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Void Linux for PowerPC

Don't know if this is something useful, just dropping here :). (It's about 5.15 kernel release.)


Alexey Kardashevskiy (3):
powerpc/pseries/iommu: Use correct vfree for it_map
powerpc/pseries/iommu: Check if the default window in use before
removing it
powerpc/pseries/iommu: Create huge DMA window if no MMIO32 is present
 
For someone who is interested but not sure whether to take the leap or not.. would it work if someone was dual booting and took a disk image of a Void Linux partition from within OSX, and someone else restored the .DMG to a partition? Aside from all the hardware differences between systems.
 
Good news for those who updated void64 and noticed spiderweb and interweb broke. Again exit70 from discord solved the issue and compiled the older ICU libs they required. Download this tarball and manually extract it. Viola. Your browsers will work again. :)

Cheers
 
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Hey all,

Still struggling with getting Void PPC to just boot correctly on either of my Powerbooks.

Is there a way to compile an updated ISO myself? I see a number of packages in the repo parent directory seem to be newer, while the 'current' ISOs and tarballs (tar.xz files) still show Aug 25 2021. Not sure if the updated 5.15 kernel might help?

I've tried multiple times among the options presented to live boot (4.13 or 5.15 kernels) and they all seem to have trouble and kind of stop displaying correctly when I get to the boot prompt on the TiBook, and all outright refuse to boot (prohibitory sign) on the AlBook.

I have successfully booted and installed an older Ubuntu MATE (16.04 I believe) on the TiBook, though that took forever.
 
Void PPC with the new MATE 1.26.0:

Kernel-5-15-1-Power-PC.png
 
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wicknix said:
Try this iso. I had no problem installing/booting it on my 17" powerbook. This is just the base system with no desktop. You can install whatever you want after install. I chose IceWM and lxdm to keep it light.

Click to expand...
Just out of curiousity, and experience of having tried void and ending at a nice prompt without no desktop (and then leaving to try another distro...again and again)... :)

Can you tell me what are the next steps required after that, to be able to add the IceWM and lxdm?
 
You could try their premade xfce iso. That boots to a desktoo by default. Otherwise just run: sudo xbps-install -Su to update the repo, then sudo xbps-install icewm icewm-session lxdm pcmanfm abiword gnumeric leafpad smplayer etc etc.

Cheers
 
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wicknix said:
You could try their premade xfce iso. That boots to a desktoo by default. Otherwise just run: sudo xbps-install -Su to update the repo, then sudo xbps-install icewm icewm-session lxdm pcmanfm abiword gnumeric leafpad smplayer etc etc.

Cheers
Click to expand...
Thanks! You make it seem so easy! Will bookmark this until i'm ready to try again! I sure learn something new here everyday! :)
 
I just tried it, and the live seems to be running fine on my machine, not too slow (well, i have to recalibre myself after having tried morphos of course).
The void-installer starts fine and is fast, but at the end my usual partition problems comes like they always do of course. I spent quite a lot of time looking for an exact example, and found what to write

# pmac-fdisk /dev/sda
i
c 2p 10M Apple_Bootstrap
c 3p 70G rootfs
c 4p 4p swap
w
q

which is very simple and very clear and functioning, but anyway when we comeback to the beautiful installer and the next mount-step etc, etc complains that there is no place to boot, and it always seems to be "where GRUB is to be written" that all these distros never finds. It was only in your yaboot remixes everything worked for me. Ah well, my patience...
Is there an automatic "wipe all partitions and just fix the disk and prepare"-tool (like it works so simple in Ubuntu), that i could run, before starting the void-installer, then i'd be happy to find it or or wish for as a christmas gift!
Heck i don't even need the swap-part i think, LOL

I wonder if i'm the only one who is getting crazy about exactly this little this step in trying to install linux:)
 
Yes, you'll want swap. :)
No, there isn't an easy auto partitioner like in ubuntu sadly.
I do see your problem though. You are missing 1 partition. See attached.

part-map.png


As for where to install grub, use the bootstrap partition.

Cheers
 
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wicknix said:
Yes, you'll want swap. :)
No, there isn't an easy auto partitioner like in ubuntu sadly.
I do see your problem though. You are missing 1 partition. See attached.

View attachment 1907814

As for where to install grub, use the bootstrap partition.

Cheers
Click to expand...
On my machine 'name' and 'type' of /sda2 is not the same as yours (i have type 'Apple_UNIX_SVR2', and name 'Apple_Bootstrap'' ! So that is one thing that is wrong at my machine

Then it must perhaps be that the 'b' is missing in my example of what i entered. The problem is that 'b' asks for "first block", and i have no idea what value to write there?
 
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PC mcLinMorph said:
On my machine 'name' and 'type' of /sda2 is not the same as yours (i have type 'Apple_UNIX_SVR2', and name 'Apple_Bootstrap'' ! So that is one thing that is wrong at my machine

Then it must perhaps be that the 'b' is missing in my example of what i entered. The problem is that 'b' asks for "first block", and i have no idea what value to write there?
Click to expand...
C 2p 10M Apple_Bootstrap Apple_Bootstrap

Test C as a capital letter
 
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TzunamiOSX said:
C 2p 10M Apple_Bootstrap Apple_Bootstrap

Test C as a capital letter
Click to expand...
Thank you, yes, i think that did it!
The most "comical", and "exciting" thing was that the installer on the mount-step
(Filesystems Configure filesystems and mount points) showed fstype:none on all of the partitions, so it was like a lottery for someone like me :) But, well (don't ask me how i solved it, but i found another person who made an error-report on this 2 years ago), finally i got it right and managed to go through the installation. Happy

BUT, when i did the voidlinuxppc recommended post-installation for Apple hardware...
i had just installed and enabled pbbuttonsd and saw all those beautiful lights turned on (i sat in the dark thsi time:)), and... wait for it... wait for it. BOOM, the monitor went black, just like it had been turned off. I could not help laughing (why do we do this?) And there i am now
 
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PC mcLinMorph said:
Thank you, yes, i think that did it!
The most "comical", and "exciting" thing was that the installer on the mount-step
(Filesystems Configure filesystems and mount points) showed fstype:none on all of the partitions, so it was like a lottery for someone like me :) But, well (don't ask me how i solved it, but i found another person who made an error-report on this 2 years ago), finally i got it right and managed to go through the installation. Happy

BUT, when i did the voidlinuxppc recommended post-installation for Apple hardware...
i had just installed and enabled pbbuttonsd and saw all those beautiful lights turned on (i sat in the dark thsi time:)), and... wait for it... wait for it. BOOM, the monitor went black, just like it had been turned off. I could not help laughing (why do we do this?) And there i am now
Click to expand...
Did you have a working desktop environment before post install?
 
It might be pbbuttonsd causing it. That controls LCD brightness also. Hit the FN key while trying the brightness keys. If that doesnt work, boot in to recovery mode and remove the symlink you made (that post install says to do) that starts pbbuttonsd and reboot. Keyboard wont light up but youll have a visable desktop again.

Cheers
 
Today, in the daylight, when i logged in, it works fine, but as soon as i gets dark and the backlight comes on, the screen gets black. It's surreal :)
O.k, i removed the package pbbuttonsd, but i think that i "accidentally", when trying to remove the symlink, removed the thing that starts all services, the "/var/service", since now the net is not working and it says "networking disabled"
does anobody know what i shoud write to recreate that symlink? (or i might have to... install everything again, just for "fun" :)
 
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I don't know, how this works, should i try to report this as a pbbuttonsd-bug to somebody responsible for the voidlinux for powerpc, or is the probability that this will be fixed very little probably, since there must be thousand things way more to important to do for the team?
I read somewhere about another tool(?): mbpeventd somebody recommended, but i have no idea how to get that onto voidlinux for powerpc...

A question to @wicknix can i run interweb, on voidlinux for powerpc?
 
The pbbuttonsd daemon usually works fine. It does act wonky on certain machines / versions of ppc linux though. I wouldnt say its a bug, just luck if it happens to work ok on your machine.

As for interweb, yeah it'll work. Just do the symlink mentioned on the download page. Then either extract the .deb manually, or install dpkg and install it that way. Like sudo dpkg -i /path/to/interweb.deb

Cheers
 
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Is there a sane way to clone a Void Linux install from one iBook to another ?
I tried recreating the partitions and then dd'ing the data over, but that gives me dracut recovery on the new cloned iBook.
I'm guessing all the "easy" solutions booting from a Live Cloning CD won't work because they are for x86 ?
 
This method should work, but i can't promise anything. Boot a live linux cd/dvd (void/ubuntu/adelie/etc) and use dd to create an .img of your entire drive (/dev/sda). This will make an exact copy, bootloader, partition layout, etc. Don't worry about partitions unless you have other OS's on the same drive. If you do then this process gets a bit more involved and is above my knowledge (unless you want those OS's on the second ibook as well). Copy the newly created .img to a usb stick. Boot the other ibook using a live linux cd/dvd and dd the usb.img to it's internal drive. If it is successful and boots use gparted to resize your / partition if your cloned ibook has a bigger HD to reclaim unused space.

Cheers
 
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