Sverre Sorensen writes
Apple has their "Switch" program were people tell their stories ...

... so I wrote my story about switching from AIX to YDL on my ANS 700. I addition to the user manual from
www.xs4all.nl/~eddieb/linuxppc/ANS/, these are the ingredients:
1 Apple Network Server 700/150
1 200 MHz processor upgrade card
4 DIMM modules (2*16,2*32)
1 Apple Extended Keyboard
1 Monitor (brand not to be mensioned)
1 Power Macintosh 7600/200 with YDL up and running
A bunch of floppies (3 is enough if they work)
1 ANS boot floppy
1 Schweppes Grape Soda
Friday
Got home from work, had dinner, started to make the cursed floppys, made 2, then went back to work where the waiting ANS were sitting. Booted it up on the boot floppy, peachie, popped in [the first floppy] (thought it would load that one and on the meantime I would make the last one), BIIPP, that did not work as it seem that the floppy drive of my home linux machine is not aligned. SO I had to make all of them again. It is a fun job. It takes about forever to make each floppy, but It finally was done.
So I went back to the waiting ANS and started again (I now know the boot routine by head, which is not to bad for a point and click guy), and this time It just took floppy one, two and three, and said SHOW ME THE CD (that is my interpation of "Show me the money"). I put in the cd (I chose "Fuji" continued with the usual install routine, choose base install and suddenly I had it installed. I rebooted and it was up and running.
Geehh, cool!
... and averything was nice and warm and cosy.
But I need Apache and bind and such, but hey who cares, I have YDL, with the built in YUP so all installation is as easy as "yup install". EXCEPT before you have pine you have no pico. So I had to edit yup.conf with VI (Why is not the VI team on the most wanted list of the FBI?) ... after cursing and begging and crying and swearing and --I got it configured to go to SUNET in sweden (I live in Norway and SUNET has one of Scandinavias best lines). So I installed it and averything was nice and warm and cosy.
But I wanted a new kernel and the last version of YDL, easy I thought, just do a yup update. So I updated it and everything went swell until I rebooted, then it didn't work any more, damn! p... of s... and so on.
It is now 2am saturday and I am tired of this stupid computer. I start to walk, and hey --the computer isn't stupid, I am. Why did the dutch guy write a special kernel, yes because the computer needs it. It should however work with a later kernel too ...
... s-l-e-e-p-i-n-g ...
Saturday
I go back to work to redo the work I started yesterday. I know the routine so [it] goes fast. 4 floppies, 1 CD, and back to VI (I wish the feds could get those guys). I install Apache, BIND, PHP and of course pine. AND, I didn't notice it on friday, but the LCD in front says "Welcome to Yellow Dog Linux"
The computer starts, runs, and is just great! It is faster then my 200MHz 7600 even before the processor upgrade. I then decide to install it the way the manual says (I do not read the manual the first day since I am a Norwegian, and we do not read manuals before we have either got totally stuck or prefably ruined the thing we work with). So I tried to install quik, and it did not work so I redid the install a bit ... no it won't boot again. But hey it is not yet evening so lets install it again. And I did, this time following the
[guide written by] Kai Staats. And the machine is unable to boot from scratch but It works like a charm. And it is time to go to bed again.
Sunday
I have a brand new, actually old ANS to play with.
It was quiet a bit of a hassel to install YDL on the ANS, but mainly because I didn't follow the instructions and most of all becase of the floppys that failed. I now can set up an ANS in about 1 hour to run as an webserver, DNS server database server. And I most say that If you have a ANS and a little spare time it is definitivly worth it.
The machine is fast and stable.
Sverre :)
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