Debian Sid Installation Guide (PowerPC)

[dreadone]

Thanks, but does not solve the problem.

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

When did you install Debian sid ?

 

[dreadone]

I installed it 24.04.2020.

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

It reports an error that it can't create /boot/grub/grub.cfg.new as it is a read-only file system. I would ask in the debian-powerpc email list what to do. I can't help you further.

Debian Mailing Lists -- Index for debian-powerpc

 

[dreadone]

Ok, thanks for help.

 

[dreadone]

Hi,
what i have done because of the read-only /boot/grub was:
used gparted to unmount the partition /boot/grub and than execute the commands.
Now all is upgraded....?
It looks like:
"linux-image-powerpc64 ist schon die neueste Version (5.6.7-1)" /...already the newest version (5.6.7-1).

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

Hi,
what i have done because of the read-only /boot/grub was:
used gparted to unmount the partition /boot/grub and than execute the commands.
Now all is upgraded....?
It looks like:
"linux-image-powerpc64 ist schon die neueste Version (5.6.7-1)" /...already the newest version (5.6.7-1).

Seems like a strange solution, looks more like you encountered a bug. Can you reboot and still run Debian ?

 

[dreadone]

Yes, rebooted without problems.

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

Problem solved then. You can do a

apt update
apt upgrade

to be sure all is upgraded

 

[dreadone]

I have done this several times. Now i have to reinstall libreoffice, because 4 pakets were kept back.
But no other error.
[automerge]1588333153[/automerge]

 

[dreadone]

Ok, i removed LibreOffice and installed the new LibOffice (....4.4-rc1) without problems.
Apt update/upgrade working and there is no error report.

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

GRUB IS FINALLY WORKING!
Just tested the 2020-04-19 img and finally get my Powerbook G4 12" 1.5 Ghz 1,25 Gb of ram working with Debian (with his environment and xfce) and Grub!!!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH for this super useful wiki and all the contributes also than the developer of this release.

Till few weeks ago my powerbook was simply "dead" now I'm trying to give him a new life.

Would like to ask you few question since I'm a newbie:

1) I have downloaded Arctic Fox thru his webpage and I can use it very well but doesn't understand how to install it in to the sistem?

2) the actual web browser of the
2020-04-19 give me error and doesn't open

3) the system is very very light but seems that a lot of things have to be installed, perhaps I can't find users panel, software download and update etc, there is a guide I can refer other than this super wiki?


Thank you very very much again guys!

You might want to install MintPPC. It basically is Debian sid with some additional programs, a nicer Desktop, all automatically installed and you will benefit from automatic Arctic Fox updates via the MintPPC repository.

 

[Tommy Apeiron]

I have a G4 Mac mini 1.25 GHz that I have Debian Sid installed on. Try as I might, I can't get LXDE to run on it. It crashes on boot every time. I've install the Radeon firmware and LightDM. Any thoughts?

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

I am not sure, just asking, did you install firmware-amd-graphics and firmware-linux-nonfree ?

 

[Tommy Apeiron]

No, I just installed firmware-linux-nonfree. I'll try both. Thanks.

 

[YesWeCat]

I have not been able to run Xorg on Sid for months. The radeon driver spits out some errors about "unresolved symbols" every time you run xinit.

 

[Tommy Apeiron]

Yep, even after installing both firmware-amd-graphics and firmware-linux-nonfree (firmware-amd-graphics was already installed) the system crashes after flickering on and off about 6 times running the LightDM boot manager. Is there some way of manually configuring Xorg so this won't happen?

 

[YesWeCat]

Yep, even after installing both firmware-amd-graphics and firmware-linux-nonfree (firmware-and-graphics was already installed) the system crashes after flickering on and off about 6 times running the LightDM boot manager. Is there some way of manually configuring Xorg so this won't happen?

I remember reading here that lightdm was the culprit. Try disabling lightdm, booting directly to a tty and starting X with "startx". It should work.

I think the command to disable lightdm is:

sudo systemctl disable lightdm.service

 

[Tommy Apeiron]

My G4 Mac mini sports a ATI Radeon 9200 with 32 MB of DDR SDRAM. I'm going to go back to a headless system until this problem is resolved. Thanks to all.

 

[wicknix]

I have the same g4 mini w/the 9200. Works fine in sid (and ubuntu and void). Install lxdm. As mentioned lightdm is broken in sid. Worst case scenario, reinstall without installing the firmware manually. If a package requires it, let it install, otherwise its not needed. These machines are too slow for 3d gfx, and opengl is partially broken anyway. The default radeonfb driver works just fine.

Cheers

 

[YesWeCat]

I have the same g4 mini w/the 9200. Works fine in sid (and ubuntu and void). Install lxdm. As mentioned lightdm is broken in sid. Worst case scenario, reinstall without installing the firmware manually. If a package requires it, let it install, otherwise its not needed. These machines are too slow for 3d gfx, and opengl is partially broken anyway. The default radeonfb driver works just fine.

Cheers

Does the Radeon driver work without loading the firmware blob? What do you lose if you do that, other than 3D acceleration?

 

[alex_free]

Does the Radeon driver work without loading the firmware blob? What do you lose if you do that, other than 3D acceleration?

Definitely need the firmware or the driver won’t work at all.

 

[wicknix]

Nothing really. 2d still gets you 60fps on average in glxgears. The desktop still feels quite nimble too.

Cheers
[automerge]1589663716[/automerge]
I've never manually installed any firmware other than for wifi in debian. As i mentioned, if one installs because its a dep by another package let it.

Edit: Then again, maybe i did, but i dont recall doing so. I generally run ubuntu and void and i didnt have to manually install graphics firmware in either. Just wifi. Either way, the radeonfb driver does a good job.

 

[alex_free]

Nothing really. 2d still gets you 60fps on average in glxgears. The desktop still feels quite nimble too.

Cheers
[automerge]1589663716[/automerge]
I've never manually installed any firmware other than for wifi in debian. As i mentioned, if one installs because its a dep by another package let it.

Edit: Then again, maybe i did, but i dont recall doing so. I generally run ubuntu and void and i didnt have to manually install graphics firmware in either. Just wifi. Either way, the radeonfb driver does a good job.

OpenBSD also downloads the firmware on first boot if WiFi/Ethernet was setup in the installer.

 

[Tommy Apeiron]

This time, I installed xorg before installing lxde with the ATI firmware installed. Then, I disabled lightdm, rebooted into terminal and installed xdm. Now everything works fine. Thanks to all.