If you don't know already, there's a new version of
YellowDog out. I would strongly suggest using it instead of 2.0. 2.1 is more stable, has some great new features, and is just plain old groovy. But, if you insist on installing 2.0, here are my instructions
Because it was a slight pain in the butt, here are some step-by-step instructions on how to install YellowDog 2.0 on a Mac (which is the only place you can install it).
Stuff you need:
- A Mac with a hard drive you don't mind wiping and re-partitioning
- A bootable Mac OS Install CD (9.0 or 9.0.4 preferred, but 9.1 will work in a pinch)
- A copy of YellowDog 2.0
- An hour or two to waste doing this.
The Steps:
- First, download and burn the YellowDog 2.0 ISO (you only need the first disk - the second has some fun stuff like OpenOffice on it, but you can download that).
- Second, prepare to toast your hard drive. Put on safety goggles and find a highly caffeinated beverage. Now, if you're not pleased about wiping your hard drive, you're kind of out of luck. There's really nothing that can be done about this, and you're kind of SOL without doing it. So, if you have stuff you can't save off the drive, stop now and go do something else.
- Insert your Mac OS install disk, and restart your Mac while holding down the C key. Keep holding it until you see the fancy cd background.
- Once the machine is started up and you see the "Mac OS Install" icon, double click on the Utilities folder and then open Drive Setup.
- In Drive Setup, click the Initialize button, then Custom.
- On this screen, choose 4 partitions. That should give you four rectangles in the box on the left side of the screen. Click the first box. This will be your bootloader, so resize it to be 50 megs, then tab to the second. This is your Mac OS drive. Make that whatever size you want (leave at least 2 gigs for Linux). The third is your Linux root, so make that whatever size you want, leaving the last partition with about double your amount of RAM for the swap partition. Once you've got the diagram looking like you want, click Initialize.
- Once it's done, close Drive Setup, and run through the Mac OS installer, installing to the partition you designated as your Mac drive (the one right after the bootloader).
- Now that it's done installing, shutdown your Mac, pop open the CD drive and insert the YellowDog install CD.
- Startup your Mac with the C key held down again until you get to a black screen. It should say boot:. Hit the Enter key. That should start the installer.
- Follow the prompts until you get to the hard drive screen. Click the Edit button. Delete all the partitions except your Mac OS slice (the second one if you followed directions correctly). After you've deleted the other three partitions, do the following:
- Click the Add button. The maximum setting should be 50 megs. Click Max, and then choose bootloader from the list of options that comes up and click OK.
- Click Add. The maximum setting should be the remaining space on the drive. In the box, type in the amount of RAM you have (double it if you want). Click OK. Choose Linux Swap from the option list and click OK.
- Click Add. Click Max and click Linux Root (I think that's what it is). Click OK.
- Now, choose your install options and go get something to eat while it does its thing.
- The last thing that happens is it should ask you if you want to install the bootloader. Choose yes, and then choose which OS you want to start up by default. Once you've done that, you're finished!
- Reboot your machine and there you go, Linux!
A couple of notes:
- If you can't boot back into MacOS from the bootloader, check out this page for info on how to fix ybin and yaboot: http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/support/solutions/multiboot.shtml
- If you're using the bootloader, upgrading to the 2.4 kernel is easy (ie: I can do it!): http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/support/solutions/kernel24.shtml
- Other good info @ http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/support
