freeBSD on PowerMac G4 install help needed

[Bruce Cran]

On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 09:11:32AM -0700, Chris Bigguy wrote:
> I'm new on the list and Horsts' message was the first clue that I've gotten that someone can install FreeBSD on a Mac.  I've been trying on-and-off for months without success (but learned a lot in the process).  If someone(s) could help me, I'd be glad to document the process if it isn't already done.
> 
> I have a Digital Audio system with 768M RAM and a CD reader.
>

I recently installed FreeBSD on my iBook G4.  I don't mind leaving the
CD in the drive permanently though, so it makes the process simpler; 
also, I decided to have FreeBSD be the only OS on 
the Mac.  Before you start, you might
want to set auto-boot off in the OpenFirmware so you can figure out the
correct boot command - see
http://www.netneurotic.net/mac/openfirmware.html for details.

First, I booted from the OS X install DVD, ran the Disk Utility and
repartitioned the disk.  Then, I swapped the DVD for the 8-CURRENT
FreeBSD CD.  That booted me into sysinstall where I went through the
installation procedure, selecting each partition as a separate
filesystem, since FreeBSD/ppc doesn't use slices.

When the laptop had rebooted, it stopped at the OpenFirmware prompt and
I just had to run

boot cd:,\boot\loader hd:5

in order to boot the loader from the CD. That in turn loads the kernel
from the HDD and boots into FreeBSD.  In a previous installation I had
to use hd:3 so you might have to try a few before it works.  Once you've
got it booting you might want to configure the boot-device and boot-file
parameters in OpenFirmware and set auto-boot back to true if you want to
boot into FreeBSD automatically.

There are several steps where it's easy to go wrong - where are you
getting stuck?

-- 
Bruce Cran