Fedora Core 6 Won't Boot on Macintosh G4 PPC

Eric · External Since: Apr 25, 2007 Posts: 26

I confess to knowing nothing at all that's worth knowing about Mac
computers, being a lifelong PC geek (and CP/M and OS/8 before that).

Downloaded the PPC version of the FC6 DVD ISO and installed on a Macintosh
G4 PPC. Installation went fine, but the system will not boot ... I get
the little file folder with the question mark in it which I assume means
that the computer can't find the boot sector or boot image.

After most of today spent looking for help (including large blocks of time
spent with Google), I found
http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/ibook/fedorappc.html which told me to use
"yabootconfig -r /dev/hda2 -b /dev/hda1 --kernel /boot/vmlinuz-* --initrd
/boot/initrd-*" where /dev/hda2 is my root partition and /dev/hda1 is some
kind of Apple-specific boot partition.

Tried that (by first booting the system using the FC6 PPC "Rescue" CD,
which worked), and yabootconfig ran without errors.

Tried to reboot and still get the little file folder with the "?" in the
middle.

I remember that, unlike i386 installs, the installer never asked me where
I wanted to put the boot loader... I assumed it just loaded it into The
Right Place (but, maybe not...).

I'm sure this question has been asked many times but as I said I couldn't
find the "right" answers on google or dejanews.

Any assistance gratefully appreciated...

ewood · Joined: Nov 23, 2007 Posts: 3

Now, why is this bit separate from the other discussion about this topic? As I replied there, I've just started having the very same problem on my own G4 (Digital Audio). It used to run Fedora 7 and 8 just fine, but after my most recent switch back to Tiger (after the sound got messed up) I have been unable to boot a new Fedora installation. I also get no options if I hold option at boot. The yaboot screen for selecting what to boot (l for Fedora, c for CDROM, etc.) has come up, but then that just leads right back to the blinking question mark.

My own configuration has a SATA PCI card, and I thought at first it had something to do with that (even though it had worked with that card just fine in the past) so I tried popping a PATA drive in. No change. The only thing I haven't tried at this point is using only PATA, but since it was set to boot from that drive when I tried it together with the SATA (so that the bootstrap was on the PATA), I doubt it would help me.

As I said in the other thread, it seems that Fedora Linux, G4 Macs and guys named Eric just don't mix.