Help installing Ubuntu

[imported_Lucifer]

I am having trouble installing Ubuntu on my Powermac G4. I went through the trouble and wrote down the entire process of what I was doing. Maybe someone can help me with the info I took down.


Process
Detect and mount CD-ROM
"Some modules accept load-time parameters to customize their operation. If you'd like, you can be prompted for module parameters as each module is loaded."

Prompt for module parameters? Yes, No

Which do I choose?

Detecting hardware to find cd rom drives
"This computer may have a PCMCIA interface. Please choose whether PC card services should be started in order to allow the use of PCMCIA cards. Start PC card services?"

My mac does not have PCMCIA slot, so I just put NO.

"Linux kernel modules needed to drive some of your hardware are not available yet. Simply proceeding with the install may make these modules available later. The unavailable modules, and the devices that need them are: d4x5 (Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21041 [Tulip Pass 3]), sungem (Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth GMAC (Sun GEM)), ide-mod (Linux IDE driver), ide-probe-mod (Linux IDE probe driver), ide-detect (Linux IDE detection), ide-generic (Linux IDE support)"

I hit continue

Scanning CD ROM

"The CD ROM autodetection was successful. The installation will now continue."

I hit continue

Ubuntu Installer main menu

I select Load installer components from CD. There are also other options, such as Change debconf priority, Check the CD ROM integrity and Execute a shell. I don't know what these are so I don't mess with them.

After choosing Load installer components from CD, it says the listed installer components all have low priority and are probably not necessary. So I don't select any of them, and I hit continue.

The Partitioner

This is where I am having trouble. I choose where I want Ubuntu to be installed. It is going to be installed on a 5.7gb partition. I set up the drive, and put the mount point as / The drive was formatted as fat32, with boot flag on. As I try to continue the install, this error comes up.

"No NewWorld boot partition was found. The yaboot load requires an Apple_Bootstrap partition at least 819200 bytes in size, using the HFS Macintosh file system. Go back to partitioning? Yes, No, Go back"

I hit NO.

It begins to install the Ubuntu Base system. As it is installing, at about 20%, these errors come up.

"The debootstrap program exited with an error. (return value 1) Check /var/log/messages or see virtual console 3 for details. Continue, go back.

I hit continue. Error #2

The base system installation into /target/ failed. Check /var/log/messages or see virtual console 3 for the details." continue, go back.

I hit go back.

"An installation step failed. You can try to run the failing item again from the menu, or skip it and choose something else. The failing step is: Install yaboot on a hard disk.." Continue

I hit continue

I am back at the ubuntu installer main menu.

menu items:
detect hardware
partition disks
install the base system
copy remaining packages to hard disk
install yaboot on a hard disk
Continue without boot loader
Finish the installation
Change debfconf priority
Save debug logs
Check the CD ROM integrity
Execute a shell

I tried Continue without boot loader, same errors
I tried Install yaboot on a hard disk, same errors
I tried finish the installation, same errors.

I have no idea what I am supposed to do. I can't get Ubuntu to install. Please help!!

Thanks! Sorry for long post, but I need help!

 

[drag]

Well not having a special boot partition is a problem.

Bootloaders work very different Mac then on x86. It would probably be worth it to read how it works. Google around.

Basicly apple has it's OS setup to be fairly dual-boot unfreindly.

Instead of a BIOS like on x86, you have a thing called OpenFirmware that allows a way to more directly interact with the hardware or whatever for configurations and such. The settings are stored in the PRAM, I think.. a ram (powered by a battery on most apples, I think) on the motherboard that stores settings like default boot and the time and date and such.

So the firmware gets configured to provide you with a menu to boot from the cdrom, OS X, or yaboot instead of making you hit 'X' or 'C' or whatever like Apple has it setup by default.

Then from Yaboot you select with a lilo-like interface for Linux to boot off of (usually just default "Linux", which you just hit enter or wait for it to time out of to get)

The reason is that I don't think the firmware is capable of booting linux or reading from the ext3 partition or visa versa. I am not sure.

But you need to have a seperate small partition for yaboot to work.

(the danger is, with all this, if yuou dualbooting OS X or OS 9 it's incapable of selecting yaboot as a the default thing to boot of off.. so if from OS X you select 'boot from cdrom next reboot' default partition setting then the changes in the firmware will be overwritten and the menu selection will not appear. Also if you zap the pram you can loose the settings. There is fairly simple way to recover, but I've forgot how to do it)


But without setting up a extra small partition just for yaboot the installer should of gone thru just fine and setup a non-bootable linux install... I think.

If you have another linux machine handy, or maybe even OS X, you can check the md5sums of the cdrom your using. Like in Linux you'd go:
md5sum /dev/cdrom
(or whatever dev file is your cdrom, like hdc or whatnot)

And it will spit out a number after a 10-15 minutes or so. That number needs to match the md5sums provided with the ubuntu iso image on the server were you downloaded it. Sometimes it's in the text file, sometimes it's just stated on the website. If you used a torrent, it should of given you a copy of the md5sums.

that way you know the iso downloaded 100% and the cdrom burned 100% well. Even then it's not unreasonable to expect that a older cdrom wouldn't be able to read a cdrom burned from a modern burner very well.

So first make a yaboot partition and test the cdrom your using with md5sum.