No Disk Drives Detected

[iamdigitalman]

Ok well, I ended up using 9.04 for the project. Will be using it to run Firestarter. I burned 9.04 to a CD, and installed it, but I encountered a couple odd errors when I tired updating to 9.10 twice:

The first time it updated perfectly, but then a set of packages came in software update. I don't remember hitting install, but it must have. But when it rebooted, I was dropped into busybox with a message above saying it gave up waiting for root device, and that my /dev/hdc3 did not exist. Upon reinstall and attempt to upgrade again, it happened right after the 9.10 upgrade. The shell was named initramfs.

Oh, and I managed to set the time using open firmware. here's how:

1. boot into open firmware by pressing and holding command+option+o+f after pressing the power button.

2. at the prompt, type time&date and hit enter to display the time in the nvram.

3. type in the time using the time&date command in this format:
time&date hh:mm:ss mm/dd/yy press enter. It will say something like no value OK. Type time&date and press enter again to verify the time.

4. Type mac-boot to continue booting.

I found that with the time&date command, it does not work with the 4 yyyy format, as indicated here in the comments: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...60814075952448

the decimal dev rtc never worked for me.

Hope the fix is in 10.04 so I can use this old beast as a linux box again. Can't wait until April!!

[crutchshop]

I am in the same position and can say that I followed the same steps with the same g3 bw and had the same problem. 9.04 works fine but the upgrade to 9.10 knocked out my drive detection. I'm gonna try with a SCSI drive I have and see if the same issues persist or go away. I intend on using this machine as a NAS for video and music storage but I don't know what SATA PCI card to buy or if it will work. Any thoughts?

[grof]

I am in the same position and can say that I followed the same steps with the same g3 bw and had the same problem. 9.04 works fine but the upgrade to 9.10 knocked out my drive detection. I'm gonna try with a SCSI drive I have and see if the same issues persist or go away. I intend on using this machine as a NAS for video and music storage but I don't know what SATA PCI card to buy or if it will work. Any thoughts?

I prepared missing cmd64x driver needed for successfully run hard drives in BW G3 PPC.

I'll publish link here, soon.

[linuxopjemac]

very well done Grof!!! You found a way to install Karmic on B&W G3's, a difficult one...I hope the Ubuntu team will take your installer as an option...

[grof]

very well done Grof!!! You found a way to install Karmic on B&W G3's, a difficult one...I hope the Ubuntu team will take your installer as an option...

It will be enough to include cmd64x module in kernel-tree.
This module exists in kernel's source package but not in binary.
For some reason it is not compiled...

[linuxopjemac]

it has been missing in the installers since 8.04
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/296263

[grof]

This is final procedure for successfully install cmd64x driver:

Installation procedure must be done in two stages.

Stage 1 – prior Installation (on LiveCD)

Steps:

1. Startup LiveCD and wait to be booted up.
2. When system is up, unpack attached cmd64x-0.1.tar.gz archive and install cmd64x-dkms_0.1_all.deb package
3. Open terminal and type:
   

   cd /usr/src/cmd64x-0.1
   sudo sh install-livecd.sh

4. After that (for a few seconds) hard drives will wake-up!
5. Now, you can start Installation procedure, and install Ubuntu onto wanted hard drive.
6. When installation procedure finished DO NOT RESTART PPC YET! You must copy updated initrd.img to /boot dir on hard drive where Ubuntu installed. So, type:
   

   ls /media

   Look what is the name of HDD where you installed Ubuntu
   

   cp /usr/src/cmd64x-0.1/initrd.img-`uname -r` /media/<enter name of HDD here>/boot

7. Now, you can restart PPC!
8. When boot menu appeared on screen, just press enter, and if you did procedure well, Ubuntu should be booted properly.
9. But this is not finish. We have to do some job, yet.

Stage 2 – after Installation (on HDD itself)

Steps:

1. When you booted from hard drive, once again unpack attached cmd64x-0.1.tar.gz archive and install cmd64x-dkms_0.1_all.deb package and install them.
   IMPORTANT!
   Do this PRIOR first update of the system.
2. Again, open terminal and type:
   

   cd /usr/src/cmd64x-0.1
   sudo sh install.sh

3. Wait for procedure will be done and then update your PPC.
4. Do reboot as is suggested and see is it all right.
5. Enjoy Koala at your PPC G3.

I reported this issue as a bug here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/513131

[pietroman]

Hi,

Is there anyone who can briefly explain how to install the cmd64x.ko driver for Ubuntu 10.04?
I want to install it on a G3 B&W, tried everything as explained in the final procedure, but it gives me every time an error "FATAL: Module cmd64x not found" after the sudo sh install-livecd.sh command. Tried other thing such as copying the file in the requested directory (/lib/modules/2.6.32-21-powerpc/updates/dkms/), also using the modprobe command, ... but nothing helps.

I'm not very familiar with linux, so a step-by-step explanation is highly appreciated

Thx in advance!

[B_Free]

If this problem has been reported, has the installer been fixed?

[linuxopjemac]

B_free: nope.