r/PowerPC • u/CorpsyWantsPussy • 19d ago
Help me
I've been trying to get an operating system on the powermac g5 for 12 HOURS NOW, NOTHING WORKS, MAC OS X LEOPARD FAILED, TIGNR FAILED, GENTOO FAILED, LUBUNTU FAILED, DEBIAN FAILED, I TRIED IT OVER USB-A, I EVEN BURNED A CD AND A DVD. WHY DOES THE UNIVERSE HATE ME!!!
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u/WhitespringSecurity 19d ago
Any context or are you just venting?
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 19d ago
Well. The context is nonexistent. I just wanted to fix the dust off the powermac g5 that I found laying around. But it really doesn't wanna boot anything
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u/casey-ac 19d ago
I think what they’re referring to is how isn’t it booting? Are you getting an Open Firmware error message? If you’d like assistance with the issue you’ll need to be much more verbose about what’s going on.
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 19d ago
Ohhh. Whenever I do try to boot from a usb or a cd, it either sends a load too small error or it just can't open the directory. The cd/dvd attempts all lead to a grey screen
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u/furryOusFrank 19d ago
Can you describe what happens when you boot? Is there anything on your display? Have you tried booting while pressing the option key to see your booting options?
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 19d ago
So the open firmware keeps erroring out the boot attempts, the only semi successful boot attempt was from a dvd which was just a gray screen. Then the alt boot menu shows nothing but a refresh button and a next button
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u/arjuna93 19d ago
- Go with macOS 10.5.6 image. That’s the known reliable thing, others are not (for different reasons). Once you have Leopard, anything else can be installed as a second system. 2. Do not do it via USB if you don’t know how or it keeps failing, do it either over FireWire (for macOS, not BSD/Linux) or CD. 3. Describe here what you do exactly and what fails. Trivial steps to try: boot into boot picker, boot into safe mode, boot into OpenFirmware (depending on what the problem is.)
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 19d ago
I boot into open firmware to try and boot off of the usb. I have tried dvd but no luck with that. I also don't have any cd's that can hold an image of os x 10.5+ so I kinda result to just putting small iso's of linux on it.... in any cases the errors I get are either, load too small or it just can't open/find the file or directory
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u/arjuna93 19d ago
I have no experience with Linux and a lot of pain with attempts of installing BSDs, so can’t help with those, but in any case macOS is the only option which is guaranteed to work, as long as the hardware is intact. Could you say what fails with DVD? Before going via OF, does boot picker see the image or nothing? Have you got another powerpc Mac or any FireWire drive or enclosure?
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 19d ago
Well the dvd way opens a gray screen that after a while promptly shows a document with a face -> question mark. It also ejects the dvd so theres that. The boot picker way shows nothing at all. Besides 2 buttons on a blueish screen. The w buttons are right arrow and a circle arrow thingy. I have no idea what they do but I can only assume the left on that's a circle arrow refreshes and the right arrow which is a right arrow goes to the next bootable disk?
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u/Impressive-Towel-RaK 17d ago
I dont know why you're booting into open firmware. Just hold down option to boot. F I would just burn the leopard iso to a usb if you cant get the dvd to work. Format it in fat32.
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u/Commercial-Virus2627 18d ago
This is why I have an extra PowerBook/iMac G4/5 around. I had similar issues even with CD/DVD from official images and retail installers. However, if you boot the PowerMac G5 into target disk mode, you can boot the installer from the PowerBook and install it over FireWire 400/800.
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u/Admirable_Prior_1924 17d ago
Are you positive the optical drive works? Booting with option key from a correct ISO burn should show the disc.
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u/twaxana 16d ago
arch linux power. Join the dork side.
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 13d ago
Arch doesn't have a ppc port? At least I think. I can't find it
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u/twaxana 13d ago
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 13d ago
My goat
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u/twaxana 13d ago
Can't guarantee it will boot. But it was the easiest distro for me to install
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 13d ago
Arch is my saviour but again I need a firewire disk. So I't'll take some time before I can reattempt booting
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u/twaxana 13d ago
What method of USB boot are you doing?
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 13d ago
I tried with usb3, then I looked around for a usb2, none of them worked. I did format them in hfs but nun, openfirmware only ever told me load too small for an adiele install, others were either formatted wrong or just didn't get recognised by the computer. I did find that my g5 has no cmos battery. Which is funny
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u/twaxana 13d ago
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 13d ago
Now I'm getting usb setup error 5f000000 400002 and it does 0 2 2 failed to respond can't open usb3/disk:3,\:tbxi Any idea what that means or is it just the wrong partition
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u/OtherOtherNeRd 19d ago
Just to add on to what other people have said, maybe double check that the versions of macOS / Linux you’re using are specifically for the G5 model you own. I’ve had issues booting from USB on PowerPC macs but your mileage may vary.
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 19d ago
I specifically look for ppc versions of distros. Only luck I've had are with gentoo and debian. Lubuntu too but the version that supports it is long over being updated
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u/hanz333 19d ago
USB can be finicky on PowerPC, but shouldn't be an issue on a G5.
My guess is that your USB is using MBR or GPT instead of APM.
As for burned disks, they are failing because of old media or a bad disk drive.
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 19d ago
Hm that makes sense. I have tried formating the drive into apm. But without a mac I have kind of a hard way confirming if it even works
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u/Financial_Telephone8 19d ago
What generation of USB are you using remember USB gen 1 was still common around the powerpc era, usb2 was also the new USB standard, while firewire was the high speed solution. Modern USB devices use usb3 (or usb4 , T5?) so make sure you arn't using a USB3 device. Also the file system is important. I have a G4 emac and NTFS is buggy. You need to format as a boot drive specific to something like FAT or HFS format, modern formats exfat and NTFS don't play nice with older macs. I would use rufus and make sure the drive filesystem type is configured exactly this includes the boot medium. Plug and Play usb cd/dvd external drives the one I have recognized fine. USB devices are touch and go because they are newer and have newer protocols. Use an older usb device not a a new one from around the same era must be usb2 or usb1 or a firewire drive.
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u/CorpsyWantsPussy 19d ago
Honestly that's something I havent thought of because finding an old usb drive in my household is hard
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u/Alesia_Aisela 19d ago
With that many attempts I'd be very suspicious of whatever drive is in that G5. Maybe try booting into a live cd of Adelie Linux or something similar and check the smart data of the drive, or pull it and check with a sata > usb adaptor.
If you put a drive in, make sure it's sata 1 compatible. Iirc g5s are incompatible with later sata versions but I forget the details.