Debian Sid Installation Guide (PowerPC)

[uxmarkb]

v

I have the same issue - and I am a long-time Debian / Ubuntu user, going back years! I have a write-up extension of the 2018 directions starting this Thread. However, I would like it to "work" before posting, though I may put it on gist.github.com.

Frustrating! Both during the installation and doing a "rescue", I can "apt install" and do various things, but the Rescue mode - post install - is not viable for a working Debian SID, on a G4 1.25 DP, bah. Yaboot must work, ha ha! Any ideas? I will post more soon....

EDIT: "Better to use Expert mode install if available with any deb-based distros." I second this, heartily. The install went very well, for the latest macppc SID .iso, and Expert mode give a lot of flexibility in the install process.

EDIT: I booted the latest Debian powerpc "ports" (Dec 2022?) ISO, dd'ed to a good USB thumb-drive. I can install or "Rescue" from that USB installer, over and over without issue. Now, to make "yaboot" actually boot the Debian install...

Now! the Debian 12 "ports" ISO for PowerPC -- 32 bit, G4 MDD tower -- "just works"!

You can follow the Guide at the start of this Forum, for disk partitioning, using a dedicated EIDE drive. I would strongly suggest using Expert Mode for the installation. Also follow the Guide for "ftp.ports.debian.org" - package mirror.

Grub works, with no adjustments or exceptions. ATI 9000 agp Video (for XFCE desktop, added during Install process) works, except for screen-lock, which buggars the desktop colors.

There really is nothing special to do. Noted: (1) GNU Emacs won't install, perhaps its package is not building for "Sid" (2) LibreOffice Writer may be segfaulting (3) does anyone use XEmacs21 any more (? it works) (4) XFCE desktop appears to work out-of-the-box!

ISO: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/12.0/debian-12.0.0-powerpc-NETINST-1.iso

Installer (page; dated a bit): https://www.debian.org/releases/testing/installmanual

If you are a Debian or Linux newbie, perhaps it's best to really Read the Docs for installation, and try an install out on a little-used PC desktop or old laptop.

Most / all (?) of the "exceptions" in the Guide, to a normal installation of Debian 12, no longer applies. Have fun!

 

[swamprock]

.

 

[swamprock]

v

Now! the Debian 12 "ports" ISO for PowerPC -- 32 bit, G4 MDD tower -- "just works"!

You can follow the Guide at the start of this Forum, for disk partitioning, using a dedicated EIDE drive. I would strongly suggest using Expert Mode for the installation. Also follow the Guide for "ftp.ports.debian.org" - package mirror.

Grub works, with no adjustments or exceptions. ATI 9000 agp Video (for XFCE desktop, added during Install process) works, except for screen-lock, which buggars the desktop colors.

There really is nothing special to do. Noted: (1) GNU Emacs won't install, perhaps its package is not building for "Sid" (2) LibreOffice Writer may be segfaulting (3) does anyone use XEmacs21 any more (? it works) (4) XFCE desktop appears to work out-of-the-box!

ISO: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/12.0/debian-12.0.0-powerpc-NETINST-1.iso

Installer (page; dated a bit): https://www.debian.org/releases/testing/installmanual

If you are a Debian or Linux newbie, perhaps it's best to really Read the Docs for installation, and try an install out on a little-used PC desktop or old laptop.

Most / all (?) of the "exceptions" in the Guide, to a normal installation of Debian 12, no longer applies. Have fun!

Nice! We'll have to see how this new release performs on a machine-by-machine basis, and edit the wiki post accordingly. I'll try to put time aside this weekend to give it a shot. Thanks for the update.

 

[ftalbot]

v

Now! the Debian 12 "ports" ISO for PowerPC -- 32 bit, G4 MDD tower -- "just works"!

You can follow the Guide at the start of this Forum, for disk partitioning, using a dedicated EIDE drive. I would strongly suggest using Expert Mode for the installation. Also follow the Guide for "ftp.ports.debian.org" - package mirror.

Grub works, with no adjustments or exceptions. ATI 9000 agp Video (for XFCE desktop, added during Install process) works, except for screen-lock, which buggars the desktop colors.

There really is nothing special to do. Noted: (1) GNU Emacs won't install, perhaps its package is not building for "Sid" (2) LibreOffice Writer may be segfaulting (3) does anyone use XEmacs21 any more (? it works) (4) XFCE desktop appears to work out-of-the-box!

ISO: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/12.0/debian-12.0.0-powerpc-NETINST-1.iso

Installer (page; dated a bit): https://www.debian.org/releases/testing/installmanual

If you are a Debian or Linux newbie, perhaps it's best to really Read the Docs for installation, and try an install out on a little-used PC desktop or old laptop.

Most / all (?) of the "exceptions" in the Guide, to a normal installation of Debian 12, no longer applies. Have fun!

Install went pretty smoothly on a 2004 PowerBook G4. Only (major) problem so far is that the trackpad button stops working past the display manager. I saw this behaviour in Mate and LXQT. I haven’t investigated further yet.

EDIT : Button works fine under XFCE.

 

[Cowlord2000]

bruh im new and the link is not going to the download im also pretty sure im missing something because im tired af so idk

 

[Lilendianppcnes]

bruh im new and the link is not going to the download im also pretty sure im missing something because im tired af so idk

Try this, bruh: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/12.0/powerpc/

On a side note, I just installed Debian 12 on my AlBook a few hours ago and still cannot believe how effortless the install was. No more GRUB issues, no more rebooting to a failed login, no more blank screens, no more failed mirrors... it just works now! Amazing!

 

[css4]

Try this, bruh: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/12.0/powerpc/

On a side note, I just installed Debian 12 on my AlBook a few hours ago and still cannot believe how effortless the install was. No more GRUB issues, no more rebooting to a failed login, no more blank screens, no more failed mirrors... it just works now! Amazing!

Is your 3d acceleration working?

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

cannot believe how effortless the install was

Can you use GPT-partitioned drive?

 

[pc297]

Can you use GPT-partitioned drive?

I can't vouch for installing Debian 12 on a GPT-partitioned drive but under Debian 11 yes (if worse comes to worst you can always upgrade from Debian 11, which I did)

 

[Scarrus]

So when I try to boot off of the usb I get this.

Downloaded the Debian PPC64 iso from here:

Index of /cdimage/ports/current

EDIT:

I'm using the first model iMac G5, the one without iSight camera, 1.6Ghz Processor and Nvidia FX5200 64mb Graphics.

 

[uxmarkb]

View attachment 2226321 So when I try to boot off of the usb I get this.

Downloaded the Debian PPC64 iso from here:

Index of /cdimage/ports/current

Not much detail. What Powermac model are you attempting to boot? I used "powerpc" 32-bit Debian 12, not PPC64 (64-bit). My G4 MDD has had no issues booting from USB, and the Debian 12 powerpc install went well, no issues.

Ha, not so my G5s, they won't boot anything from USB. Had to burn a CD (wow, memories) with Debian 12 PPC64 ISO. I followed the standard Debian (12 ISO PPC64) install. Using the "expert mode" menu, worked to "fix" an issue with Guided Partitoning. Had to delete all partitions *except* the Apple partition on the 2nd drive, and then the Partitioning and installation did continue.

Apparently something is broken - " can't write Swap partition" or such warning, during the Guided Partitioning step. Wow, Plenty of space on that #2 SSD drive...

Grub worked, and the bootable "Debian 12 PPC64 drive" booted fine from %Option selection on my G5.

Good luck!

 

[Scarrus]

Not much detail. What Powermac model are you attempting to boot? I used "powerpc" 32-bit Debian 12, not PPC64 (64-bit). My G4 MDD has had no issues booting from USB, and the Debian 12 powerpc install went well, no issues.

Ha, not so my G5s, they won't boot anything from USB. Had to burn a CD (wow, memories) with Debian 12 PPC64 ISO. I followed the standard Debian (12 ISO PPC64) install. Using the "expert mode" menu, worked to "fix" an issue with Guided Partitoning. Had to delete all partitions *except* the Apple partition on the 2nd drive, and then the Partitioning and installation did continue.

Apparently something is broken - " can't write Swap partition" or such warning, during the Guided Partitioning step. Wow, Plenty of space on that #2 SSD drive...

Grub worked, and the bootable "Debian 12 PPC64 drive" booted fine from %Option selection on my G5.

Good luck!

I think the problem also lies that there is no "grub.elf" anymore on the root of the image so I don't know which file to direct it to.

If it plain just can't boot from usb then that sucks as I don't have any cd/dvd drive laying around...


Model is:

 

[pc297]

I think the problem also lies that there is no "grub.elf" anymore on the root of the image so I don't know which file to direct it to.

If it plain just can't boot from usb then that sucks as I don't have any cd/dvd drive laying around...


Model is:

View attachment 2226423

The iMac 8,2 can't boot off a usb drive, so likely the 8,1 can't either... If you have access to a firewire HDD and write the bookworm image to it?

 

[Scarrus]

The iMac 8,2 can't boot off a usb drive, so likely the 8,1 can't either... If you have access to a firewire HDD and write the bookworm image to it?

Thanks 👍

You mean like clone the Image to the entire HDD?

 

[pc297]

Thanks 👍

You mean like clone the Image to the entire HDD?

Yes to an external firewire HDD so that you have a bootable installation medium if you don't have access to an optical drive

 

[ajzimmerman]

None of the repositories work for me, neither the default, nor any of the ones you listed. internet is working... it's complaining about GPG or something. Of course I already tried apt-get update --allow-unauthenticated and tried following this, https://chrisjean.com/fix-apt-get-u...fied-because-the-public-key-is-not-available/ but of course in order to retrieve the keys it needs something I don't have. gnupg, so I try the DVD, and of course that doesn't have it. So very helpful Debian, for releasing an OS that is impossible to upgrade, and also conveniently automatically disabling the repos it comes with too.

 

[pc297]

None of the repositories work for me, neither the default, nor any of the ones you listed. internet is working... it's complaining about GPG or something. Of course I already tried apt-get update --allow-unauthenticated and tried following this, https://chrisjean.com/fix-apt-get-u...fied-because-the-public-key-is-not-available/ but of course in order to retrieve the keys it needs something I don't have. gnupg, so I try the DVD, and of course that doesn't have it. So very helpful Debian, for releasing an OS that is impossible to upgrade, and also conveniently automatically disabling the repos it comes with too.

This happens whenever they are updating the repositories' GPG keys which is every few months, maybe try after midnight today or tomorrow? I had this once, I had tried to manually update the GPG keys to no avail, but just waiting it out did work, could be you have to refresh the GPG keys though

 

[strider50]

So, I'm attempting to get LITERALLY ANY flavor of linux booting on my powermac g5. it's a dual 1.8 Ghz powermac 7,3 with a geforce fx 5200. I downloaded the ppc64 NETINST iso from here (https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/current/) Iunderstand that these isos used to produce a GRUB error but have since been fixed). during install it asks to install non-free firmware from an external disk, I decline since I don't have that firmware.
Other than that installation goes fine, and it even gets to the GRUB screen, but the background for GRUB is oddly discolored, green and you can't quite make out the debian logo in the corner. After choosing to boot into debian, the last thing it shows on the screen is
i2c i2c-3: i2c-powermac:modalias failure on /u3@0,f8000000/i2c@f8001000/cereal@1c0
then the screen goes black and nothing else happens. I understand that debian can have trouble with the graphics, especially nvidia. I'll now try to install the powerpc version of the same iso on my powerbook g4 and see if I have any more luck.
Any help on the above debian issue would be greatly appreciated.

 

[strider50]

So, I'm attempting to get LITERALLY ANY flavor of linux booting on my powermac g5. it's a dual 1.8 Ghz powermac 7,3 with a geforce fx 5200. I downloaded the ppc64 NETINST iso from here (https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/current/)(I understand that these isos used to produce a GRUB error but have since been fixed). during install it asks to install non-free firmware from an external disk, I decline since I don't have that firmware.
Other than that installation goes fine, and it even gets to the GRUB screen, but the background for GRUB is oddly discolored, green and you can't quite make out the debian logo in the corner. After choosing to boot into debian, the last thing it shows on the screen is
i2c i2c-3: i2c-powermac:modalias failure on /u3@0,f8000000/i2c@f8001000/cereal@1c0
then the screen goes black and nothing else happens. I understand that debian can have trouble with the graphics, especially nvidia. I'll now try to install the powerpc version of the same iso on my powerbook g4 and see if I have any more luck.
Any help on the above debian issue would be greatly appreciated.

An install of debian 12 from the same URL to my powerbook g4 went flawlessly. I think some people ITT mentioned a problem with weird colors when waking from sleep and i did get that, I'll look back at those posts and see if there was any fix.
Wireless DID NOT work. I'm pretty unfamiliar with linux, what's the easiest command to get the wireless firmware for this powerbook 5,3?

 

[fmata]

Got myself a Powerbook 6,4 here, and I installed the debian 12 sid image here just fine, installed XFCE as my desktop, all was fine and well till I restarted, I was able to log in just fine, there were no graphical issues, then I get sent to a mostly black screen with a functional cursor and my desktop background very tiny in the top left. I've been able to fix this two ways, either by completely nuking my XFCE ~./cache/sessions and ~./config/xfce4 (works until I reboot), or uninstalling xserver-xorg-video-nouveau (persists but slower). I've tried installing LXQT but I get the same issue, along with issues with the taskbar not really wanting to recognize my mouse but I'm not concerned about that right now. I'm a massive linux noob so any help I would greatly appreciate. Thank you!

 

[swamprock]

An install of debian 12 from the same URL to my powerbook g4 went flawlessly. I think some people ITT mentioned a problem with weird colors when waking from sleep and i did get that, I'll look back at those posts and see if there was any fix.
Wireless DID NOT work. I'm pretty unfamiliar with linux, what's the easiest command to get the wireless firmware for this powerbook 5,3?

Download the firmware-b43-installer deb and the b43-fwcutter deb from my server, and install using dpkg (sudo dpkg -i *.deb). Reboot afterwards. They still work for AP Extreme cards.

http://atari.vg-network.com/ppclinux/b43-fwcutter_019-3_powerpc.deb
http://atari.vg-network.com/ppclinux/firmware-b43-installer_019-3_all.deb

I get weird colors when waking my 1ghz TiBook as well. Installing firmware-amd-graphics didn't fix it, but you're welcome to try.

http://atari.vg-network.com/ppclinux/firmware-amd-graphics_20230210-5_all.deb

There still seems to be endian issues with video and color, even using media players. I admit that I may have missed something that I was supposed to install...

 

[Shiunbird]

Everything worked fine for me, thank you. My late 2005 single CPU machine is doing great with sid.

However, I can't get the CPU speed governor to work - stuck at 2GHz. It was throttling down to 1GHz in Void. I need a few things from the Debian tooling.

Any clues?

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

Try this, bruh: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/12.0/powerpc/

On a side note, I just installed Debian 12 on my AlBook a few hours ago and still cannot believe how effortless the install was. No more GRUB issues, no more rebooting to a failed login, no more blank screens, no more failed mirrors... it just works now! Amazing!

You have to mostly thank John Paul Adrian Glaubitz. He is the one doing most of the work.

 

[CW29]

Hi I've also posted in the MintPPC thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mintppc-project.2202016/post-32699874 (from this post downwards) but this is to do with the internal display of Titanium Powerbook G4 with a MV100/M6 radeon graphics which isn't showing anything after the initial blue screen netst install.

I've installed the graphics driver packages etc in the MintPPC and I'm getting a black internal display still.

I've also tried a few options in grub re kernel

Before I changed or installed lxdm and lxde, I was getting a login screen for XFCE on the external monitor but after LXDE the external monitor went black or slate grey as I could see a triangular cursor...

Any ideas appreciative...

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

Any ideas appreciative...

Install some other login managers (wdm\slim\lightdm\sddm etc). Try them (with dpkg-reconfigure) & see what happens.