iMac DV and BootX

iMac DV and BootX

[John Buswell]

hey,

I have a new iMac DV for a few days now and I've been trying to get it to
boot Linux. I think I have narrowed the problem down to something wrong
with BootX. Using BootX 1.2b (in debug mode), I get as far as Exiting
BootX! message, then it clears the screen, but does not produce the
booting... message, it just sits there with a nice blank screen while
still remaining powered up. I had someone try this on an iMac Rev.B and it
produces lots of debug information after the booting.

Does anyone have any ideas why? (or better still, someone with a better
idea of how bootX works that might have some suggestions).

There is a PICT screen shot of the last screen in BootX before the blank
screen, available from:

ftp.one.net/pub/users/johnb/screenshot.gz

there is also a file there called imacdv.tgz with a complete dump from
name display registry.. 

i'm hoping to get this working soon as i need the imac booting for a
college project :)

thanks

John Buswell
4th Year IT&T Student
University of Limerick


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Re: iMac DV and BootX

[Hollis R Blanchard]

John Buswell wrote:
> 
> hey,
> 
> I have a new iMac DV for a few days now and I've been trying to get it to
> boot Linux. I think I have narrowed the problem down to something wrong
> with BootX. Using BootX 1.2b (in debug mode), I get as far as Exiting
> BootX! message, then it clears the screen, but does not produce the
> booting... message, it just sits there with a nice blank screen while
> still remaining powered up. I had someone try this on an iMac Rev.B and it
> produces lots of debug information after the booting.
> 
> Does anyone have any ideas why? (or better still, someone with a better
> idea of how bootX works that might have some suggestions).
> 
> There is a PICT screen shot of the last screen in BootX before the blank
> screen, available from:
> 
> ftp.one.net/pub/users/johnb/screenshot.gz
> 
> there is also a file there called imacdv.tgz with a complete dump from
> name display registry..
> 
> i'm hoping to get this working soon as i need the imac booting for a
> college project :)

Well, there's some bad news... the new iMac, the iBook, and the Sawtooth
G4's cannot currently run Linux.

A developer has made a lot of progress with an iBook, though. Since
they're based on the same motherboard, that helps with the iMac DV's and
the Sawtooth G4's, but neither of those machines will able to do much
for a while I think. (http://www.linuxppc.org/hardware is pretty clear
about that.)

Of course, if you're curious you might try out the iBook kernel from
http://calvaweb.calvacom.fr/bh40/test.html. It would be interesting to
see how far it gets on an iMac DV.

-Hollis

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Re: iMac DV and BootX

[John Buswell]

On Wed, 27 Oct 1999, Hollis R Blanchard wrote:

> Well, there's some bad news... the new iMac, the iBook, and the Sawtooth
> G4's cannot currently run Linux.

afaik. BenH has got the iBook to boot.

> Of course, if you're curious you might try out the iBook kernel from
> http://calvaweb.calvacom.fr/bh40/test.html. It would be interesting to
> see how far it gets on an iMac DV.

a few steps ahead of you here :) I've been messing with Ben's patches,
various kernels and different BootX/MacOS configurations on the iMac DV.
The problem appears to be that the iMac is not getting past the first
stage of the BootX boot. I ran bootx 1.2b in debug mode and it gets as far
as blanking the screen, on a rev.b imac this then throws up the booting
message, debug info and continues with the boot. Even without proper
kernel support, with video=ofonly the thing should boot with at least the
booting message before dying, this just blanks screen, hdd powers down (or
at least sounds like that). Now the iMac (first generation) without video=
or no video driver ticked in bootX would give a blank screen and power
down the monitor, but would still boot (you'd just be blind) :) this isn't
doing that.. just blank screen.. which (after a few days) has lead me to
think it might have something to do with something lacking or needing to
be changed in BootX.


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