# Trouble booting 8.1/8.2 CD on iBook G4



## satori9 (Feb 24, 2011)

Note that a Debian 5.x PPC disc boots fine in this optical drive.

iBook G4, 1.2 GHz, 1.25 GB memory.

I've tried all three 8.2 CD images and the "boot1" 8.1 CD image. I get to the point of typing "> mac-boot" and it goes just a little further, then blinks an alternating question mark and Finder logo in the center of the screen. Once in a while the optical drive will spin up, then it goes quiet again. I never get to the meat of the installer.

I've tried resetting PRAM.

Ideas?


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## sossego (Feb 26, 2011)

You need to set the path

```
>setenv boot-device cd
>mac-boot
```

http://people.freebsd.org/~grehan/install.html



> > boot cd:,\boot\loader


This should help.

You can install both Debian and FreeBSD to disk. The firmware on your iBook should allow such from the option menu.


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## satori9 (Feb 28, 2011)

sossego said:
			
		

> You need to set the path
> 
> ```
> >setenv boot-device cd
> ...



The symptom this way is the same.



			
				sossego said:
			
		

> You need to set the path
> 
> ```
> > boot cd:,\boot\loader
> ```



This results in 
	
	



```
Can't allocate space for $LOAD buffer (load_base)
```

I may have to try network boot, but that puts a damper on having an in-the-field recovery/repair CD.


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## sossego (Feb 28, 2011)

Okay.
Have you tried a 9-0 CURRENT image?
How are you burning it?
Is the Option menu available? Remember this one. If Debian can be installed, allocate about 1/2 of the disk space. Reference here http://www.daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=5697 for a skeleton setup. 


Go back through Grehan's howto on the link I posted.

I also use 
	
	



```
setenv auto-boot? false
```
.

It's a good way to try booting the CD through the command line in OF.(You can keep trying until it boots.)


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## satori9 (Mar 9, 2011)

No matter what I've attempted, nothing newer than 7.2 will boot and 7.2 won't use the built-in keyboard.


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## sossego (Mar 11, 2011)

http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/bsdinstall-powerpc-20110308.iso.bz2

Join and post to the freebsd ppc list to get more help.


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