Even though I don’t drool at the mouth about it, I am a Linux user. I’ve installed (or attempted to install) Redhat, Fedora, SUSE, Slackware, TurboLinux, and a few different iterations of Mandrake. Mandrake has been the most annoying, due to the well-publicized issues with the kernel destroying LG CD-Rom drives. What is not so well-publicized is the way to fix one of those drives that has gone bad. The LG site has a diagram and plenty of broken Engrish text files that are supposed to guide you through the process, but I had to search for two days until I finally found what I needed on mandrakeusers.org:
- Create a boot floppy disk dos 6
- Copy xferlg.exe and the firmware on that floppy
- Shutdown your PC
- Connect the CD drive on the second IDE cable BUT do not plug the power cable !
- Put the jumper on the CD-ROM drive as indicated in Dead.gif
- Turn on the PC (the drive has still no power cable) with the floppy disk
- When the floppy has finished to boot, press the eject button of the drive, and connect the power to the CD-ROM drive while the eject button is still pressed : the led blinks and then is continuously on
- Stop pressing the eject button after the led has finished blinking
- Run xferlg [name of the firmware without the .lge extension]
- Turn off the PC.
- Put the jumper of the drive in the correct position (master or slave)
- Copy xferlg.exe and the firmware on that floppy
- Shutdown your PC
- Connect the CD drive on the second IDE cable BUT do not plug the power cable !
- Put the jumper on the CD-ROM drive as indicated in Dead.gif
- Turn on the PC (the drive has still no power cable) with the floppy disk
- When the floppy has finished to boot, press the eject button of the drive, and connect the power to the CD-ROM drive while the eject button is still pressed : the led blinks and then is continuously on
- Stop pressing the eject button after the led has finished blinking
- Run xferlg [name of the firmware without the .lge extension]
- Turn off the PC.
- Put the jumper of the drive in the correct position (master or slave)
It sounds dangerous, but it worked for me. All I can say is thank you open-source community and thank you Google!
you should look into using yellow dog on your ppc powerbook. its free, easy to install and dualbootable with OS 7.6 – X.3:
http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/resources/downloads.shtml