Apple iBook G4 - OS X

Machine info on main page.

Boot keys: alt (option) - show boot menu / select drive to boot from, shift - Safe Boot, C - boot from optical drive, N - boot from NetBoot server, T - firewire target mode, X - force OSX Startup, Command-S - start in Single User mode, Command-V - start in verbose mode,

open firmware: Command-Option-O-F

open firmware: dev / ls - list the tree from root,

OS X keys: Force Quit - Command-Option-Escape, Restart - Command-Control-Power, force shut down - press power button for 10 seconds,

Work log

2012-07-19: booted up OS X and updated software: Java for Mac OS X 10.4 Release 6 (version 1.0) via Software Update. Then software Update ran another check, and Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 7 (version 1.0) was available, so I installed that. And next, Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 8 (version 1.0), also installed. And Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 9 (version 1.0), installed.

2011-11-17: resizing - trying to add another partition with Disk Utility (using the PowerBook with the IBook in target mode again), results in a "partitioning error". It seems like Disk Utility is unable to change the number of partitions set in the APM disk when it was first created.

2011-11-16: interesting. When I inserted the FreeBSD 9.0-RC2 CD (FreeBSD-9.0-RC2-powerpc-release.iso) into the machine in OS X I got a CPU panic. It seems to boot nicely from "C" now, we'll see.

2011-11-16: trying the resizing one more time. I start up the iBook in "firewire target mode" (by holding "T" until it has booted, and the firewire symbol is moving around the screen). Then I connected the iBook to the PowerBook G4 (which runs OS X 10.5.x), and used Disk Utility on that machine to resize the disk: select the drive (not a partition) in Disk Utility, click on "Partition" and then drag the size of the partition smaller, then press "execute" (or whatever the name is in english, the PB runs OS X in Norwegian). I made the OS X partition 25.09 GB, leaving plenty of space for FreeBSD. Afterwards I "ejected" the firewire drive. To end firewire target mode, simply power off the machine. Afterwards, I powered up the iBook and verified that the OS X partition had indeed shrunk, and that there was free space after it. Cool!

2011-11-06: instead of messing with usb disks, I found an old firewire disk (Maxtor 300 GB). I used Disk Utility to partition in two, using APM as the partition type. Then it was time for CCC to clone the internal drive again. Hopefully, the machine will boot from this firewire drive. Later: yes, it works. From Terminal, diskutil list shows that disk0 is the internal disk drive and disk1 the external disk drive. The volume "Macintosh HD" is at disk0s3. Unfortunately, diskutil resizeVolume disk0s3 limits doesn't work.

$diskutil resizeVolume  disk0s3 limits
Error obtaining resizing information

Resizing encountered error Could not modify partition map (-9986) on disk0s3 Macintosh HD

Darn!

2011-11-05: I installed Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) and used Disk Utility to partition a external hard drive (usb), then started to clone the internal hard drive. It will be interesting if the iBook will boot from the usb drive. Nope, it wont. Ok, booting into Open firmware and trying a few things:

devalias ud /pci@f2000000/usb@1b,1/disk@1
dir ud:3,\

but it didn't work.

2011-10-25: I ran software update, but the only thing available was Java for Mac OS X 10.4 Release 6. Nothing to see here.

2011-10-25: the machine came with OS X 10.4.11 (8S165) - Norwegian installed.

Apple iBook G4 - OS X

Links

local links

Work log