Hi guys,

I bought an MacMini G4. Look for specs below. And Im trying to boot from the MorphOSCD. Ive check the CD - it runs perfectly on my G5 but even after pressing C and using the ALT boot option on the G4 it does not want to boot. You can hear the bootproces and see a white screen after a few seconds but after that it's a black screen. The white screen also shows on the G5 but after that it show the MorphOS installation screen. The G4 does not. Weird Stuff.


Intro. January 11, 2005* Disc. February 28, 2006
Order M9686LL/A* Model A1103 (EMC 2026)
Family Mac mini ID PowerMac10,1
RAM 256 MB, 512 MB VRAM 32 MB
Storage 40.0 GB HDD Optical 8X "Combo Drive"

Side note. The previous owner installed some LinuxOS on a WD80GB HD. But it fails to boot. IMHO had to do nothing with booting from the CD does it? Or does it do a check for some sort of integrity of the HD (MBR etc)???

Thanks

Tekk

[ Bewerkt door Tekk 23.03.2017 - 19:47 ]

Do you have an OS X (10.5 or so) DVD and can check if the drive will boot from that?
If not I guess the drive is broken?


Manfred

A friend of mine made the same suggestion. I think I still have it, not sure. Thanks for the quick reply. Would a USB installaton of MorphOS work?

Quote:

I have not tested this on my own, but there is a guide on the official MorphOS side:

http://www.morphos.de/guide/usb-boot

Cheers. I formatted the USB stick in Windows FAT32. Copied the 32bit dir. Booted. Followed the steps. And it hangs after

boot usb1/disk@1:,\boot.img bi umsd0:morphos.iso

It says DO-QUIESCE finished_ I've waited for 20 minutes.. and nothing. Should I wait longer?

The guide is not very clear what should happen next.

What might be weird that there is no system information after ELF. Like stated in the screenshots in the USB BOOT FAQ.


[ Bewerkt door Tekk 23.03.2017 - 21:11 ]

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Waiting doesn't help, it should be matter of seconds. You have successfully loaded the boot.img file when you see that line, and the next step would be that operating system would start loading from the ISO file and you should see the MorphOS boot screen (black screen with butterfly image). You probably have already double checked that you don't have any typo with that umsd0:morphos.iso (you really have a file named morphos.iso on the usb stick)? Non matching name would cause exactly this kind of stop.

Maybe it could also be that for some reason graphics output wouldn't be shown when MorphOS should initialize the display after loading the boot.img file. Are you connecting with VGA or DVI? Could you try to swap to other connection (with DVI-VGA adapter if you're now using DVI)? Or with different monitor?

Another way to test if the system is actually running but without any display: try to press Enter when the system seems to be stuck, does it continue to the MorphOS installer (from the keyboard selection)? You should hear the installer jingle sound then. Or if you try to boot from CD, does it continue to read the CD after pressing the enter key.


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System information isn't shown on all systems at that point, I wouldn't worry about that.


[ Edited by jPV 24.03.2017 - 12:40 ]

Double post...

[ Edited by jPV 24.03.2017 - 12:40 ]

Well, if the preinstalled operating system does not boot, that could point to a problem either to the hard disk or some other component - like RAM. There might be a case in which a broken down hd is preventing boot. Try removing the hd and see if you can then boot from usb.

Thanks guys. Im more and more supecting that the initial resolution of the MorphOS is the culprit or my DVI to HMDI cable. I've installed MintPPC and I had to use 'video=ofonly' te get something on my screen.

I hooked the G4 on my tv and the TV stated that it does not support the resolution. With both OSes. I have a LG 3440x1440 monitor. When I boot from the MorphOS CD and after the screen stays black it's even very hard to get into the OSD. Something weird going on here. Weird though that the same cable works with my G5. Any suggetions? Ty again.

PS After the usage of ENTER I hear a sound :)

[ Bewerkt door Tekk 24.03.2017 - 19:18 ]

I wonder if it's somesort of incompatibility thing between my monitor and the G4. The 'Alt' boot menu works though.

[ Bewerkt door Tekk 24.03.2017 - 20:48 ]

Try with a vga cable?

The 'Alt' menu is OpenFirmware one. Try with shift for MorphOS bootmenu or ctrl for lower res.

My monitor has one displayport, two HDMI's and one Thunderbolt ports. No VGA.

When should I press 'shift' or 'ctrl' just after the chime when the bootCD is booting (when releasing 'C')?

Mind you, MintPPC is installed now on the HD. I see the bootprocess but just after it switches to the UI I have the samen problem. No picture. Could it be related to the signal in Hz (coherent/non-coherent signal)?

[ Bewerkt door Tekk 24.03.2017 - 22:41 ]

When bootCD is booting.

Well, pressing SHIFT did not work. But, CTRL gave me a screen called "Ambient". I could see a red mouse pointer but it lasted for two seconds. After that the monitor went into standby mode. Pressing ENTER again gave me the MorphOS tune.

Try booting from the USB by adding bm argument to the command line:
boot usb1/disk@1:,\boot.img bi umsd0:morphos.iso bm

That should give you a boot menu and if it's displayed, you can try to boot with some standard lower resolution modes by selecting them from the Display options. Maybe one of those would get you all the way to the desktop view.

Mac minis aren't really designed for big resolutions and you probably should use some lower spec modes, which probably need to be set up by hand after you have installed the OS. Maybe auto detection just gives you too big values with your current displays. Even FullHD seems to be on the limit in some cases.. for example I haven't had much success with FullHD modes with my Mac mini with 32MB vram, but OTOH my 64MB mini seems to work fine with FullHD.

In my experience TV setups are also quite picky about the correct modes you offer them, it may need lots of testing to find suitable modes. Real monitors seem to be easier in this regard.

Thanks for the replies all. I've managed to get the OS installed. Only thing now is that I can only access it via the CTRL (lowres) option. When I test the different monitor setups I end up that the 1680x1050 wide works. But also (via the MUI screen option) after USE the 1280x1024 24b one. But (!) after a reboot my monitor goes black and into standby. I would expect if the 1280x1024 24b is being USED and works that a reset does not result in a standby of the monitor.

What could be happening here? Ty again!

EDIT: 1280x1024 25Bit seems to be working. It just takes a fews seconds more. Higher res does not though. Thanks for the help!

[ Bewerkt door Tekk 25.03.2017 - 22:10 ]

Just press the save button ??? :)
"Use" stores settings in RAM only, they go away after reboot.

Delete MOSSYS:Libs/ddc.library. This will kill mode autodetection and let you use your configured mode. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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To make it clear that you're doing it from correct settings, in the MorphOS Preferences ("Settings->System..." from the pulldown menu) you'll see both "Screens" and "Monitors" settings. The screenmode for the Ambient screen (and other screens) can be selected from the Screens settings, and normally that is quite enough with the predefined screenmodes. If you need to tune or test the available screenmodes more precisely, you can do it from the Monitors settings. The new modes created there have still to be taken in use from the Screens settings.

Another thing which you seem to be confused is the Save/Use/Cancel behaviour on MorphOS. It's the heritage from Amiga where this concept has been from the start. If you want the settings to be changed permanently you'll have to click the Save button to save the settings to harddisk. The Use button only takes the settings in use temporarily, and the settings are reverted back to the saved state after a reboot.

I find this as one of the best inventions on Amiga ever, because this way you can temporarily use different settings without needing to worry messing your stuff too badly and without a need to manually tune them back when you don't need them anymore. I just hate it on modern systems where the settings are saved all the time you touch them. You can break your working setup just too easily that way if you just want to try out different options.

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Ha, no worries. I like a challenge. No apologies needed, I'm glad you guys developed this nice OS :)

Ty jPV, I'll check it out :)

[ Bewerkt door Tekk 26.03.2017 - 16:47 ]

Still weird though that I can't get it to work higher than 1280x1024. Should I read up on the specs of my monitor an adjust the Hz etc in MorphOS accordingly?

Try and get the specs needed for the Monitor setup, Bandwith(Mhz), Horizontal Freq/Sync, Vertical Freq/Sync.
Should be found inside your monitor manual or some site on the net.


To be honest, you might wanna stay clear of to high resolutions and Enhanced display settings.
Just eats up your 32Mb Vram at boot and you need some for other stuff too. ;P
When i boot in 1280x1024 i have 23.3MB left of my vram, im running 1280x1024 because that is the optimal resolution for my screen.

X

Cheers, indeed, the memory usage. I did not cross my mind. Thanks. I'll try to look for the specs of my monitor (LG34U95) and see if I can downgrade the res a little bit. The optimal res of this monitor is 3440x1440 which is obviously too big.