Hi guys, Finally took the plunge with Linux and decided to try and install it on my old G3 iBook. I'm installing 10.4 power pc from a DVD. It seemed to go ok, and then it said it couldn't install the 'software' (not the OS) and I should try manually selecting it from the menu. Again seemed ok as it went through various options and seemed to be installing various packages - gimp etc., but ended with the same message about not being able to install the software. So this time I selected the option to install via planetscape. This completed, and asked me to take the disc from the drive so it could boot into the OS for the first time. Now it's booted up I get a message:- mkdir: cannot create directory '/home/ian/.byobu': Read only file system -bash: cannot create temp file for here-document: Read only file system I don't recall receiving any prompts about creating authorisations for the file system. Any help would be appreciated.
What distribution of Linux did you install? (You did get a PPC image, right?) I'm not really the best sysadmin around, but it sounds like your /etc/fstab mounted read-only on some file systems. What values did you select in the partition manager? The output of /etc/fstab would be handy.
Definately PPC (PowerPC) version. I told it to use the whole disk as it's only 20GB. Would telling it to use the whole HDD have made it format the HDD before installing the OS, or should I have used another program to format before installing? thanks for the prompt reply
No the installer should've done it, but nonetheless, it appears your disk is mounting read only perhaps. Can you give the answer to the other two questions? What distro and what's the content of /etc/fstab?
Distro is Xubuntu 10.4 PPC Alternate Lucid Lynx. Permission denied response when I type in /etc/fstab.
Code: sudo cat /etc/fstab to list the contents of the fstab file or Code: sudo nano /etc/fstab to edit the contents of the fstab file. Be very, very careful doing this, though, as you can seriously bork your installation.
Thanks guys. I listed fstab using sudo cat /etc/fstab, and after entering my user password this is what came up # /etc/fstb: static file system information # # Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier # for the device; this may be used with UUID= as a maore robust way to name # devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5) # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc modev,noexec,nosuid 0 0 # / was on /dev/hda3 during installation UUID=97fb9c82-3013-431b-84c6-9f5877408f3a / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # swap was on /dev/hda4 during installation UUID=9cc93c1a-a72e-474e-98dd-045cef51fb9c none swap sw 0 0
Go to the console and type Code: df I'm just wondering whether you've filled the disk already. It might also be that you've got an error on the disk: that's what the "errors=remount-ro" part in fstab means - it'll mount the disk as read-only if there are errors on it - it's a method of disk preservation by minimising further corruption and to give you a chance to get data off the disk. Do you have another disk you could chuck in there to try?
I was hoping to get a 120GB (the biggest that can be used in this model) and a 144pin 512MB SODIMM, for xmas. My laptop needs a new drive (it has completely failed). So I guess I shall see what santa brings me. Thanks very much for your help guys, and you'll probably see me on here after xmas asking for more help.
personally i would say try another distro incase it is just a borked install maybe try Lubuntu 10.10 which is very light (even lighter than xubuntu), or peppermint one or peppermint ice
If there are disk problems with /, the system will mount it read only (thats what the entry errors=remount-ro means) This is done to reduce damage to the disk files. If this is your problem, which you can check using the mount command (no arguments required) The entry for / will contain something like <device> on / type ext4 (rw,noatime,errors=remount-ro) or <device> on / type ext4 (ro,noatime,errors=remount-ro) where device is something like /dev/hda3 If its the second then then there were probably problems on boot. You can sometimes check this with the dmsg command which lists what the kernel does on boot (sort of). Usually the ext4 file system is very robust, but sometimes it gets mixed up. If you have nothing to lose (ie no important data on the machine) then you can try and rectify the problem. first try mount -o remount,rw / If that doesn't work then you may need to repair the filesystem(s) run fsck (the file system check program) on <device> (/dev/something it was /dev/hda3) so its fsck -y /dev/hda3 or what ever device is used for / Hopefully that will work and the machine will behave normally after a reboot.
Thanks dinoscothern. I have been reading a bit in the Ubuntu forums and there's mention of using the original mac install discs to retain the original mac boot partition and creating several other partitions that the hardware has to be able to access. So I'll give your advice a go, and if that doesn't work, I'll look on ebay for some disks.
Thanks dinoscothern that worked a treat. Installing the updates now, then I need to sort out the display as it's only using three quarters of the screen, so I have a black bar down the right hand side, and the top of the screen is wrapped down to the bottom.
The usual (old school) method of manually reconfiguring X on debian (ubuntu) based systems is to run dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg in a virtual terminal (i.e. non x) with X shutdown. ie sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg I'm a bit loathe to suggest it though as its a very manual process just one step above from editing the xorg.conf directly. In fact on many modern machines the whole process is usually deprecated and the xorg.conf file is not needed anymore. However it can still be used as a sort of fallback operation. So if you are going to try it I suggest you backup the xorg.conf file (if it exists). You will also need to do a fair bit of googling, but then you should be able to specify the screen timings and resolution giving a better display. You should also be able to have multiple resolutions and switch between them with alt+ (very old school). The whole config process is a bit fiddly though. Good luck.
