[tlug] screen goes blank when installing SuSE on PowerBook G4

[Joseph Essertier <essertier@example.com>]

I accidentally attached this message to another thread, so please reply to this one instead of the other.  Thanks to Mark Sargent for pointing this out.  I guess i clicked on "Reply" instead of "Compose."  I didn't know that doing that will attach one's message to someone else's thread, even when one uses a different subject line.  I can't even tell now, using my email program, to which thread my message/post was attached, so i don't know where to post an apology.  But anyway, please ignore the other message, or erase it if there is a way to do that.

After writing this message i started to wonder if a more appropriate place to ask about this would be in a SuSE forum?  If so, please let me know.  If someone can point me in the right direction, that would be great.
Thank you and sorry about attaching the message below to someone else's thread.

Joe

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Anyone have any experience with installing SuSE on PowerBooks?
I'm trying to install Open SuSE 10.0 on my PowerBook G4 Titanium using this guide:
http://www.opensuse.org/POWER@example.com

Actually i'm trying to set it up as a dual boot, with Mac OS 10.2 on one partition, and SuSE on the other, the way explained in this guide.

As you will see if you go to this guide page, there is a page entitled "PPC Partitioning" with 5 sections:

1 Drive partitioning scheme:

2 Creating your Linux partitions with pdisk:

3 Installing with YaST:

4 Bootloader setup

5 Possible problems within YaST

I did my partitioning the same way the writer of this page (wiki?) did, and got as far as step 3.  The problem i have occurs while i'm trying to do step 4, "Bootloader setup."  In that section, it says, "Check PPC Installation Issues for more information on bootloader setup ," so i click on "PPC Installation Issues."   Under "Bootloader Installation (lilo or yaboot)" it says:

"There is currently no support to install the bootloader automatically during installation, nor is there anything to repartition your hard disk (within YaST). To workaround this, boot again into the YaST installer and chose Boot into the installed system instead of New Installation. Continue with the package installation and system configuration. Login to the system as root and create a new config file for lilo."

When i boot again into the YaST installer and choose "Boot into the installed system" 2 pages of text informing me what is going on scroll by.  I don't understand what most of it means, but it's not full of error messages.  That lasts about 5 seconds, then the screen goes blank (actually black), i hear it (hard disk or CD drive?) working away and hear a bootup sound like the sound on the Mac when it is first starting up, but the screen continues to stay black.  I can't see anything.  After awhile the hard drive and CD drive become quiet like it's waiting for me to do something.  Maybe log in?  But i can't see anything, so i give up.  The video monitor i manually chose was "PowerBook Titanium."  Is there a better  selection for my video monitor or something?  The actual model number of my PowerBook is M8407.  It's a 15 inch screen, and searching for specifications on this computer, i find that "Onyx (VGA) 15"" is often appended to the name of the computer, PowerBook G4 Titanium.  Is Onyx the maker of the video monitor?

Why did i attempt this?  I fairly successfully installed this latest version of SuSE on my desktop at work, and i want to have it on a computer at home, but this PowerBook is the only computer at home that i'm willing to experiment on.  It's also kinda fun.  (Heh, heh).

I was about to give up, but i thought i'd ask somebody here first before doing that.

Thank you.
Joe