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mddublin - May 30, 2007 - 8:01 pm

How should I partition the hard drive on my bondi blue so that I can installing Linux? Disk Utilities gives you many Linux options for partitioning, not sure which one is correct. Also, does anyone have any suggestions for which Linux distro I should install? Nothing seems to work even though I'm burning disc images as suggested by Linux sites.

Thanks

GrantG - May 31, 2007 - 5:45 am

Ext 3 is a nice option for Linux partitions. You'll need a minimum of a swap partition (usually the same size as your ram) and an ext3 partition (the rest of the disk) to install most distros.

I'd consider going for a distro that gives some automatic options for partitioning during the installation process. Ubuntu makes a nice ppc version for older macs. The installer is quite simple and makes the process very simple.

mddublin - May 31, 2007 - 3:06 pm

Thanks for your response.

I don't see any option when booting from the OS9 disk to partition with Ext 3. What is that exactly? All that's there are options for various partition numbers and Mac OS UFS and few other and then something called Linux Preferred PPC. What do think is my best option?

Thanks again,

Matt

GrantG - May 31, 2007 - 3:10 pm

Your best option is to boot from the Ubuntu disk and let its installer do the repartitioning and reformatting of the drive.

mddublin - May 31, 2007 - 10:53 pm

I've tried booting from two good disc, burned with Windows 2000 (something I've read a lot on the web is that burning the iso disc image on a PC often works for certain macs), but it can't read the disc, nothing but flashing folder with ? mark.
Any ideas for how to do the right disc image burn for an old Bondi Blue imac?

Regards,

Matt

GrantG - Jun 1, 2007 - 3:07 am

Can you explain to me in more detail the process you are using to burn the iso image to disc?

mddublin - Jun 1, 2007 - 11:34 am

Well, originally I tried to burn the ISO with Disk Utility in Panther on my ibook G4 following these instructions:

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/su...burn-osx.shtml

This worked fine because I can run Ubuntu from these discs on different macs, which of course are much newer than the Bondi Blue. But when I try and boot from that same disc in the old bondi blue, nothing happens. Then, like I said, because I have read about many people discovering that if they brunt the image on a PC, they could boot from that disc on older macs. The disc I brunt from the PC works fine as well, both with PCs and new macs, just not with the bondi blue.

Maybe I need a really old version of Linux, might that work?

GrantG - Jun 1, 2007 - 12:17 pm

Can I check that you have downloaded the PPC version and not the normal version. If so, it appears that some people have had success with using cd-rw's instead of cd-r's (which old g3's don't seem to like) and also slowing the burn speed right down to 2x or 4x. You could try other distros if you like but I think it's an issue with the media rather than the distro.