Linux on intel xserve

[Jason Joines]

   I'm a Linux person who just inherited a bunch of apple and dell
boxes.  Naturally the first thing I've done is begin replacing windows
on the dells with Ubuntu, no problems there.  Now on to the macs.

    I was given a macbook pro for a laptop and had no problems getting
Kubuntu on there.  However, I can't get the intel xserve to even boot
off of an Ubuntu CD.  I tried holding down the C key, the cd is just
ignored.  I tried powering on while holding down the system identifier
button, eventually it just spits the cd out.  I yanked the hard drives
out and powered on with the cd in the drive, it's been setting there
with a blinking question mark on the screen for more than an hour.  I
tried all of those things with both an i386 and an amd64 cd with the
same results.  Both cds had been used to install onto the dells.
    A "mac person" tried to help me.  They went to a boot drive setting
in a system preferences application in os x.  I assume it writes changes
to the efi on disk or something like that.  However, the cd wasn't
listed which the mac person took to mean it wasn't a boot cd.

    When I put Kubuntu on the intel macbook pro, it was 7.04 feisty.  I
haven't tried 7.04 on the intel xserver yet and I haven't tried the
powerpc boot disk on any of the powerpc xserve boxes.  I thought using
the same thing that worked on the dells on the intel xserve boxes would
be the easiest starting point.

    Any ideas?


Jason Joines
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