Thinkpads Forum

Hello all,

Now about two months ago I bought the famous IBM ThinkPad 850 - a PowerPC-based notebook (based on the PReP architecture). It had no disk (2,5 inches SCSI), but I managed to buy one from a friend. Now here is where the problem begins:

Because I want to use it, it needs a OS - my choice is Linux (namely Debian, as it is one of the few distros that can handle the PReP architecture). So I downloaded several versions of it: 2.2, 3.0 and 3.1 and gave them a shot. And the whole plan backfired on me, as no mather which version I used during the boot-up of the instalation CD there were problems that mede it imposible to install the OS:

Debian 2.2 - When probing the SCSI bus it falls into some sort of infinite loop (it claims that it could not probe the device under an ID, increments that ID and so on ...)

Debian 3.0 - Now this one fails right after booting - it throws the "OK, now booting the kernel" message and freezes (tried waiting for 2 hours - nothing, tried burning another CD after re-downloading the distro again - nothing).

Debian 3.1 - No mather what I do, the kernel throws a panic as it can not mount the partition on the drive

Now it's not the disk - it was tested by me and my friend under Windows XP - none bad sectors and so on.

Now here is the question to the people who use (or used) this machine and instaled Linux on it - what distro were you using and if possible could you provide a link to the image of it ?


many thanks to the people who replied

Out of curiosity, why did you try such ancient versions of Debian? All of the ones you tried have long-since been EOL'd.

ThinkRob wrote:Out of curiosity, why did you try such ancient versions of Debian? All of the ones you tried have long-since been EOL'd.

A quick look at the hardware specs on ThinkWiki will give you the reason why I went for older versions (100 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM).

sb102 wrote: A quick look at the hardware specs on ThinkWiki will give you the reason why I went for older versions (100 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM).

Sure, you won't be able to run a full-blown GNOME install with compiz and all the other niceties, but there's really no reason why Lenny wouldn't work fine. I've run it just great on a 233Mhz machine with 32MB of RAM. The use of a modern kernel is reason enough to use it -- just be smart about what packages you install (mainly the just don't choose heavy X apps) and you'll be fine.

yeah try lenny and squeeze, even a daily build if necessary. just because its the newest doesn't mean it requires faster hardware, this aint windows.

Thanks for your info Zedicus and ThinkRob, but I'm afraid that both of these distros did not even boot on the machine (looks like the bootloader is lacking the PReP architecture flavour in both cases). Now I don't need the newest kernel on the machine - right now I just want to be able to use it - no mater what number of the kernel or the distro type. I just want to have a Linux distro that will install flawlessly on the machine.

So, if anyone had been in the same situation - please help !

Did you see this page?

ThinkRob wrote:Did you see this page?

Yes, I did - but the problem with this one that it only shows how to install Linux under the PPCBug firmware (so only applies to PowerPC machines utilizing the Motorola Firmware - it will not apply to other firmwares). There are different types of firmwares (and bootloader microcodes) for different Vendors - Motorola had PPCBug, Apple the so-called "open firmware", and IBM had a native bootloader of its own - so the image of the CD must be compliant with the bootloader - and from what I tested, only those earlier Debian versions are compatible.

your 850 shows as compatible on the debian PREP page.

maybe read this over http://users.cis.fiu.edu/~ayanic01/rs6k/

Zedicus wrote:your 850 shows as compatible on the debian PREP page.

maybe read this over http://users.cis.fiu.edu/~ayanic01/rs6k/

I've read that page several times (I did some research before I tried to install Linux on the machine - this subject on the forum is the "last chance option"). I see two difficulties:

1) Where to get such an uncommon version of a Linux Kernel (I bet that the kernel archive doesn't have a kernel like this)?

2) Since I'm not big into Linux (I used it only two times for a purpose - when I was on an Operating Systems course on our university, learning basics of threads, comunication pipes, etc. on a Posix - class system and while designing and assembling a computer network as a project for another course - in fact I've finished it today...) - how to make a homemade boot CD with a swapped kernel, not having another PowerPC machine (I belive that this is a must in my situation - I may be wrong, of course) ?

edit:

Does anybody have (or at least knows a place where it can be downloaded) a CD image of a Linux distro called LinuxPPC (or something similar) ? I've read somewhere that it had no problems instaling no the 850. I tried searching for it last month on google, but could not find it.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=linuxppc

contact support from the links under 'where to buy' and ask nicely if they still have it available.

http://penguinppc.org/~hollisb/linux/carolina/

this seems to be the most relevant. it discribes the hd boot issue in detail.
he has some old kernel note, due to the mention in debian that prep is still being updated i would start with a new (like 2.6) kernel and work down if it doesnt work, maybe even pull a kernel right from debian.