Installing Fedora Core3 on ibook g4

[p0stal]

My friend has an ibook g4, and for one reason or another, he had someone put Debian on it. The GUI is corrupt for some reason, and he looked to me for help. I don't know how to fix it, so I suggested we just isntall Fedora Core3 on it because it would be simple. So I download the cd's off the website and burn the images, but when I put the first CD into the ibook, and reboot, it wont boot off the cd. I am not familiar with Debian in the least bit, and I do not know how to get it to boot off the cd. Everytime I start the ibook, it says "press l for GNU/Linux or c for cdrom", so I press c. It takes me right back to the same screen, and asks the same thing, so I press c again. This time it hangs (im pretty sure, I have let it sit for 15 min to no avail) when it says "booting from cd...". So I reboot and I press l to boot into Linux. The GUI looks like it is trying to start up at the very beginning of the boot-up process ( the top 1/3 of the screen is white), then it flashes some weird error that I dont have time to read, and goes into text mode.

So I guess what I'm asking, is how do I get it to boot from the Fedora cd? Or, if there is an easy fix for the GUI error in Debian, what is it? I am not that familiar with Linux/Unix, but I can do some things.

Thanks for the help.
-p0stal

 

[Bullitt]

Quick question:

Are the CD images you downloaded for x86 or are they for PPC?


You will have to have a PPC flavor since x86 is for intel architecture (Windows machines) and the PPC (PowerPC) is for the Mac hardware.

As for the other option, what exactly do you mean by "corrupted the GUI?"

 

[p0stal]

Thanks for the help! lol

I really do not know what I mean by "corrupted the GUI", all I know is that for some reason the GUI will not show when booting to Dabian. I didn't install it so I couldn't tell you haha...

As for the PPC vs. x86, I will look into that tomorrow because I have already stayed up too late as it is. I'm sure I downloaded the wrong one though .

Thanks again.
-p0stal

 

[Bullitt]

ok, do this before going thru the hassle of format/reinstal

Can you get to the command prompt? (login: )

if so, log in as "root" and type this command:

startx

If that fails, go to /var/log and "nano XFree86.0.log" or the appropriate log file for your xserver and look at the lines which say EE. Google those errors to get a solution.

If you got into a GUI you need to visit your /etc/rc5.d directory and make sure you have a link to the ../init.d/kdm or gdm or whatever desktop manager you use.

 

[zeos]

Quick question:

Are the CD images you downloaded for x86 or are they for PPC?


You will have to have a PPC flavor since x86 is for intel architecture (Windows machines) and the PPC (PowerPC) is for the Mac hardware.

As for the other option, what exactly do you mean by "corrupted the GUI?"

you could also try yellow dog. better yet go back to os x, but hey i dont know this guys situation.