OS X/Linux/OS 9 Installation

J

julguribye

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PARTITIONS:

////// Mac OS 10.1.2 HFS+//////14GB
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////// Mac OS 9.2.2 HFS+////// 2GB
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////// "/swap" Virtual Memory for LinuxPPC HFS////// 128MB
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////// "/boot" Software used to boot LinuxPPC HFS////// 20MB
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////// "/" root partition HFS////// 3GB
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Will this work?
I'm doing a clean install of OS X and 9 plus LinuxPPC Q4
Also, should I install 9 then X then Linux
or
9 then Linux then X
or
Linux then 9 then X?
And, do I need the yaboot-software? The Documentation says I need the /boot partition if I use yaboot.

Anyone else had any experience with LinuxPPC?
 
I'm no expert, but I do have OS X 10.1.2, two partitions of OS 9.2.1, Suse Linux and a boot partition (more on this later), but I have two drives and that can make life a lot easier - I have Linux, the boot parition and my "backup/emergency" OS 9 partition on one drive and OS X and my Classic parition on the other.

I personally would set up all the partitions and install OS 9.2 then OS X saving the Linux for last. Regarding booting, I am using Lilo (not the same app as lilo for intel machines running linux) that came with Suse 7.3, but I only dual boot between Linux and OS X. Classic works fine for me and if I ever want to boot OS 9.x, I use Startup disk. There is a post out here somewhere on triple booting linux, OS X and OS 9 and the Suse site has a post on this in their "support" database.

This lilo that came with Suse was a breeze - after you install Linux, you edit a lilo.config file (not sure the exact name of the file) to point to your Linux / and OS X parition, run lilo, make sure Startup disk points to your boot parition and there you go! With older versions of Suse, I did use yaboot and I there was a simple script ("os.chooser"?) located on the boot parition that needs to be edited to point to your linux and OS X partitions. All the files were on the CD and I just had to copy them to the boot parition, edit the script, make it excecutable (via another little app in there) and it worked. Just keep track of your partitions: "hda9, hda11...." and know which is which.

What was amazing about getting any of this stuff to work was that it was actually quite simple, but the docs and information out there make it sound like G@d D@mn quantum physics!!! - it is truly absurd that these companies (Yellow Dog, Suse, RedHat...) don't spend a few bucks on qualified technical writers - it would probably save them thousands of hours in tech support calls. I tell you, if Apple made a *nix install, it would be much easier - hey wait a minute, they do - OS X!!! :D

Oh, be careful, you might want to have that boot parition first on the drive - I seem to recall reading something somewhere about that being important, but it may be a PC thing, but I can't imagine it would be a problem. Better safe than sorry? Also, if you want to swap files between linux and mac, you could enlargen that boot parition for holding files, but it can't be in the extended format - just plain old HFS so Linux can see it.

Good luck!
 
Thanks for all the text!:)

Do you know if SuSE 7.3 PPC is avaliable for download?
When I last checked, they only had the 7.1 version
 
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