[Sheflug] Booting Linux on "Old world" Macs

[James Wallbank <james [at] xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello All,

Are any of the assembled company dab hands with installing Linux on
Macintoshes?

Here at Access Space we've recovered a load of G3's (233 mHz, but they
run far faster than the equivalent Intel Chip because they're PPC chips
- maybe they're the equivalent of 400-500 mHz boxes, so worth messing
with!).

Anyway, we have no O/S on them at the moment, and while it legitimate to
install the version of MacOS that they were supplied with (but no apps)
some bright spark said "Why not install Linux?". I heartily agree.

However, these Macs just won't boot a Linux PPC install CD. They will
boot MacOS CDs. I *think* that much more of the boot process is
contained in firmware than with a regular PC, but I really don't know
what's happening.

I *think* that the Mac BIOS loads the Mac Filesystem handler from
firmware, which then MUST go to a Mac format partition and find the OS
to boot... So effectively, the filesystem of the boot partition is fixed
in the BIOS.

Is this right? Do we really HAVE TO install Macs as dual boot? I just
want to get Linux on 'em, not an old version of MacOS cluttering up H/D
space!

Any ideas?

Thanks,

James
___________________________________________________________________

Sheffield Linux User's Group -
http://www.sheflug.co.uk/mailfaq.html

  GNU the choice of a complete generation.