From: Egan
Without MCA support compiled into the kernel, you cannot boot an MCA machine.
I have one of those old MCA computers, almost as large as my desk, in my office. I would like to be able to install Linux on it, just to be able to show my co-workers that ancient technology can run 21century software.
There is an MCA boot disk for Suse 6.2 which I installed on my Server 95. It took some research to get the right LILO parameters: ibmmcascsi=ansi,0x3550,7 mca-pentium ide0=noprobe ide1=noprobe The first parameter is only if you have SCSI. I had to change the scsi base address to 0x3550 and force that address via the LILO prompt because it would not work at the default address for some reason. The mca-pentium is mandatory, and I had to prevent ide probing too, before it would work. You have to suppply these parameters to LILO when using the MCA boot disk to install.