Re: [gentoo-ppc-user] Gentoo ppc - still supported?

[Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 10:27 PM, Terin Stock <terinstock@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> If it's just going to be sitting in a closet collecting Apple-dust, then I'd
> say yes, it's certainly worth the extra effort.
> :P
> --
> #Terin Stock
>

Worse - it would likely just go in the trash. You can buy these things
on Ebay sometimes as low as $50 so I was just thinking it didn't make
a lot of sense to spend time and money on it, but that's not a good
attitude so maybe I should give it a try.

I'll ask some questions in this thread. If I need to create another
then I'll do that.

BACKGROUND: I'm primarily an x86 Gentoo user since 1999. I'm a
hardware guy and not an IT guy and don't have _any_ sys admin
background other than managing my own Gentoo boxes. I'm familiar with
the distro from the sense of keeping my machines running after using
Gentoo for a decade. I know NOTHING about Apple machines. I do audio
recording and bought the Mac to play with Apple OS X apps but grew
tired of OS X pretty quickly and started using this machine as a
MythTV backend server a few years ago.

STATUS: The machine starts booting, the kernel comes up and runs
through and it starts initializing all the services and what not.
(Where it says either [OK] or [!!]. ) It gets to 'Checking root
filesystem ... ' and then fails with a 'superblock could not be read'
message. I tried the suggest e2fsck -b 8193 command but that didn't
work. It's never worked for me.

Since I was going to do a complete machine rebuild anyway - I haven't
touched it in quite awhile as I didn't want to update Myth - I thought
I'd try using a new CD.  (the reason I started this thread.) When
booting from either 2008 or 2009 CD I get the boot screen. If I hit
enter I get a message about ramdisk loading and then

Invalid memory address at SRR0:0197a930 SRR1:00083030

but is also says

Apple PowerMac 1-,2.4.9.4f0 BootROM built on 7/6/05

Welcome to Open Firmware

To continue booting type mac-boot
ok
>

If I try mac-boot it just hangs at:

"Loading second stage bootstrap..."


Now this page

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-ppc.xml

doesn't even mention the Mac Mini so I'm guessing it's part of the New
World class of machines. The instructions suggest:

boot: apple video=ofonly

but I get a message

cd:2,apple: Unknown or corrupt filesystem

So, am I doing something wrong trying to boot from the CD or is the
machine somehow not working correctly?

Thanks,
Mark