Is Ubuntu giving up on the PPC platform?

[Eric Dunbar]

On 2/12/06, Eric Dunbar <eric.dunbar at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > "default=macosx" is not what you included. That is why I was asking,
> > > as OF totally freaked, as per my last e-mail.
>
> PS Just a few comments (from an amateur with but an amateur's
> understanding of OF) about Open Firmware...
>
> You can reset the PRAM on your computer by holding down
> command-option-P-R while the computer goes "bong". Keep holding those
> keys until it goes "bong" again.
>
> This resets the default startup partition to the first partition. If
> it doesn't find a bootable Mac OS (or yaboot bootloader) on the first
> partition your Mac's default HD Open Firmware will keep trying each
> higher partition, and then each bootable drive it can find until it
> finds a bootable partition (and, if it doesn't it'll complain ;-).
>
> This is why YellowDogLinux (and, maybe Ubuntu... don't know if they
> do) recommends that you install Linux to the lowest partition
> possible.
>
> When you use the Startup Disk control panel/preferences pane in Mac OS
> X or Mac OS 9 these two OSes will change the default startup partition
> (in PRAM) to point to the partition that houses the particular Mac OS
> that you want to boot (Macs have had the beautiful ability to house
> multiple versions of Mac OS on one harddrive in separate partitions
> for the better part of 20 years ;-). Since Linux doesn't show up in
> the Startup Disk control panel or preferences pane you lose the
> ability to (easily) boot into Linux since you can't select your Linux
> flavour.
>
> That's when keeping your Linux on the first partition comes in handy
> -- all you have to do to regain yaboot is to reset the PRAM
> (command-option-P-R) since it'll be the lowest bootable partition.
> But, if you're handy with the Linux boot/installer CD it doesn't
> matter since all you have to do is boot into Linux and run your yaboot
> -v (is that what you do?... RTM).
>
> Anyway, hope this quick ramble helps you (or someone else).

And, of course, holding down the option key at boot is a quick and
dirty way of trying to bypass the normal boot sequence.

Eric.