Industry guru Dave Taylor answers free tech support questions about a wide variety of business and technical topics, including blogging, Google AdSense, MySpace, Sony PSP, Apple iPod, Mp3 players, management, Linux, SEO, Mac OS X, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Microsoft Windows.

Still befuddled? Get immediate live tech support with SupportSpace!

Bootloader configuration for Ubuntu, Yellow Dog Linux and Mac OS X?

Dave, I'm following your setup for installing Ubuntu, Yellowdog, and OSX on a G4. I purchased a new secondary hard drive and have successfully installed OSX, Ubuntu Linux and Yellowdog Linux 4.0.1.

I've installed the three OS's and have reached the step where Yellowdog now takes precedence over ubuntu and Ubuntu is no longer visible to the boot sequence. Please tell me exactly how to get YaBoot to recognize both OS's.

Dave's Answer:

Ironically, I just this week wiped all the Linux partitions on my Apple PowerBook to have a full Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger install, so I can't reference my exact live configuration, but basically, you need to realize that there's a two stage boot process now: the main bootstrap utility is going to offer you the choice of Linux / Mac / CDROM. When you choose Linux, you then go to a SECOND bootloader which can be configured to let you choose the specific OS you want.

Here's what I explained in my article (which I've now posted as Linux On Mac? for people who didn't catch it in LinuxWorld Magazine):

Having installed Yellow Dog, I suddenly couldn�t see Ubuntu any more. If I hadn�t previously written down the partition number, I would have suspected that it had just vanished. A quick query to Ethan Benson, developer of yaboot, and I had my answer: I needed to move the individual Linux partition specifier (it says partition=2) into the YDL section and add another section for Ubuntu that specified the partition of the Ubuntu installation (partition=9). I ended up with two image blocks:

image=/boot/vmlinux-2.6.8-1.ydl.7
     partition=2
     	label=yellowdog
     	read-only
     	initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.8-1.ydl.7.img
     	root=/dev/hda2
     	append=�rhgb quiet�

image=/boot/vmlinux
     	partition=9
     	root=/dev/hda9
     	label=ubuntu
     	read-only
     	initrd=/boot/initrd.img

When the Mac boots, I still see the standard yaboot options of linux, macosx or cdrom, but selecting linux now gives me the option of typing in either �yellowdog� or �ubuntu� to specify which I wanted to actually start. Works like a charm!

Hopefully, that'll get you up and running with both Linuxes.

Help others find this article at Del.icio.us, Digg, Netscape, Reddit, and Simpy.

Categorized: Mac OS X Help (Article 4000)
Tagged:
Previous: Forgot password to We-Blocker!
Next: Auto-updated Windows, now it crashes all the time?

Subscribe!

Never miss another useful Q&A article again! Subscribe to AskDaveTaylor with Google Reader.

Comments

I currently have a PowerPC G5 w/dual 2GHz processors. I've two drives, the first a 160GB SATA with Tiger OS/X. The other drive is a 320GB with two partitions, one with Panther OS/X, the other formatted to NFS left empty for Yellow Dog 4.0.1. I find the installation instructions a bit vague. Do I have re install everything starting with Yellow Dog (and its necessary partitions) on the first drive and make two NFS partitions on the second drive for Panther and Tiger? Or, can I just leave it as it as and add Yellow Dog and share the srive with Panther?

Thank you,
-Steve

Posted by: Steve at July 29, 2005 4:14 PM

your article helped me a lot, thank you! maybe i buy you a chai, too. soon, i promise :)

Posted by: Ubuntu at December 18, 2005 7:28 PM

I am in desperate need of help. I have a Science fair due next month and I want to develop and create my own OS. How can I do this. I actually want to take Ubuntu and revise it...Whatever's the easiest? Please help me.

Posted by: michael hicks at February 11, 2006 1:52 PM

Michael, that's quite a task you're setting yourself. I don't think you're going to succeed and I would suggest you find a different topic. :-) Kinda like saying "I want to invent a new motor engine for cars by Thursday" :-)

Posted by: Dave Taylor at February 11, 2006 10:50 PM

I have a lot to say, but ...

I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!