Mailing List Archive

On 08/25/10 20:31, Mark Knecht wrote:
> I was going to download a new iso today. My old PowerPC Mac Mini needs
> to be rebuilt and it's so far out of date I figured I'd just do it
> from scratch. Anyway, it seems that all the other architectures have
> fairly recent iso image dates while the PowerPC seems to be a year
> old.
>
> http://mirrors.kernel.org/gentoo/releases/ppc/autobuilds/current-iso/
>
> Or maybe this is just a date problem on the files or something.
>
> - Mark
>
>
No, it's my fault. I've been meaning to fix the autobuilds for PowerPC,
but I completely forgot that they were broken. I'll look into it this
weekend.

The hardware hasn't really changed much though, it should be fine to
boot with the latest CD there and use the current stage to install. The
stages themselves should be up to date.

-Joe

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 4:02 PM, Joseph Jezak <josejx@gentoo.org> wrote:
>  On 08/25/10 20:31, Mark Knecht wrote:
>> I was going to download a new iso today. My old PowerPC Mac Mini needs
>> to be rebuilt and it's so far out of date I figured I'd just do it
>> from scratch. Anyway, it seems that all the other architectures have
>> fairly recent iso image dates while the PowerPC seems to be a year
>> old.
>>
>> http://mirrors.kernel.org/gentoo/releases/ppc/autobuilds/current-iso/
>>
>> Or maybe this is just a date problem on the files or something.
>>
>> - Mark
>>
>>
> No, it's my fault. I've been meaning to fix the autobuilds for PowerPC,
> but I completely forgot that they were broken. I'll look into it this
> weekend.
>
> The hardware hasn't really changed much though, it should be fine to
> boot with the latest CD there and use the current stage to install. The
> stages themselves should be up to date.
>
> -Joe

Hi Joe,
Thanks very much for the answer. In my case it looks like I'm sorry
I woke you up. I tried the most recent 2009 CD as well as the 2007 CD
I built the machine with the first time. Looks like this Mac Mini has
gone down hard - bad disk at least, possibly bad memory. I'm not sure
it's worth my effort to fix it as it's so very slow.

Anyway, I appreciate the answer and wish you all the best. Thanks
for your efforts.

Cheers,
Mark

If it's just going to be sitting in a closet collecting Apple-dust, then I'd
say yes, it's certainly worth the extra effort.

:P

--
#Terin Stock



On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 8:16 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 4:02 PM, Joseph Jezak <josejx@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > On 08/25/10 20:31, Mark Knecht wrote:
> >> I was going to download a new iso today. My old PowerPC Mac Mini needs
> >> to be rebuilt and it's so far out of date I figured I'd just do it
> >> from scratch. Anyway, it seems that all the other architectures have
> >> fairly recent iso image dates while the PowerPC seems to be a year
> >> old.
> >>
> >> http://mirrors.kernel.org/gentoo/releases/ppc/autobuilds/current-iso/
> >>
> >> Or maybe this is just a date problem on the files or something.
> >>
> >> - Mark
> >>
> >>
> > No, it's my fault. I've been meaning to fix the autobuilds for PowerPC,
> > but I completely forgot that they were broken. I'll look into it this
> > weekend.
> >
> > The hardware hasn't really changed much though, it should be fine to
> > boot with the latest CD there and use the current stage to install. The
> > stages themselves should be up to date.
> >
> > -Joe
>
> Hi Joe,
> Thanks very much for the answer. In my case it looks like I'm sorry
> I woke you up. I tried the most recent 2009 CD as well as the 2007 CD
> I built the machine with the first time. Looks like this Mac Mini has
> gone down hard - bad disk at least, possibly bad memory. I'm not sure
> it's worth my effort to fix it as it's so very slow.
>
> Anyway, I appreciate the answer and wish you all the best. Thanks
> for your efforts.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
>
>

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 10:27 PM, Terin Stock <terinstock@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> If it's just going to be sitting in a closet collecting Apple-dust, then I'd
> say yes, it's certainly worth the extra effort.
> :P
> --
> #Terin Stock
>

Worse - it would likely just go in the trash. You can buy these things
on Ebay sometimes as low as $50 so I was just thinking it didn't make
a lot of sense to spend time and money on it, but that's not a good
attitude so maybe I should give it a try.

I'll ask some questions in this thread. If I need to create another
then I'll do that.

BACKGROUND: I'm primarily an x86 Gentoo user since 1999. I'm a
hardware guy and not an IT guy and don't have _any_ sys admin
background other than managing my own Gentoo boxes. I'm familiar with
the distro from the sense of keeping my machines running after using
Gentoo for a decade. I know NOTHING about Apple machines. I do audio
recording and bought the Mac to play with Apple OS X apps but grew
tired of OS X pretty quickly and started using this machine as a
MythTV backend server a few years ago.

STATUS: The machine starts booting, the kernel comes up and runs
through and it starts initializing all the services and what not.
(Where it says either [OK] or [!!]. ) It gets to 'Checking root
filesystem ... ' and then fails with a 'superblock could not be read'
message. I tried the suggest e2fsck -b 8193 command but that didn't
work. It's never worked for me.

Since I was going to do a complete machine rebuild anyway - I haven't
touched it in quite awhile as I didn't want to update Myth - I thought
I'd try using a new CD. (the reason I started this thread.) When
booting from either 2008 or 2009 CD I get the boot screen. If I hit
enter I get a message about ramdisk loading and then

Invalid memory address at SRR0:0197a930 SRR1:00083030

but is also says

Apple PowerMac 1-,2.4.9.4f0 BootROM built on 7/6/05

Welcome to Open Firmware

To continue booting type mac-boot
ok
>

If I try mac-boot it just hangs at:

"Loading second stage bootstrap..."


Now this page

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-ppc.xml

doesn't even mention the Mac Mini so I'm guessing it's part of the New
World class of machines. The instructions suggest:

boot: apple video=ofonly

but I get a message

cd:2,apple: Unknown or corrupt filesystem

So, am I doing something wrong trying to boot from the CD or is the
machine somehow not working correctly?

Thanks,
Mark

On 08/27/10 12:19, Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 10:27 PM, Terin Stock <terinstock@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> If it's just going to be sitting in a closet collecting Apple-dust, then I'd
>> say yes, it's certainly worth the extra effort.
>> :P
>> --
>> #Terin Stock
>>
> Worse - it would likely just go in the trash. You can buy these things
> on Ebay sometimes as low as $50 so I was just thinking it didn't make
> a lot of sense to spend time and money on it, but that's not a good
> attitude so maybe I should give it a try.
>
> I'll ask some questions in this thread. If I need to create another
> then I'll do that.
>
> BACKGROUND: I'm primarily an x86 Gentoo user since 1999. I'm a
> hardware guy and not an IT guy and don't have _any_ sys admin
> background other than managing my own Gentoo boxes. I'm familiar with
> the distro from the sense of keeping my machines running after using
> Gentoo for a decade. I know NOTHING about Apple machines. I do audio
> recording and bought the Mac to play with Apple OS X apps but grew
> tired of OS X pretty quickly and started using this machine as a
> MythTV backend server a few years ago.
>
> STATUS: The machine starts booting, the kernel comes up and runs
> through and it starts initializing all the services and what not.
> (Where it says either [OK] or [!!]. ) It gets to 'Checking root
> filesystem ... ' and then fails with a 'superblock could not be read'
> message. I tried the suggest e2fsck -b 8193 command but that didn't
> work. It's never worked for me.
>
> Since I was going to do a complete machine rebuild anyway - I haven't
> touched it in quite awhile as I didn't want to update Myth - I thought
> I'd try using a new CD. (the reason I started this thread.) When
> booting from either 2008 or 2009 CD I get the boot screen. If I hit
> enter I get a message about ramdisk loading and then
>
> Invalid memory address at SRR0:0197a930 SRR1:00083030
>
> but is also says
>
> Apple PowerMac 1-,2.4.9.4f0 BootROM built on 7/6/05
>
> Welcome to Open Firmware
>
> To continue booting type mac-boot
> ok
> If I try mac-boot it just hangs at:
>
> "Loading second stage bootstrap..."
>
>
> Now this page
>
> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-ppc.xml
>
> doesn't even mention the Mac Mini so I'm guessing it's part of the New
> World class of machines. The instructions suggest:
>
> boot: apple video=ofonly
>
> but I get a message
>
> cd:2,apple: Unknown or corrupt filesystem
>
> So, am I doing something wrong trying to boot from the CD or is the
> machine somehow not working correctly?
>
> Thanks,
> Mark
>
>
I think the kernel might have gotten renamed, but missed in the
documentation. Please try using ppc32 instead of apple. I suspect it's
trying to boot a 64 bit kernel instead of the 32 bit one.

-Joe

On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Joseph Jezak <josejx@gentoo.org> wrote:
>  On 08/27/10 12:19, Mark Knecht wrote:
>> On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 10:27 PM, Terin Stock <terinstock@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>> If it's just going to be sitting in a closet collecting Apple-dust, then I'd
>>> say yes, it's certainly worth the extra effort.
<SNIP>
>>
>>
> I think the kernel might have gotten renamed, but missed in the
> documentation. Please try using ppc32 instead of apple. I suspect it's
> trying to boot a 64 bit kernel instead of the 32 bit one.
>
> -Joe

Thanks Joe. That worked fine with the most recent 2009 install CD. It
would be good if someone reading could add the Mac Mini to one of the
lists of supported machines and update the docs to explain this a bit
more.

I can now see the old partition and fsck ran cleanly. (I think...)

livecd ~ # mac-fdisk /dev/hda

/dev/hda
Command (? for help): Command (? for help): p
/dev/hda
# type name length base
( size ) system
/dev/hda1 Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1
( 31.5k) Partition map
/dev/hda2 Apple_Bootstrap bootstrap 1600 @ 64
(800.0k) NewWorld bootblock
/dev/hda3 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 swap 2097152 @ 1664
( 1.0G) Linux swap
/dev/hda4 Apple_UNIX_SVR2 root 154202672 @
2098816 ( 73.5G) Linux native

Block size=512, Number of Blocks=156301488
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0

Command (? for help): q
livecd ~ # fsck -t ext3 /dev/hda4
fsck 1.40.4 (31-Dec-2007)
e2fsck 1.40.4 (31-Dec-2007)
/dev/hda4: clean, 352751/9650176 files, 16137329/19275334 blocks
livecd ~ #

Now, when I try rebooting with the current hard drive installation I get to

* Checking root filesystem...
fsck.ext3: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/hda4
/dev/hda4:
The superblock could not be read or does not describe........

Where does this suggest the problem might be? The partition is 'good'
when I boot from the CD but bad when I boot from the current kernel?
Strange to me.

Anyway, if it's hard to fix no big deal. At least if I can read it
using the CD then I can copy anything I need off and just do a new
install, assuming there isn't anything really had happening with the
hard drive.

Thanks,
Mark