Debian installation on 2001 PowerBook G4 boots to black screen and unable to access tty or boot to text mode

[nanuu]

Hello everyone,
I am trying to boot debian on my PowerBook G4, after successfully installing Debian 12 and rebooting, I am presented with a black screen after grub and a very weird looking Debian 12 background.
I have tried booting into text mode by adding a 3 to the end of the linux... line in grub after pressing 'e', this showed something like "Booting a command list" but after switching between a white and black screen a few times it ends up on the black one and stays like that.
I have also tried accessing TTY after booting by hitting fn+ ctrl + opt + f1-6 but this doesn't seem to do anything.
Nanu

 

[pipetogrep]

Hello everyone,
I am trying to boot debian on my PowerBook G4, after successfully installing Debian 12 and rebooting, I am presented with a black screen after grub and a very weird looking Debian 12 background.
I have tried booting into text mode by adding a 3 to the end of the linux... line in grub after pressing 'e', this showed something like "Booting a command list" but after switching between a white and black screen a few times it ends up on the black one and stays like that.
I have also tried accessing TTY after booting by hitting fn+ ctrl + opt + f1-6 but this doesn't seem to do anything.
Nanu

ATI GPU?

 

[nanuu]

ATI GPU?

I’m pretty sure it’s an ATI GPU yes.

 

[pipetogrep]

I’m pretty sure it’s an ATI GPU yes.

Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer as I had this same issue on an iBook G4 with an ATI card. My solution was to go with OpenBSD or NetBSD. My favorite so far is NetBSD.

Both have great support for PowerPC Macs and an impressive amount of stuff just works that does not work well under Linux any more. Graphics and audio take no configuration. The keyboard shortcuts for brightness and volume work out of the box even with the minimal window managers that come with them. Not only that, but the even seem to perform faster than Linux does as well.

They also has the same abundance of packages that Linux does. On NetBSD alone, there is netsurf, arcticfox, and firefox 52 which are three solid browser choices.

I'm sure it's not quite the answer you were looking for but if someone else isn't able to provide a solution for you, at least you have an alternative for some open source goodness on your PowerBook.

 

[nanuu]

ATI GPU?

I’m pretty sure it’s an ATI GPU yes

Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer as I had this same issue on an iBook G4 with an ATI card. My solution was to go with OpenBSD or NetBSD. My favorite so far is NetBSD.

Both have great support for PowerPC Macs and an impressive amount of stuff just works that does not work well under Linux any more. Graphics and audio take no configuration. The keyboard shortcuts for brightness and volume work out of the box even with the minimal window managers that come with them. Not only that, but the even seem to perform faster than Linux does as well.

They also has the same abundance of packages that Linux does. On NetBSD alone, there is netsurf, arcticfox, and firefox 52 which are three solid browser choices.

I'm sure it's not quite the answer you were looking for but if someone else isn't able to provide a solution for you, at least you have an alternative for some open source goodness on your PowerBook.

Thank you very much for the suggestion, I’ll give it a go. Never heard of OpenBSD.