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Adélie Linux for PowerPC

Thanxx @Doq, will have a look. I have already installed Tiger and Sorbet Leopard and have reserved a 3rd partition for Linux (and a 4th for "documents"), and I'd rather not have to reinstall the whole bunch just to be able to install Adelie on the 3rd partition (I've read somewhere that one has to _first_ install Linux before anything else in order to multi-boot OSX and Linux, others even go to say that you'd rather reserve an entire disk just for Adelie - so just hoping all this ain't true, but we shall see).
 
Wasted hours today, with another "Installation could not finish". Again, the same after another year, and another "beta" recently out.

I choosed to "format whole disk", as a simple user like me does whenn installing all other linux-distributions all. But no. no. no. Not this time neither

"Partition: consistency error on /dev/sda. Partition #1 has been requested but the disk has 1 partitions"

I did not have more energy to try "googling" or whatever for things that should , and usually nowadays in linux-distributions just works. The energy was all sucked away (as if i had been using windows, lol). And i tried to contact them, but that was way too difficult in 2024, even for me. A simple discord-channel? Naah, lets use irc

It's a pity since it has huge potential as one of the very few that could be great on ppc-macs, but they seem to don't care much about testing the final iso's? no? Yes, they are a small team, i have heard. But still...

Anyway it was good for the old powerpc to come out of the storage and get some "air" and power again. But Adelie, i could not install.

So, perhaps wait with this install for the next ISO (another year if you can?) if you are not a linux-expert and prefer to do everything manually. I'm not.
The live-iso you can run though, it... works fine, mostly, this time
 
Ok well after watching/reading a couple of times from YT and Doq's instructions I've decided I'm ready to try Adelie out, without having to destroy everything that's already installed on my machine (e.g. skipping the "i" step in mac-fdisk ^^).

Right now the latest distro with KDE is 1.0-beta6 : https://distfiles.adelielinux.org/adelie/1.0-beta6/iso/adelie-live-kde-ppc-1.0-beta6-20241223.iso, not sure in what state this is, if there's anything I've learnt in computing it is that the latest is not necessarily the greatest 😊, but we'll see.

Disappointed that none of the two trials on YT (one of which run in exact same machine and config as mine) had any success running Firefox, but that was 2 years back, maybe today's a different story ? 🤞
Also, I noticed on one of the 2 YT clips that the guy installs a "nouveau" driver, I believe this is for GeForce AGP cards, not really sure it's needed (or might disrupt the proper install)...
 
Update:

Suddenly, without any kind of announcement, There was a new ISO available in the downloads-section (dec 23)
I burned another cd and booted it.

This time, the format/"partitioncreations" of the disk seemed to work.
The installwizard continued and finally came to the step "Install software", then all buttons dissapeared, and the system went away forever with no statusmessage about what was happening in the background and the installwizard-window could not be moved.

Then... the wizard moved forward to "Final configuration", and the sad (usual) message "Installation couldn't finish" appeared.

In the log (i pressed view log", since buttons were back now), i could read that "0 MB in 0 packages" was fetched, and it had started to install the packages from the ISO.

When it had come to "grub-install", it failed with "failed to make directory "/boot/grub/System" and exited abnormally, with "bootloader failed to install GRUB"

Well...
 
PC mcLinMorph said:
Suddenly, without any kind of announcement, There was a new ISO available in the downloads-section (dec 23)
I burned another cd and booted it.
Click to expand...
yeah, that's the one of which I posted a link in my prev post.
Sadly it looks like an impossibility to go thru the entire install procedure... :-/

Btw I'll first try to boot from a usb drive "burnt" with that ISO (a 8GB usb 2.0 10 years old or so , the only pendrive which I know is recognized and accepted by my machine as a bootable unit contrary to all my 6 other pendrives, very picky that machine !).
But if this doesn't fly then I'll have to burn a DVD+RW with that ISO, which since I don't have any working CD/CD-RW disc available will require me to fire up a 11-year old Win10 based laptop resting in a drawer right now that's able to do the burn (from within a VM running OS X Big Sur, a disc burnt in Win10 does not boot OS X). Luckily my 2014 AluBook Combo Drive _is_ able to read from DVD+RW discs (but not write to them, this requires a "SuperDrive"), which for info is not supposed to do (and yes I did RTFM 😚).
 
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Sadly it looks like an impossibility to go thru the entire install procedure...
Click to expand...
Yes.. There's always something failing with their wizardinstaller.

It's a pity i think since there are so few options left now for powerbooks (and fewer by the year) if one is not a linux tech-guru!

I'm trying the latest debian (trixie), released this morning, now instead. No problems so far
 
Alright, please keep up posted, I will too (trying to complete the iso d/l right now, failed at 1.0GB of 1.8GB, tried to resume it but no go, so had to restart it).
 
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So I have burnt the Adelie Linux iso (1.0-beta6 (20241223), PPC, KDE desktop) to a thumbdrive, and... it Das does boot, even from the boot picker, I don't have to go thru OF... well, not yet at least, for this is what I'm getting :

pbook_adelie_boot_error.jpg


I was hoping to be able to run Adelie as a live session, I've used the Disk utility "Restore" function to burn Adelie on the pendrive, I haven't done any partitioning just burnt the pendrive and booted from it.

So what I'll do for now is reboot into OF, look at the usb contents structure/partitioning and see if I can find the right command to properly boot Linux. Any idea what's needed here ?

Edith : I just saw that both YT tutorials go thru that same error message screen, however the install goes on afterwards... not sure if they cut the clip but this screen only lasts a couple of seconds, while on my machine it stayed there for a good minute, after which a new message repeated 3 times "error : can't open the device_ _" then "error: no such device Adelie-ppc" and then entered a "GNU GRUB version 2.12" screen (OF-like small font, but white text on black background) with a "grub>" prompt. A bunch of BASH-like commands are available, but got no idea what to do next...
 
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@Dronecatcher, thanxx for the link - however I also have d/l the KDE desktop ISO but as you can see couldn't get to a full install. Obviously the ISO I'm using is the most recent one (from only a few days ago, they're still compiling Adelie for PPC32 which is great), not the RC2 you and A.R. and the other YT guy used 2-3 years ago with success.
I must be missing something obvious, or maybe the installer is borked, dunno. For now I'm presently d/l'ing the version with the XFCE desktop, I doubt it'll be any different, it's not like I have an issue with the GUI or anything - but we shall see.
 
Ok so a little more info on the situation here (see prev posts) :

1- error messages :
Adelie_KDE_boot_error_mesgs.jpg

2- GRUB screen : (I've done an "ls" out of curiosity)
Adelie_KDE_boot_grub_screen.jpg

3- Adelie Linux (KDE) mounted ISO contents + grub.cfg file contents :
Alubook Adelie iso and grub.cfg contents.png

I see a discrepancy b/w the mounted ISO folder name "ppc" and the cfg file apparently searching for "Adelie-ppc" (3rd spoiler), incidentally I do get an error message "no such device Adelie-ppc" (1st spoiler)...
Also the "--hint cd,apple2" in the cfg file, wondering whether "cd" stands for compact disk, therefore ignoring the usb thumbdrive as a potential location (but then again no such file or folder with the name "Adelie-ppc" anyhow).

Maybe I should try to rename the "ppc" folder to "Adelie-ppc" and see if it works, but I'd be surprised that the Adelie team could have missed such an obvious mistake.

Update: tried the above mentioned trick but didn't change a thing, still getting same error messages including "no such device Adelie-ppc" (but I expected that).
At this point the only diff wrt the successful installs beside the ISO file is the fact that they were all run from CD, not from a usb thumbdrive. I guess this should be my next move, even though it's a bit of a PITA with my setup.
 
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Finally motivated myself to go for burning Adelie Linux on a DVD+RW disc, and... yep ! that was it, apparently install/live from a usb pendrive is a no-go even though it's recognized as a bootable Linux unit one must install from CD/DVD. (probably possible to edit a config file in the Adelie iso to change this behaviour, anyway it's Ok now).

So I'm now logged in a live session, got the "live on adelie-live" prompt but in text mode only, no KDE desktop in sight... Well, getting (very) late at night here so will resume this tomorrow.
 
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Bug-Creator said:
Got this video in my recommendations and the short is that only the "Mate" desktop works and that installation of the 32bit/G4 versions fails.
Click to expand...
thanks, yeah I saw this Action Retro video last night, he tried the last Adelie release with MATE desktop, could only have the live desktop work on a PowerMac G5 and G4 Titanium think (I need to re⁻watch it), on most of his other machines Adelie did not install fully - if at all . No GPU/3D h/w acceleration either, Firefox crashes with seg fault, seems pretty limited for now. Altivec support is on for the CPU which is good, but I noticed the GPU is set to llvmpipe (emulation I guess, no accel) except for the G4 Tibook which showed an AMD Mobility FireGL/Radeon 9000 GPU in neofetch...

Doq said:
Downgrading mesa did the trick. Did not need to do a full reinstall though; only needed to downgrade with apk add "mesa<24.2".
Click to expand...
interesting, on which of your machines did that do the trick ?
 
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So after reviewing this part of Action retro's video : Titanium trial I was hopeful I'd get an Adelie-MATE live desktop to show-up, unfortunately I'm getting with the MATE release the exact same behavior as with the KDE one : boot to CD, get the long list of bootup script commands, then get to a screen with a few text lines ending with "sddm : [ ok ]" and it stops right there, so I then login as "live" and... it just gets to a zsh shell with Adelie live prompt waiting for my inputs, no desktop/graphics whatsoever.

I tried to exec the piece of code mentioned above (apk add "mesa<24.2") just for the heck of it, got a command not found (though a /etc/apk folder is there), so I googled around for a little while, switched to bash but nothing there either, and am stuck there.

Probably a PEBKAC issue since I'm new to most of this, doesn't make it any less frustrating. I suppose the never-appearing desktop is due to my PBook having an Nvidia GPU vs AMD/ATI in the video, but what do I know ? 😏
Although A.R. wasn't successful trying this, I still may want to try a full install (in multiboot) and see if it makes any difference (provided it does install), though I don't really see why it would.
 
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From the https://git.adelielinux.org/adelie/horizon/-/issues/402 page it appears that none of the Adelie beta6 live distros for PPC32 lead to the Horizon install desktop/GUI, so I'll stop trying at this point.

But there's also a mesg stating that it does work in the beta5 release, so looked for the beta5 ISO... to no avail, on the Adélie web site you can either get beta6, or beta4 and below (archive page). Googled the beta5 distro but found nothing.

Update : if anyone interested, found it here (mirror site) : https://distfiles.adelielinux.org/adelie/1.0-beta5/iso/
 
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And... finally got Adelie Live (beta5, KDE desktop) to run on my Alubook ! :D

Adelie_KDE_AluBook_1.png

Very thankful to the Adelie team for their efforts to keep the PowerPC platform alive and kicking. 👍 👏

Obviously many issues to sort : wifi chip not recognized, Bluetooth neither (strange since there is "Bluetooth [Ok]" message at bootup), 2nd screen not properly recognized, keyboard mapping not right, no graphics driver installed yet (cf image), etc... and a lot to learn about the KDE desktop of course.

Glad I didn't give up too early, and btw sorry for the occasional ranting (or monologue) here. ☺️

Now only 5 hours from 2025 here, happy new year's eve to everybody and "see" you next year ! 🥂 🎉
 
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Doq said:
Implacable (ameowli.dev) on the ppc64 version of Adelie upgraded from beta5 to beta6.
Click to expand...
thanks, clearly not in the same league ^^, but I think we can be hopeful that the Adelie team will figure out what's wrong with beta 6 for PPC32 (considering how smooth and event-less beta 5 live install went on my machine).
 
Alubook133 said:
thanks, clearly not in the same league ^^, but I think we can be hopeful that the Adelie team will figure out what's wrong with beta 6 for PPC32 (considering how smooth and event-less beta 5 live install went on my machine).
Click to expand...
Okay, I went and took a look on a fresh install of beta6 on a G4 machine (Shiratsuyu, replacing the Debian install that was present but unused). I was fairly wary about it because the last time I did an install on a G4-class machine it probably directly resulted in the death of one of my PowerBooks, but I took the risk anyway.

As expected, the install medium packs the broken mesa, so I had no desktop, but I still had an X session, so I could pop over to a TTY, logged in a live and launched Horizon manually.
Code: 
% export DISPLAY=:0
% horizon-qt5

The installer popped up on the all-black X display and I could proceed as normal. Going through it, after confirming your install parameters the installer will close. This isn't normally noticeable because running the installer through the desktop icon will start installation automatically, but because I didn't do this I had to start the install manually back at the TTY with
Code: 
% horizon-run-qt5

This should now finish the installation as normal. Once rebooted into the new install you should then be able to downgrade mesa and your desktop should work. (I can't confirm this because the GRUB configuration tools panic at the sight of my 7-boot-- I probably should have used a different 'book.)

UPDATE 2025 01 02

It looks like the hfsutils included in the beta6 installer are also broken as even after grabbing a dedicated 'book for the job, the boot volume is kiboshed.

So I guess the only way to get beta6 is to install beta5 and upgrade.
 
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Ok thanxx, so I'll continue (trying to) using beta 5, the next step for me is to switch from Live to full install, this would be quite easy if I were to erase the SSD and install it (apparently the Horizon installer now takes good care of partitioning the drive for Adélie) - however as you know I want to install that beta5 in a specific volume inside the SSD (beside Tiger and Sorbet) so I'll need to manually perform the partitioning.

And then I'm not sure if Horizon allows a user to do such a "custom" install in partitions other than sda2/3/4, so far everything I've seen or read about it only covers installing after full erase of existing volumes... Now Action Retro posted a video with dual boot etc but that was 3 years ago and without using Horizon.

Maybe I should start a new thread, I feel like this is going to be quite an "experience" and I'll definitely need the expertise available here, both in OSX and Linux.
 
Alubook133 said:
And then I'm not sure if Horizon allows a user to do such a "custom" install in partitions other than sda2/3/4,
Click to expand...
If you allocate the partitions manually using mac-fdisk (and make the filesystems), you'll be able to use them in Horizon with the middle option "Manually select partitions". Also, for what it's worth:

Doq said:
So I guess the only way to get beta6 is to install beta5 and upgrade.
Click to expand...
As it turns out, from my most recent install of the LXQt variant using the beta5 install medium, it will install beta6.

I guess this makes sense; a network connection is required for install, so there's no reason why the installation process wouldn't just pull down latest packages.
 
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