[plug] linux on an imac

[Tomasz Grzegurzko]

On 8/21/06, Gavin Chester <sales at ecosolutions.com.au> wrote:
> I know there are some mac fiends ;-) on this list, so I thought I'd
> ask ...
>
> I know nothing about imacs but was just given one with a dead hard drive
> to play with.  I was surprised to find that the drive in this imac is a
> standard 6GB IDE, so I popped an identical drive in and tried to get an
> install happening.
>
> I have found howtos on installing linux on imacs, such as these:
>
> http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/powerpc/
>
> I also found this guide useful and directly relevant:
>
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~fgalli/imac-linux-7.0+7.3.html
> "Installing Linux on a iMac (SuSE 7.0)"
>
>         and this one:
> http://www.lowendmac.com/stotler/06/0731.html
> "The Ins and Outs of Booting Linux on the Mac"
> ""New World" Macs started with the colored iMacs and include all the
> Power Macs since the Blue & White G3s and the Lombard PowerBooks. These
> machines are able to boot a Linux install CD directly and are able to
> boot directly into Linux. They don't have to have the Mac OS installed."
>
> Even though the last guide above suggests that a blank hard drive should
> be okay, I seem to be getting nowhere.  The install CD is just not seen
> by the imac even when I try the trick of using the key combo of 'apple
> +alt+o+f' to supposedly access the 'open firmware' (mac bios).  That
> does nothing for my imac - I just get a small mac icon in the middle of
> the screen flashing alternately with a question mark :-(.
>
> Anyone been successful with _any_ flavour of linux on a 1998-vintage
> imac with NO mac software available?  Could you please point me to a
> howto?  Thanks.
>
> Gavin.
>
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>
I've just nabbed one of these. All you should need to do is hold "C"
on boot. I've tried to install Linux on these but cannot get past the
bootloaders in testing versions of Gentoo (haven't tried stable I'll
admit).

The icon you're seeing is stating "Can't find boot device".

Tomasz