Mac users: I need your help!

[madhatter256]

Some of you might know that I just acquired a Powerbook G4 laptop. I just put in an HDD, that's clean (no partition, etc). I downloaded Ubuntu for PowerPC and burned it onto a CD (via Windows).

I power up the laptop and insert the CD, I get nothing on the LCD screen. I hear the CD spin up fast when I turn it on and then it stops, but I hear nothing afterwards. I get nothing on the screen. At first I thought the LCD might be dead, but I hooked up the laptop to a monitor via the DVI port on the side and I still get nothing on the screen.

Before all of this, the lapto did boot up and screen would turn on with the famous Mac Face logo on a folder and then with a question mark, looking for a boot partition? But now it doesnt do that. I can't even get the CD out of the drive. I hit the eject button but it doesn't pop out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Evangelion-01]

muahahaha! come to the light side!

[madhatter256]

Then help me, Obe Wan Kenobe!

[mairsil]

Now you know why it was free... :icon_toil

[unclejun]

To boot from a cdrom on g4 machines, you need to press the c key while the g4 powers up: https://help.ubuntu.com/6.10/ubuntu/...c/ch05s01.html

[Parris]

What was I saying yesterday...oh yeah! "Free stuff = fan-bloody-tastic"

Can I revise that please?

"Free stuff that turns out to be faulty = pain-in-the-ass" :crying:

Hope it finally boots for you without having to shell any cash out.

[WolverineDK]

muahahaha! come to the light side!

Then help me, Obe Wan Kenobe!

Sadly, I don´t think Eva can help him, since he was only here to gloat.

[Alchy]

If you need to ge the CD out, you want to push the point of a paperclip through the little hole on the drive. It's a manual eject button.

[Anhaedra]

Linux on PPC macs is usually pretty spotty in terms of compatibility and support, it might just not run on that model.

[san186]

hold the mouse button down whilst booting up?

[madhatter256]

It doesnt eject the drive. I'm thinking the CDROM drive is bad. I'm currently looking for a replacement, it doesn't seem that expensive. While I'm waiting on that, in the mean time I'll try to get of an ISO image of an actual bootable mac CD just to double check.

I have ubuntu, powerpc version. I burned the ISO via Nero and it doesn't seem to boot, so thats why I'm thinking it might be the CDROM drive.

[mooseblaster]

If the screen doesn't come on grey anymore, then it's not a problem with the CD. Read this article for help:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300537

Else, to boot from CD, hold down the C key as soon as your hear the startup chime.

To be honest, i really don't know why you want to use Ubuntu on a Mac. I'd use MacOS for the £50, as Ubuntu is fairly shoddy on the PPC version.

[madhatter256]

Ubuntu is hte only thing I have that's 'mac compatible'. I don't have an OS X disc. I'm not willing to spend that much money on one just yet until I know for sure that everything else works. All I did was just burn an ISO image of the PPC version thinking it was just that easy.

Once I know for sure that the CDROM drive and LCD do work, if it boots from a bootable mac CD, then I will buy Mac OS X for it.

Now if, hopefully, someone knows how to create a mac boot CD, then please contact me! I spent hours on the Internet searching and read tutorials but they pretty much all say that I need mac OSX.

[san186]

u can get osx off ngs and torrents

[mooseblaster]

u can get osx off ngs and torrents

... if you're a skinflint/idiot who can't be bothered to spend less than £100 on something worthwhile. :rolleyes:

Madhatter: Right, something you need to do (seeing as the disc *should* boot by default, even burnt in Nero).

Check to make sure your download was not corrupted. Go to the following page:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM

and follow the instructions for checking your CD image - if the two numbers match then it's successful.

If not, you'll have to re-download it, preferably using BitTorrent (as it's checked for errors as its downloaded).

If it checks out OK.... then, either I recommend reburning it on a disc COMPLETELY FREE OF SCRATCHES AND DUST and pray for the best, or I recommend requesting a Free version of the old Ubuntu CD from them:

https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

Hope that helps!