Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Debian Sid Remix (ppc32/ppc64)

And, while I was at it, I found some instructions on how to remove a new kernel if you got it installed. It needs a little bit of tweaking for our specific kernel versions, but I did get the new 5.4 kernel installed when I updated, and I did also use this to get it off. So now I not longer need to boot with the "old" command at boot: line.

Annoyingly, it means that "apt-mark hold linux-image-4.15.0-2-powerpc64" didn't work for me, as it said I had already done it once I tried it again, but it looks like I have a stable working Debian 10 ppc system running quite nicely.
 
  • Like
Reactions: wicknix
repairedCheese said:
And, while I was at it, I found some instructions on how to remove a new kernel if you got it installed. It needs a little bit of tweaking for our specific kernel versions, but I did get the new 5.4 kernel installed when I updated, and I did also use this to get it off. So now I not longer need to boot with the "old" command at boot: line.

Annoyingly, it means that "apt-mark hold linux-image-4.15.0-2-powerpc64" didn't work for me, as it said I had already done it once I tried it again, but it looks like I have a stable working Debian 10 ppc system running quite nicely.
Click to expand...
Well, that didn't work. It eventually stopped booting. Which is weird, because it was booting properly at first, but soon needed boot: old, and on top of all of that, my Powermac7,3 never had sound. It definitely thought it did, but I couldn't get it to actually produce sound. Which is weird, because at least Lubuntu had sound. You'd think Debian would too.

It definitely looks like apt-mark hold is the right approach about the kernel, I'm just not sure quite why it didn't work. From what I've been googling, I'm thinking I didn't lock enough down. There do seem to be options to try, on that front.

But it's all a lot less useful if I can't get sound to work. So it's all a work in progress, and I think I've done enough for the night.
 
Bummer. Odd the hold didn't work. You can try 1 last thing that I did, and it seems to be working for the last few weeks. After I did the hold, I manually downloaded Ubuntu' s latest 4.4.x-173 kernel and modules. Then I sudo dpkg -i installed those. That overwrote the default 4.15 kernel and became my new default kernel. It's been booting fine since. I kept the .deb packages though in case I need to force that kernel over an upgrade again.

Now if you can't boot, all is not lost. Use lubuntu live dvd to boot in to a working desktop, then chroot in to your broken debian install. Wget that Ubuntu kernel and modules, install, unmount the chroot and reboot.

I hope they fix the 5.x kernel soon. None if this is/was an issue on my g4 mac mini which can also use the 5.x kernel without issue.

As for sound, check out the Linux wiki here on macrumors. You may need to load a few extra sound modules, or like me, just use alsamixer, choose soundbylayout as sound card and raise 'pcm' up from 0 to say 65.

Cheers
 
  • Like
Reactions: repairedCheese and z970
Well, that seems to have helped. First thing I did was try out alsamixer, and it got sound, so everything seems to work. I was finally able to try out VLC 3, while there's something funky with the open gl output, setting it to x11 works, even if it's not as fast as it would be in OSX. So maybe there's something off with gpu support? Or maybe VLC just wants more than the old Radeon 9600 can offer.

So, I seem to have a functional Debian Sid system once more. I'll certainly post updates if there are any problems, or if there are any surprising developments.
 
Hello there and thanks for this great work!

My poor Mac Mini G4, valiantly serving in my home for a decade, was very happy about this 😀
I have Debian working on it, does this mean that I can use a new sources.list and update?
 
I tried your iso and I run into the same problem like the MintPPC iso. The archive keyring is outdated and it won't enter the debian-ports repo.
 
Oh, it's not needed. Just skip that step when it asks for a mirror.
[automerge]1583604811[/automerge]
The base install will continue just fine. Add the repo after install is finished and you reboot.
 
No prob. Debian ppc is a big mess sadly. A few tiny fixes on their part and it could be great. Just a lot of hoops to jump through yet.

On a side note... Ever think about maybe MintBuntu? I've been able to update 16.04 with Debian ports packages with good results, and the live dvd / installer isn't so archaic. I don't think it'd be too hard to respin another with your mint packages preinstalled.

Cheers
 
  • Like
Reactions: sparty411
If the Grub issue will not be solved this year I will think about something drastic as using Ubuntu as base. The problem is that no-one except Adrian Glaubitz is able to fix Grub. He has no time to do it. I am not a programmer so I can't be of any help.
What I don't like about Ubuntu is the fact that all packages are glued together as metapackages. I think that Debian is leaner, faster. Let's see how it develops. I am sending my users to this remix thread so they can install Debian sid and hopefully from there upgrade to MintPPC manually. I haven't tried that route for a long time. See if people can install it this way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sparty411
It should work. I installed your mint packages on my g4 mini running Sid a few weeks ago. Installed fine. Heck, with a few added debian-ports packages they even installed on 16.04 remix.
As for grub it's been fixed and working in Void-PPC since last year already.

Cheers
 
gparted is for Intel based computers only - I went to the gparted website and checked. Is there a partition software for PowerPC Macintosh computers, specifically for Sawtooth G4? Thanks.
 
@wnlewis Debian Sid has a version of gparted compiled for PowerPC. I've used it many times in the past, as have others. All you need to do to get it is run sudo apt install gparted.

The developers of gparted only officially offer support for their Intel version, which is why you see that as the only supported OS when it is in fact usable on PowerPC thanks to unsupported, third-party efforts.

And this proves again of course that the beauty of free software is that the possibilities are always endless. 🙂
 
  • Like
Reactions: eastone, sparty411, wicknix and 2 others
....or just boot any of the Ubuntu flavored live dvds. I'm pretty certain gparted comes preinstalled, and if not the overlay filesystem has plenty of room to temp install it on the live session.

I'm pretty sure I included it in lubuntu 16 remix.
 
wicknix said:
....or just boot any of the Ubuntu flavored live dvds. I'm pretty certain gparted comes preinstalled, and if not the overlay filesystem has plenty of room to temp install it on the live session.

I'm pretty sure I included it in lubuntu 16 remix.
Click to expand...
It's actually included the official live disks. I haven't tried a single Lubuntu live disk that didn't have a copy installed. And better yet, it handles stuff like resizing Journaled HFS+ just fine. I've had no problems using it, and I've resized quite a few partitions without a single failure.

And you did, at least with your most recent release.
 
  • Like
Reactions: z970 and wicknix
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back