[plug] Mac expert anyone?

[Steve Boak]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 08:58, you wrote:
> I ahve a few macs lieing around with the intention the get linux on them.
> Some with cd drives and some without. The MAC that I have that is similar
> to yours is in a non working state (I think the OS died) and unfortuntely
> the com slot is empty. Some of the other macs have network cards so it may
> be possible to use them. Can you get a photo of the com slot?
> Also can you post instuctions of were to get the boot floppies for os 8 and
> also debian. Do i install debian over the network?
> Something I've always wanted to do but never got there.
> Please post some instructions
> thanks
> Tim

OK, this will prompt me to write up what I did to get Debian onto my Mac, 
with some photos of the hardware. As far as I can tell, my installation 
(debian potato, 2.2 kernel) is good, but there is some flakiness to do with 
the FPU emulation which is killing the startup when it does an fsck. Research 
tells me that upgrading to a real 68040 will fix this, but until I get one, I 
don't know. (a 2.4 kernel might fix this too, but I haven't got that far yet).

First, the most helpful site: http://www.mac.linux-m68k.org/

I used xhfs (apt-get the hfsutils and hfsutils-tcltk packages) to create 
mac-format floppies to transfer files as my mac doesn't have a network card 
and I didn't work out how to build a serial adapter for ppp connection to my 
linux box. It should also work to make the OS disks below (I hope)! 

Mac OS 7.5.3 floppy images (19 floppies) are available from 
http://www.info.apple.com/support/oldersoftwarelist.html#system which is a 
huge archive of Mac software. I haven't tested OS 7.5 this though, as the OS 
on mine works. It reports OS 7.1, but I didn't find images for that. I assume 
7.5 will work OK.

I also burned all the installation files I could think of onto a CD, which 
helped a lot. The Mac (LC575) reads standard iso9660 format CDs.

If you can get hold of a networked Mac or a modem for it you will make your 
job a lot easier. Even storing Mac files on other file systems (PC or Linux) 
destroys them unless they are compressed, then you hit my problem - the .hqx 
expander is compressed in a .hqx archive, Arrrrgh! Downloading directly to 
the Mac will avoid this problem!

Hope this helps...

Steve