Well after enjoying my experience of Morphos so much on a MacMini I took the plunge this week and decided to get a A1106 Powerbook G4.

I thought the easiest way to install Morphos 3.13 would be using the same USB stick as I used for my MacMini, but when I follow the guide to install it through OpenFirmware I get the crossed out circle which I believe means the boot.img is not compatible.

What am I doing wrong?

MacOS 10.5 is installed on the machine at the moment and the USB ports both work (as does everything else) and under MacOS the drive and files can be seen.

Just keen to get this installed, so any help really welcome.

Quote:

It means that the OF wasn't able to load it. How big is the USB stick? Some older OpenFirmware versions do not read bigger FAT32 sticks all that good - I keep some 1-16GB sicks around just for this.

I thought it might be the different boot.img for the PowerBook compared to the MacMini, that you meant ... see:

Installng with USB Sticks - links to MorphOS Library

However, what jacadcaps has said above may be more specific to your problem in these circumstances.

[ Edited by NewSense 11.09.2020 - 00:47 ]

> I thought it might be the different boot.img for the PowerBook compared
> to the MacMini, that you meant ... see: Installng with USB Sticks

That article says nothing about different boot.img files for PowerBook and Mac mini. It would be false if it did, as both are "mac_ppc32".

Thanks for you help guys.

The USB stick is a 16g stick as I bought it especially for this task.

I've tried re-formatting it on both my MacMini under Morphos and also my laptop under Windows 10 and I'm now fairly certain that the Open Firmware on the Powerbook still can't see it.

When I type "dev usb0: /ls" or "dev usb1: /ls" I get "ok" for both usb sockets but no list to say the disk has been found.

Not sure if I have another USB stick hanging around but I try and have dig one out and give that a go next.

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You should type "dev usb0 ls", no ":", "/", or anything extra there. And I think you should see a list containing at least something else if not the stick anyway... for me it lists internal keyboard and trackpad (mouse), for example. You could also try at least usb2 too, if you really don't get anything from 0 or 1.

Sorry, I was typing the right thing, I just listed it incorrectly here.

USB0 and USB1 just come back with "ok" and then USB2 lists the internal mouse and keyboard like you say.

What I don't appear to be able to find is the actual USB stick itself.

I've also ordered some CD-R's to arrive from Amazon today, so if all else fails I'll burn a CD-R and try the install that way.

[ Edited by Zetec-s 11.09.2020 - 07:21 ]

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One thing that also came in my mind, that do you have the USB stick plugged in when you boot into Open Firmware, because OF doesn't recognize any changes if you plug in the stick while you're powered on and in the OF already. So the best is to plug the stick while powered off, and then turn on the machine and enter to OF.

And maybe continue to usb3, usb4, etc until you get an error message? Maybe there are some differences with these "units"?

[ Edited by jPV 11.09.2020 - 10:47 ]

It was the USB stick. I found an older smaller one and that worked and was recognised in OpenFirmware.

I've booted in MorphOS now, although haven't installed yet.

There was an issue with the screen and ghosting when I first booted but a reboot resolved that.

Also, playing around with the fan at the moment, as realised that making quite a bit of noise.

The screen issue is, unfortunately, a known problem. Either reboot or set screen brightness to 0 and then bring it back up to workaround.

Glad you gave another USB stick a try. PowerBooks generally sport an older build of OpenFirmware than Mac minis and are much more picky when it comes to USB/FAT32.