Personal Notes on Installing software on a Powermac G5

Ive recently acquired a Powermac G5 from a friend/org, it did not come with any discs nor harddisks. The Graphics card glitching and battery flat. The PPC is a intresting architecture I plan on exploring. First things first, get an OS working on this beast of a heavy aluminium thing.

These are personal notes, I dont plan on writing a tutorial or a 1-2-3 step. Most commonly one need to get a Install medium of some sorts and boot this. an Target medium for holding the final OS would be handy, one could go for an empty SATA harddrive, wich is my plan.

Sadly, either pirates are dumb, or I cant find the correct disk to ressurect this thing. Found upgrade disks and disks that wont boot. My personal collection of disks wont help and the only thing sofar legally booting is a copy of a G4 harddisk I have. maybe ill try some magic with that. Buying the real thing is also a bit weird, a previous owner paid for the OS, why would i need to repay someone some of the money? Anyway, its either macosx or Linux, I have legal disks of OS9 and OS10, just not compatible with this machine yet.

Images found on the web are a curious thing, not everyone is stating for what purpose they are or if they are for PPC. as some could be for Intel aswell. And the topic of "It cannot boot from USB", Yeah, go buy a new mac while i play in OF and have all the fun :D

Comvert DMG (if diskimage) to iso

dmg2img PowerMac\ Software.dmg -v mac.iso use -v for verbose info -l would list partitions (handy to check if indeed iso or hdd image or something else

burn dvd from Linux

seems the G5 can read the disks but if modified by software is unkown by me

growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/sr0=en_windows_10_consumer_editions_version_2004_x64_dvd_36d61c40.iso -use-the-force-luke=spare:none

mount img as disk

sudo mount -t hfsplus -o loop ~/Projects/Apple/PowerMac\ Software.img /mnt/iso/

Might need hfsplus kernel module

sudo modprobe hfsplus

Hardisks

sudo mount -t hfsplus /dev/sdx# /mount/point

if fails, try

sudo mount -t hfsplus -o remount,force,rw /dev/sdx# /mount/point

worst case, the FS is butchered, need checking

sudo fsck.hfsplus /dev/sdx#

Verify/repair disk in OSX using Disk Utility as fsck.hfplus won't run "because it's a journalled file system"

https://superuser.com/questions/84446/how-to-mount-a-hfs-partition-in-ubuntu-as-read-write

DD copy img to hdd

sudo dd if=mac.iso of=/dev/sdc10 status=progress bs=4M bs=4M seems fast on USB3

Copy all files from 1 folder to another

sudo rsync -a MacDIsk/ /mnt/usb/

Random Notes

dev pci4/ means, /ht@0,f2000000/pci@4

dev pci5/
dev pci5/ata-6@/

means, /ht@0,f2000000/pci@5/ata-6@d dev pci5/ata-6@/disk/ means, /ht@0,f2000000/pci@5/ata-6@d/disk

boot pci4/usb@b/disk1:3,:tbxi

pci6 ethernet pci7 k2-sata

dev pci7/k2-sata-root@c
dev pci7/k2-sata-root@c/k2-sata@0/disk@0
dir [above dev]:3,\

SATA directory listing and boot

Aparently the lower SATA is:

dir pci7/k2-sata-root@c/k2-sata@1/disk@0:,\

WORKS!

boot pci7/k2-sata-root@c/k2-sata@1/disk@0:,\System\Library\CoreServices\BootX

worked, but crashed? atleast the part and filestruct is correct txbi seems not be, not blessed? Seems to boot other osses too but lock, yet have to findout why

Factory reset OF

reset-nvram - This sets up a factory reset of the NVRAM.

set-defaults - Sets the flag so that the defaults embedded in ROM can be returned back to factory default

reset-all - FACTORY reset complete.. and machine reboots.

There are briefly two commands afterward that open firmware throws out at you.. I think it says sharp0020 or something along those lines.. but know that once you type the 3 commands, your firmware resets back to factory defaults. Your preferences might reset themselves under OS X however. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4765598

USB tests ive done

boot /pci@4/usb@b/disk1:3,\:tbxi
dev /pci@4
boot usb2:1
dir usb2
dir usb2/disk@1
boot usb2/disk@1
dev usb2
ls 
    /disk@1
dev ..
ls
...
ff9bde38: /usb@b
ff?13e60:   /disk@1
..
dev ..

/ht/pci@4/usb@b/disk@1

Root listing

As my display is defect, ive carefully traced most of the listing below.

0ok  ls /pci
ff88feb0: /cpus
ff890ff8:   /PowerPC,G580
ff8905c8:     /f2-cache
ff89f550:   /PowerPC,G581
ff89????:     /f2-cache
ff89fbf0:   /Chosen
            /memory 0,0
            /openrom
             /client-services
          /rome0,ff800000
            /boot-romfff00000
            /macos
          /options
          /packages
            /deblocker
            /disk-label
            /obd-tftp
            /telnet
            /mac-parts
            /mac-files
            /hfs-plus-files
            /fat-files
            /iso-9660-files
            /bootinfo-Loader
            /xcoff-loader
            /macho-loader
            ??
            /pe-loader
            /elf-loader
            /usb-hid-class
            /usb-ms-class
            /usb-audio-class
            /usb-audio-class
            /ata-disk
            /atapi-disk
            /sop2-disk
            /bootpath-search
            /terminal-emulator
          /firewire-disk-mode
          /pseudo-hid
            /keyboard
            /mouse
            /eject-key
          /multiboot
          /diagnostics
          /xmodem
          /nvrame0,fff04000
          /u3e0,f8000000
            /f2cef8001000
                /??
                /clock@19
              /temp-monitor@94
                /temperature@0
                  /Internal-temparature@0
                  /External-temparature@1
              /temp-monitor@96
              /fan@15
                /rpm0@10
                /rpm1@12
                /rpm2@14
                /rpm3@16
                /rpm4@18
                /rpm5@19
                ...
                ...
                ..
                ...
continue? yes
                ...
                /pci@1
                /pci@2
                /pci@3
                  /mac-io@7
                    /mpic@32000 ?
                    /mpic@40000
                    /gpio@50
                      /pmv-interrunt@9
                      ..
                      /modem-reset@1d
                      /modem-power@1e
                      ...
                      ...
                /usb@8B abb
                /usb@8
                /usb@9
              /pci@4
                /usb@b
                  /disk@1
                /usb@b,1
                  /hub@2
                    /device@1
                       /keyboard@0
                       /eject-key@1
                /usb@b,2
              /pci@5
                /ata-6@d
                  /disk

boot (with xbox like boot hdd) MAC-PARTS: specified partition is not valid can't OPEN: sata/k2-sata@1/@0:3,\tbxi

iso/dmg md5 hashes

Name	Size	MD5	Note
`OSX Leopard 10.5.dmg`	6.3G	5e9b24a4b332e3ebcbf672901068ed73	Actual a update, wont boot?
^^(`leopard.bin`)	7.1G	385b3474f76d05d8dd7ebb38fdd1b34d	No boot sofar is dmg2img result of `OSX Leopard 10.5.dmg`
`PowerMac Software.dmg`	2.9G	b186fcaf2ddd3b2bdee610b85677bd85	Dint work?
`Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Retail PPC DVD.iso`	2.6G	feff6007a9a96b5220e0d205d4635819	Dint boot, looked promising
`osx leopard install.iso`	7.8G	??	??

sources that I think are good are: https://www.macintoshrepository.org/ and ok: https://archive.org (not all uploaders make clear what they uploaded)

CodeAsm/notes.md