i've got a g3 wallstreet powerbook (old world) with open firmware 2.0.1 and i'd like to get mintppc on it.

word on the street is that in order to boot from the cd, a mac os rom boot cd driver was necessary on the cd. since this is not free, it's not on the debian cd. so it sounds like what i need to do is boot from floppy. there is talk of two files needed to boot into the installer, which can then point at the cd to install from. should be easy from there. they are:

• boot-floppy-hfs.img
• root.bin

but these aren't to be found in the squeeze MANIFEST.

so i:

• can't find the necessary files
• wonder how i'd use our handy-dandy autounattend file even with said files
• am baffled how, if this is so hard, i see at least 3 other g3 installs (admittedly i see at least one had open firmware 3 which is a whole different ball of wax)

i should add two rather interesting quirks:

• the hard drive is empty (though i seem to remember partitioning it
• i have a mac os 9.2 install disc which loads, but once it hits the desktop, the computer goes into a sleep from which it cannot awaken

ideas? suggestions? questions? comments?

Maybe theos911 can help. I would PM him, so he responds faster.
Theos911 has MintPPC 9 working on a WallStreet II 300 MHz I think.

I'll need to review my notes. I need to reinstall since I got a new HDD. I can tell you that is going to be a real pain in the a$$ with no working OS 9 install. I'm not familiar with the bootloaders that do not use OS 9(quik). I use bootx.

In a nutshell: it boots OS 9 and then you tell it the partition on your HDD where it will find a bootable linux partition. You must do this the first time to boot it from the CD, and again to boot it into the environment you install.

You will also need to be sure to get CD-R. My PDQ's drive can't read regular CD-RW and I doubt yours will either.

JD: I only installed 9.2 last time, since 9.3 was just coming out. Will there be a significant difference between the two processes, or can I just point bootx to the cd as usual?

No difference, apart from the fact that you don't need to run a script anymore. MintPPC will be installed together with the Debian base at the same time.