****Help installing Fedora 8 on iMac G3

[Craig White]

On Sun, 2008-03-30 at 08:40 +1100, Catherine Fitzgerald wrote:
> I have been trying for a week to install Linux on my old mac: iMac G3, 
> 500MHz, slot-loading CD, 20G HD. I am completely new to Linux and the 
> only time I've ever used command prompts is on a PC, and a very long 
> time ago, so if anyone is able to help me, please keep the instuctions 
> as clear as possible. I appologise in advance for the long drawn-out 
> detail below, but as I have no idea what the problem is I thought it 
> better to give as much information as possible.
> 
> The problems I have had are:
> 
> 1- Innitially tried to install Kubuntu 6.04 using a live image burnt 
> onto a CD using InfraRecorder (on a Windows XP 2000 pc). The live CD 
> would go to a black screen after the initial boot dialog and then run down.
> 
> 2- As that didn't work, and I was not worried about removing the old OS, 
> I tried installing Kubuntu, erasing the old partitions. It would 
> install, then freeze on the login and not accept any of my keyboards for 
> input (either the mac keyboard, a pc keyboard or either of my wireless 
> keyboards) so it was not possible to log in.  After several attempts at 
> reinstalling Kubuntu and getting the same problem I decided to try 
> installing Fedora.
> 
> 3- To avoid downloading a large amount I downloaded 
> fedora-8-ppc-rescuecd.iso from one of the recommended mirrors and burnt 
> it to CD (using InfraRecorder on the pc). Initially the install process 
> worked, and it requested a web address to download the images from. I 
> chose the monash uni web site (html server) as it is relatively close, 
> and the install proceeded up until I hit the 'yes' button for the final 
> install process.
> 
> 4- After hovering on the 'preparing to install' screen for over an hour 
> I got this message:
> 
> "The file a2ps-4.13b-69.fc8.ppc.rpm cannot be opened.  This is due to a 
> missing file, a corrupt package or corrupt media. Please verify your 
> installation source.
> 
> If you exit, your system will be left in an inconsistent state that will 
> likely require reconfiguration."
> 
> with the option to reboot or retry. I hit retry and after another hour 
> the same message came up again.
> 
> 5- After rebooting the mac does not recongnise a bootable file (this was 
> not a surprise). I put in the rescue cd, which boots without a problem, 
> but requires me to know what to do (ie, use a command line and have a 
> clue) to do anything.
> 
> 6- I decided that it might work if I tried the live cd, so downloaded 
> and burnt that. The live cd boots, goes through all the loading (mount 
> dialogue? - with [ok] in green at the end of each line] then the 
> computer goes to a black screen and the cd keeps buzzing away but doing 
> nothing. I tried to restart the computer and typed in 'install' at the 
> boot prompt, but get a message saying something along the lines of not 
> recognised, or the iso can't be booted.
> 
> 7- Which is where I am now. The HD has been reformatted (the old mac 
> software does not recognise it - which is fine because I don't really 
> want to go back to the old mac OS), but it has no installed OS that it 
> can boot. Is this simply an issue of trying a different mirror to 
> install the Fedora operating system, and if so, can you recommend one 
> that has all the files intact? Or is the issue that when I burn the CDs 
> it is being corrupted there? I can't download the DVD iso as the mac has 
> no DVD player, and doing the install over the internet is not a problem 
> for me if that is the only way I can do it.
> 
> Any advice would be most appreciated.
----
#1 - burn the CD at the slowest speed possible. When you burn a CD on a
system with a high speed CD writer and then try to use that CD on an
older, slower CD drive, you will have file errors.

#2 - Your step 3 should have worked. Were you in GUI or text mode when
going through the installation steps (anaconda)?

Craig