Dear all.

I am going to attempt to install Linux (probably Ubuntu) onto an 500GB USB external hard drive. I was wondering what my boot options where as i am installing on to a powermac G5 that uses open firmware.

From the boot menu, i dont have the option to boot to USB(like i can from firewire, CD or Internal HD) though i have found this page;


http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...60301112336384

this enables me to boot from usb and works fine with Mac Os X (as i had to do this to boot from a usb stick i installed the os on when doing a spot of data recovery) but i´m not sure if it would boot into linux cleanly. I'm also unsure as to wether in instalation i'd need to install yaboot or not, and if not wether this is actualy an option o n the install cd.

Any info on whether anybody had installed a similar system, had any experience installing onto open firmware for an external Usb hard drive booting system or just any general knowledge about linux on open firmware would be great.

Many, Many Thanks in advance.


DC

You may need to list the drives. G3 doesn't have the boot from external but I believe the G4 and G5 do.

Which model do you have?

I saw it, yeah, it's right.
I have a G3 and when I did run Linux on it, it was Debian. That one is more up to date.
Ubuntu doesn't officially support PowerPC now.
Your other options are:
a) Fedora which is a bit iffy.
b) Gentoo works but takes time
c) Yellowdog I have no idea
d) Slackintosh I have no idea
And the BSDs
e) OpenBSD definitely works
f) NetBSD takes work
g) FreeBSD works but you will need to use experimental, developer and snapshot for this.

Debian, b, e, g will definitely work. Debian and OpenBSD with no problem.
You can follow this guide: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=20481 to help you out. It will guide you, give you xorg, and introduce you to a BSD install.

so that would mean then theoretically that i wouldn't have to install yaboot then?

Many thanks
DC

Depends. Are you putting it on its own drive? Might be the better way to go.
For Linux, yes, because Open firmware won't directly boot anything besides hfs unless you have a direct boot option. Shared disk but may be a headache.
OpenBSD has
Dedicated disk
FreeBSD requires you to
and then it boots.Dedicated disk
OpenBSD is the only one that doesn't require an hfs bot partition but it does need theDOS/FAT mbr section. .
Go through that howto or you can follow the FreeBSD one- a bit more work.
OpenBSD is easier. If you try that option and get stuck, let me know.