Bug 756095 - Install completes - No bootable system
Summary: Install completes - No bootable system
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: anaconda
Version: 16
Hardware: ppc
OS: Linux
unspecified
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Will Woods
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2011-11-22 16:57 UTC by Luke Sheldrick
Modified: 2013-02-26 16:15 UTC (History)
12 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2013-02-26 15:13:00 UTC
Type: ---


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Luke Sheldrick 2011-11-22 16:57:34 UTC
Description of problem:
Using the latest Fedora-16-ppc-netinst.iso the installer works fine, just for testing I used all the defaults, except LVM. 

Install seems to have worked fine, however on boot, I get the "First Stage Fedora Bootstrap" menu, and when it tries to boot into second stage,brings up the 'Apple no bootable drive' animation, then reboots. 

This is on a MacMini G4. 

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible:


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Grab the .iso from http://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/fedora-secondary/releases/test/16-Alpha/Fedora/ppc/iso/
2. Install on a G4 MacMini
3. Try to boot
  
Actual results:


Expected results:


Additional info:

Comment 1 Karsten Hopp 2011-12-06 11:58:51 UTC
please try again with F16-Beta, you can get it from the same mirror.

Can you try to boot the rescue system ('linux rescue') from the netinst.iso and then attach the output of

fdisk -l 
cat /etc/fstab
cat /etc/yaboot.conf

to this bugzilla ? Maybe that gives us a clue

Comment 2 Jiri Skala 2012-01-05 12:50:11 UTC
I'm able to reproduce described behaviour on iBook G4. I've checked for partitions, fstab and yaboot.conf. Everything seems to be correct.

The last message on my screen is "Loading second stage bootstrap...". This seems to be issue of ofpath - perhaps duplicity with #514087.

I've discussed it with Tony Breeds. He has more patches that are planned to be released as a part of yaboot-1.3.18 and should fix it. He promised ofpath delivery for test. So I'd wait for this test to switch the component.

Luke, what about your partitions, fstab and yaboot.conf?

Comment 3 Stefan Schulze Frielinghaus 2012-06-02 18:17:48 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
...
> I've discussed it with Tony Breeds. He has more patches that are planned to
> be released as a part of yaboot-1.3.18 and should fix it. He promised ofpath
> delivery for test. So I'd wait for this test to switch the component.

I run into the same problem. Any news about the fix?

Comment 4 Lincoln Bryant 2012-06-04 03:48:00 UTC
Verified that this bug is still present in Fedora 17 -- presumably due to yaboot still being at 1.3.17 (and no newer release from the developer).

I can attach whatever may be needed.

Comment 5 NeoAmsterdam 2012-07-04 17:40:53 UTC
Problem persists in Fedora 17 (not Alpha nor Beta).  The problem may be caused by a typo in the anaconda-generated yaboot.conf (there's no "/" between "boot" and "vmlinuz-3.3.4-5.fc17.ppc64").

Tried booting off F17 DVD, mounting the just-installed root partition, editing yaboot.conf, and running ybin - yaboot flatly refused to "overwrite" a "more recent" version of the bootloader.

Since my other Linux partition (YDL 6.2) wasn't detected during the installation, and since my Mac OS X partition is listed on the "macos=" line in F17's yaboot.conf, I'm S.O.L. because of this problem.

Comment 6 ehwreck 2012-10-06 23:12:35 UTC
This problem also happened to me...im running on an ibook g4 late 2005 model.
this is how i got it to work for me, this may or may not work with your computer. possible workaround/solution.


at the first screen where it says "Welcome to Fedora..." and you can pick 
"l-fedora"
"c-cdrom"
"o-Openfirmware"

i entered "o"

then i typed in

boot hd:2,yaboot

and there you go, it booted, but since i did it with the netinstall i didnt have a any graphics just a black screen with the name of the Fedora version and a "Login"
so i typed root for the login and the root password that was setup during the installation.
example

Login root
password ********

then i had root access so i did as follows

# cd /dev

I checked to see if my partitions were hda1,hda2,hda3...etc
OR if they were sda1,sda2,sda3...etc

mine were hda so i then did this

# cd /etc

then checked if i had yaboot.conf
i did so i then viewed and edit it like so

# vi yaboot.conf

also i noticed the top line on the yaboot.conf said

boot=/dev/sda2

so then I pressed "i" to edit the .conf and changed the "sda2 to hda2" then pressed "esc". after that i held "shift" and pressed "z" twice to save the changes.
then i ran ybin 

# ybin

then i turned off my computer and started it up again, this time it was able to boot and took me to the "Login" it was black again cuz i dont have a Desktop environment. Then i logged in as before with root and tried to install "Gnome Desktop Environment" using "yum groupinstall" but then i ran into another problem the repos are messed up and it wont download anything..but at least now it boots.

for those with the DVD install idk if the same will happen. maybe you will be able to boot and continue your installation...if so and you are able to login and have a desktop environment i suggest you run to the terminal and edit that yaboot.conf and switch sda2 to hda2 or maybe for you its the other way around...let me know you have questions on this or if this worked for anyone.

currently i still cant boot 16 or 17 so im running on 12 but im doing my best to find a solution and get 17 on there or 16 at least.

also this was only tested on the ibook g4 since its the only ppc i have...and i dont know how it will play out on the ibm or g3 or mac mini...

Comment 7 Thomas 2012-10-13 19:45:47 UTC
(In reply to comment #6)
> This problem also happened to me...im running on an ibook g4 late 2005 model.
> this is how i got it to work for me, this may or may not work with your
> computer. possible workaround/solution.
> 
> 
> at the first screen where it says "Welcome to Fedora..." and you can pick 
> "l-fedora"
> "c-cdrom"
> "o-Openfirmware"
> 
> i entered "o"
> 
> then i typed in
> 
> boot hd:2,yaboot
> 
> and there you go, it booted, but since i did it with the netinstall i didnt
> have a any graphics just a black screen with the name of the Fedora version
> and a "Login"
> so i typed root for the login and the root password that was setup during
> the installation.
> example
> 
> Login root
> password ********
> 
> then i had root access so i did as follows
> 
> # cd /dev
> 
> I checked to see if my partitions were hda1,hda2,hda3...etc
> OR if they were sda1,sda2,sda3...etc
> 
> mine were hda so i then did this
> 
> # cd /etc
> 
> then checked if i had yaboot.conf
> i did so i then viewed and edit it like so
> 
> # vi yaboot.conf
> 
> also i noticed the top line on the yaboot.conf said
> 
> boot=/dev/sda2
> 
> so then I pressed "i" to edit the .conf and changed the "sda2 to hda2" then
> pressed "esc". after that i held "shift" and pressed "z" twice to save the
> changes.
> then i ran ybin 
> 
> # ybin
> 
> then i turned off my computer and started it up again, this time it was able
> to boot and took me to the "Login" it was black again cuz i dont have a
> Desktop environment. Then i logged in as before with root and tried to
> install "Gnome Desktop Environment" using "yum groupinstall" but then i ran
> into another problem the repos are messed up and it wont download
> anything..but at least now it boots.
> 
> for those with the DVD install idk if the same will happen. maybe you will
> be able to boot and continue your installation...if so and you are able to
> login and have a desktop environment i suggest you run to the terminal and
> edit that yaboot.conf and switch sda2 to hda2 or maybe for you its the other
> way around...let me know you have questions on this or if this worked for
> anyone.
> 
> currently i still cant boot 16 or 17 so im running on 12 but im doing my
> best to find a solution and get 17 on there or 16 at least.
> 
> also this was only tested on the ibook g4 since its the only ppc i
> have...and i dont know how it will play out on the ibm or g3 or mac mini...


I have a PowerBook G4 purchased in Japan in early 2003. I tried installing FC17 PPC on it and it seemed to work but it took forever to do this. Upon reboot it just kept looping through the bootup so I tried exactly what you said.

I typed "o" for OpenFirmware and then "boot hd:2,yaboot" and that seemed to work. 

Although it took a long time for linux to load I did see the typical green OKs as linux boots eventually and I thought I would get into a gui environment but at present I am on a black screen and the black mouse cursor arrow can be moved around this black screen. 

I'm hoping something else will happen but it's not looking good right now. I find if I let it set that eventually things do happen despite it seeming to be at a dead end.

On another note upon the gui install it told me that my HD is an ATA Hitatchi HTS54161 wtih 114473.460938 MB and listed it as sda.

Has anyone else experienced this black screen and what did you do to remedy it if you got past it?

Comment 8 Thomas 2012-10-13 20:20:28 UTC
Ok so my reply to comment 6 in comment 7 did not go anywhere after a long time sitting so I've decided to try FreeBSD 9.0 PPC on it. It did install before and took some time as well but I think Fedora17 erased it all. I'll try partitioning the disk and leave a partition for a future try of Fedora PPC as I know the partition tool in FreeBSD does a good job. 

If anyone has any success getting a Fedora PPC edition installed and working it would be very nice to know how you overcame the problems. I'd love to try out on this old computer and give life back to this old thing in an experimental sort of way. 

I think it needs the community to sort out these bugs before the average joe like us try to get this stuff working. It would be nice to have one or both of those operating systems to boot on this old hardware.


Thanks to those in the PPC community if you are already working on it.

Comment 9 ehwreck 2012-10-13 22:42:45 UTC
Well im glad im not the only one trying things out!..Thanks Thomas on your Feedback..

From what i dug up it seems that fedora supports PPC but Fedora 12 seems to be the last support for the ibooks, imacs, mac minis and any Mac that is ppc.

Fedora 16 and 17 is more for the IBM architectures so thats why its harder to boot and to find help...

you can try fedora 12 it works well...but upgrading seems to be out of the question until we get more people on board, which is tough since there is very few of us to star off with...

biggest problem is if you do a base cli install it might be possible to then move on to picking your own Desktop Enviorment, BUT the Repos are not there, so i get errors on the meta package and on the mirrors.....

if someone can shed a light on this it might be possible to move foward and have a workaround..

basicly we could do a text install then move on to fixing the repos, then installing the Desktop Enviorment, and that should do it...but as of now the repos are not working..

i have also tried installing Fedora 12 then trying to upgrade to 16 or 17 but it gives me errors, that it cant get packages and tells me to check the mirrors. So the errors are from the mirrors and repos...

maybe we can work more on this? i dont know if it will be possible though, since Fedora mentions that its not focusing on the Macs or the 32 bits..

Comment 10 Bernd 2012-10-18 11:33:22 UTC
Hi ppc fans.

I'm currently running Fedora 17 on my PowerBook 12" G4 1.5Ghz using a minimal installation. Except the boot problem the core system seems to run fine (well there isn't a lot of stuff that could be broken when installing minimal).

Regarding Comment6: I can boot the system using the firmware console but i cannot fix yaboot the way described.
My paritions are already "deviced" as /dev/sdx and therefore changing them to /dev/hdx does not make any sense, resp it's not possible since ybin cannot install the boot loader that way. So the problem still exists and seems to be somewhere else.

below you can see my partition layout and my yboot.conf:

Model: ATA Hitachi HTS54106 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 60.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: mac
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name             Flags
 1      512B    32.8kB  32.3kB                  Apple
 2      1049kB  2097kB  1049kB  hfs             Apple Bootstrap  boot
 3      2097kB  526MB   524MB   ext4            untitled
 4      526MB   3177MB  2651MB  linux-swap(v1)  swap             swap
 5      3177MB  60.0GB  56.8GB  ext4            untitled

partition #3 is /boot, #4 is swap and #5 is /

# yaboot.conf generated by anaconda

boot=/dev/sda2
init-message="Welcome to Fedora!\nHit <TAB> for boot options"

partition=3
timeout=50
install=/usr/lib/yaboot/yaboot
delay=5
enablecdboot
enableofboot
enablenetboot
magicboot=/usr/lib/yaboot/ofboot

image=vmlinuz-3.5.0-2.fc17.ppc
	label=linux
	read-only
	initrd=/initramfs-3.5.0-2.fc17.ppc.img
	append="rd.md=0 rd.lvm=0 rd.dm=0 root=UUID=a0ac3735-5d91-418e-aa77-745814ffb425 SYSFONT=True rd.luks=0  KEYTABLE=de LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rhgb quiet"

To me it seems that the firmware is not able to locate yaboot on sda2? since this is partition yaboot resides on and this is the partition i am addressing when booting manually from within the firmware using:

boot hd:2,yaboot

Maybe some ppc/yaboot experts can help?

ps: i'm very happy seeing ppc arch back and alive @ fedora. i hope there will be more people soon using their old 32bit macs with a top modern operating system :-) this platform still has a lot of usable potential left and is in my opinion worth supporting it :-)

regards
Bernd

Comment 11 Fedora End Of Life 2013-01-16 20:55:18 UTC
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