hope that helps someone in the future!