Arch Linux

atuin

Member

Registered: 2010-11-03

Posts: 4

Arch PPC failure on yaboot

Today i installed arch-ppc on an iBook G4 (ppc).
It seems that the installation was fine until the yaboot process, i got some problems related to of paths, after 'googling' about yaboot i installed it manually. My problem now is that when i boot the laptop i got the yaboot menu selection ('l', 'x' or 'c'), but choosing 'i' or 'x' gives me a blank white screen and the systems seems to be hung.
Now to boot macosx i need to press 'alt' key when booting and choose the macosx folder, or to move directly the MacosX partition before the Bootstrap one (where yaboot was installed).
I can´t try my arch system becouse i can´t boot into it.

These are my yaboot.conf and my partition scheme:

yaboot.conf:
----------------
boot=/dev/sda2
device=/disk@0:
partition=6
delay=10
timeout=40
install=/usr/lib/yaboot/yaboot
magicboot=/usr/lib/yaboot/ofboot
macosx=/dev/sda4
enablecdboot
image=/boot/vmlinux26
        label=Linux
        root=/dev/sda6
        initrd=/boot/kernel26.img
        read-only
        partition=6

Partition scheme:
----------------------
/dev/sda1    Apple_partition_map   Apple                    Partition map
/dev/sda2    Apple_Bootstrap          bootstrap              NewWorld bootblock
/dev/sda3    Apple_Boot                  eXternal booter    Unknow
/dev/sda4    Apple_HFS                  Apple_HFS_1      HFS  <--- partition with main volume for macosx
/dev/sda5    Apple_HFS                  Apple_HFS_2      HFS
/dev/sda6    Apple_UFS                  Apple_HFS_3      Unknow   <--- partition with linux
/dev/sda7    Apple_Free
/dev/sda8    Apple_Free
/dev/sda9    Apple_Free

Does anyone have any clue about what is happening and how could i solve this?

Thanks in advance.

Last edited by atuin (2010-11-03 01:24:04)

atuin

Member

Registered: 2010-11-03

Posts: 4

Re: Arch PPC failure on yaboot

SOLVED.

The problem seemed to be in a bad behaviour in the 'ofpath' tool. ofpath tried to use devaliases paths instead the full complete open firmware path. To solve it i booted my kernel image manually from openfirmare and i added yaboot devices as real openfirmware paths.

Greets.

dmitri

Member

Registered: 2010-12-15

Posts: 1

Re: Arch PPC failure on yaboot

I tried messing around inside of OpenFirmware but was unsuccessful. I also tried uploading a patched copy of ofboot to my machine as a replacement for the faulty one. I replaced /disk@0: in my yaboot.conf file with hd: (for both the device and ofboot lines). Neither of these strategies worked out for me.

Would you mind giving the commands you used to solve the problem?

Edit: Nevermind, apparently my kernel did not install properly, and that's why Yaboot didn't see it.

Last edited by dmitri (2010-12-18 03:12:50)