Can't boot MacBooks at GPA from CD + USB

I just tried the same stick and CD on my iMac at home. Works fine. :(

The error at the GPA is "Not Responding" it seems to happen at the time when the computer looks for the USB. On my iMac (where it works) at the same point where it says Not Responding on the MacBooks it says "assuming cache write through" 4 times then it continues. I've seen that message quite a bit and I'm guessing it has to do with scanning for USBs.

here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir1A3FH08kQ

We want to get the following additional information.

1. Does a regular Live Fedora CD boot on them?
2. What is the exact model number (about this Mac)

Some additional information from an email from Mitch Bradley

If they were new last year, I would have expected them to have Intel processors instead of PowerPC. Everything I have heard says that Apple switched to EFI firmware for their Intel-based systems. I thought that Apple stopped using Open Firmware when they phased-out PowerPC.

*Googling revealed it was open firmware and showed us how to set security to "none". Now the boot starts with the CD but at the point in the boot that other machines look for the USB we get "not responding"*

That bit of information is consistent with Open Firmware - but I suppose it is possible that EFI might have a similar security / none capability. I would certainly expect EFI to have some sort of security, and "none" is a pretty obvious state name. What is the exact command sequence that you used to set the security?

Unfortunately, even if the machines do have Open Firmware, we a FirmWorks are not in a good position to help you. While I am the original designer of the Open Firmware standard, Apple's implementation was done in-house from scratch, and is totally unrelated to the FirmWorks implementation (which incidentally is the implementation that is used on OLPC XO machines). Apple based their implementation on the IEEE 1274-1994 standard document, so while it shares many core capabilities and commands with FirmWorks' implementation, it has diverged for 15 years. USB hadn't even been invented at the time the divergence started.

Today we tried again:

The first time we tried to boot with the CD and the USB it went through 4 lines of looking for USB ports. Then assumine drive cache then it booted! All seemed ok but the mouse did not work.

We tried again and it wouldn't go past the first isolink line. We did not get to the 1 second to start splash screen.

The we tried to boot back to Mac OSX. We got a grey forbidden sign. In verbose mode it had errors about lo0oking for USB and root. We tried safe mode. We tried holding down x to force OSX boot. Finally we took out the battery and it booted back to OSX.

Bravely we tried again with the CD and USB. We got the iso linux line and teh blue splash screen. But then "not responding" and it stopped.

When we tried to boot back into OSX it was grey forbidden sign again. Removing the battery again fixed this.

Next we tried a Puppy CD. It failed to boot, got stuck at loading kernal modules

Next we tried the Sugar CD. We got to the green screen asking about language but the keyboard did not work so we can
t get any farther. Note that when we got the USB to boot earlier the keyboard did work, it was the mouse that didn't work.

It seems like there is an issue finding the USB on these macs and the Linux system seems to leave the computer in a bad state. We have never seen this on any other MacBooks or iMacs.

I think the next thing i want to try is a CD version of Bill's Floppy boot. It works differently doing a full linux boot then booting another kernal on the USB.

 Why does it work once and not again? What is linux doing that is keeping MacOSX from booting even after all the linux medium is removed? why are these macbooks different from all other macs anyone has tired before?

Screenshots of the mac hardware and a video of what it looked like when it actually booted are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/solutiongrove/MacIssues#

The failed boot with "not responding" is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir1A3FH08kQ

Macbook hardware details: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Student_Macbooks_hardware_details

Today I went to the Apple store. I was able to reproduce the problems on the white MacBooks. I had no problem booting the Macbook Pro's.

Now at least we know this isn't something that BPS did to the computers.

I tried to boot the Macbook with a Fedora 11 CD and it failed in the same way. So now we know its a problem with Fedora (or perhaps all linux) and this version of Macbook 5,2.

Note the hardware details are linked above.

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.