Booting PDQ with iQUIK

Got my PDQ today. Boots into MacOS 9 and doesn't boot (with BootX) into some installed Ubuntu.

We can fix that :-).

Popped-in my PCMCIA CF adapter with the debian installer files and iQUIK installed. OpenFirmware 2.0.1 is the same version as on the 3400c, but refuses to see anything beyond the PC card bridge.

What?

Anyway. For whatever reason it just doesn't enumerate them. Easy to fix. Put the following in your nvramrc (unless you really like typing):

: probe-card select-dev " probe-pccard" my-self $call-method unselect-dev ;
: my-boot " ata2" probe-card " ata3" probe-card boot ;

You can setenv boot-command to be my-boot now.

0 > my-boot ata3/pccard45,401@0:0

...of course, you may have a different name of the actual CF device. Mine was made by Sandisk, hence the 45,401.

Linux loads file, then screen goes psychodelic with the LCD obviously driven incorrectly. Still working on the "real" fix, but you can convince Linux to just use the OF framebuffer instead of re-initing the video with "video=ofonly video="offb". Yes, you need both.

This PDQ is a pretty nice machine. 400MHz G3 and 512MB RAM. It's pretty usable even in 2013, which is pretty damn quick for a machine made in 1998. Of course, back in '98 it probably cost a kidney.

Have fun...