can't boot ubuntu powerpc 10.04 on a ppc mac without broken internal CD/DVD drive

9876543210 · 08-23-2010, 02:18 PM

I can't boot Ubuntu powerPC 10.04 from a exterla CD/DVD drive on a PowerPC mac that has a broken internal CD/DVD drive. If I hold down the OPTION key it shows me a list of bootable drives. It shows my hard drive and a CD icon with a tux icon next to it. I click the cd icon and then click the go arrow. The screen turns black and it loads the list of bootable devices again but, the icons are all black after it reloaded the list and I can't click on any of them.

9876543210 · 08-23-2010, 02:23 PM

I also tried "blessing" the device with the command bless --device Ubuntu_PowerPC_lucid and the computer responded with: can't determin if Ubuntu_PowerPC_lucid is RAID.

frieza · 08-23-2010, 02:42 PM

just a question but how old IS the powerpc mac in question, is it a g3, g4, g5, pre G3? some older G3 macs and prior are what are called 'oldworld' macs that require a bare minimum install of mac os 9 and a boot program called BOOTX to run, not sure if that is true in your case or not

edit: also you might try 'blessing' the partition (/dev/sdXx) or the raw device (/dev/sdX) where X is the device (eg /dev/sda) and x is the partition number (eg /dev/sda1)

9876543210 · 08-23-2010, 04:12 PM

My computer is a PowerMac6,1, BootROM 4.6.8f4, with 1 processor, PowerPC G4.

9876543210 · 08-23-2010, 07:52 PM

I recently installed Ubuntu on a USB drive using another Mac to boot on the other computer. I booted from the USB drive and it some text showed up that said:

Welcome to the Ubuntu bootstrap
I boot GNU/Linux
c boot from CD rom
x boot OS X
default boot 1 :

Then I pressed enter and the computer showed a white screen with a no icon. How can I prevent this?