Void Linux for PowerPC

[doctor_dog]

I am already hosting a Macports repo, I would consider hosting a Void mirror if there is interest and the author agrees. Let me know!

 

[cellularmitosis]

It's a pity because it's light and fast and works perfect on our PowerPC machines.

Is there any way to save it? It took so much work. All for nothing?

Alternatively, now that Debian sid / ppc seems to work well, is there a way to tear out systemd from Debian? Would that get us most of the benefits of Void?

 

[xeno74]

I am already hosting a Macports repo, I would consider hosting a Void mirror if there is interest and the author agrees. Let me know!

That would be great!

Discord and Surfmusic work with the new SeaLion 32.3.1 on Void PPC:

 

[q66_]

you had around 2 years to do that, which I think is a long enough period, by now that ship has long sailed considering the packages haven't been updated in half a year regardless

and considering i did like 95% of the work, questioning whether it was all for nothing is none of your concern

i have no obligation to maintain a project that i no longer care about and that was taking up a significant amount of my time and energy

 

[Sincci]

The latest Linux kernel 6.4.1 seems to work just fine with few basic modifications:

$: cd ~/void-packages/srcpkgs/
srcpkgs $: rm -rf linux6.3-dbg
srcpkgs $: rm -rf linux6.3-headers
srcpkgs $: cp -a linux6.3 linux6.4
srcpkgs $: ln -s linux6.4 linux6.4-headers
srcpkgs $: ln -s linux6.4 linux6.4-dbg
srcpkgs $: cd linux6.4
linux6.4 $: sed -i "s/# Template file for 'linux6.3'/# Template file for 'linux6.4'/" template
linux6.4 $: sed -i 's/pkgname=linux6.3/pkgname=linux6.4/' template
linux6.4 $: sed -i 's/linux6.3-headers_package()/linux6.4-headers_package()/' template
linux6.4 $: sed -i 's/linux6.3-dbg_package()/linux6.4-dbg_package()/' template

and then edit the ~/void-packages/srcpkgs/linux6.4/template file with whatever text editor you want and modify the third line that says version to the latest version (you should check the https://www.kernel.org website to see which one is the latest in the 6.4 series, as of writing this guide the latest is 6.4.1):

version=6.4.1

and save the file. Now you can simply go back to the void-packages root directory to regenerate the correct checksums for the template and start the compilation process:

linux6.4 $: cd ~/void-packages
void-packages $: xgensum -i linux6.4
void-packages $: screen bash
void-packages $: ./xbps-src pkg linux6.4
void-packages $: sudo xbps-install --repository hostdir/binpkgs linux6.4-headers linux6.4

I'm pretty sure this same guide can be reused for 6.5 and later kernels whenever they are eventually released.

I can confirm that this guide also works with 6.5 series of kernels, you'll just have to replace parts about 6.4 with 6.5 and set the version in the template file to whatever the latest one is (as of writing this post the latest one is 6.5.2).

 

[q66_]

the domain expires tomorrow; nothing will be available anymore after that

 

[Sincci]

I can confirm that this guide also works with 6.5 series of kernels, you'll just have to replace parts about 6.4 with 6.5 and set the version in the template file to whatever the latest one is (as of writing this post the latest one is 6.5.2).

And I can now confirm that it works with Linux 6.6 too without any issues. I'm probably going to switch to Debian at some point, but at least I'm glad that Void still works for me even if it's not supported in any way whatsoever.

 

[xeno74]

The kernel 6.6 works here too.

 

[TzunamiOSX]

After a longer time, I want to update my Void and get an error (site is down). Is there a way to fix this or is another server out there?

 

[wicknix]

Nope. The site / repo went down permanently in September. Hope you downloaded the most common dev packages beforehand which would allow you to compile new or updated software.

 

[Tankerthebuberz]

@TzunamiOSX @wicknix while it is true that the domain is gone there are backup mirrors that will allow you to install software and update, but be aware the repository has not been upgraded/updated since December of last year. Repo link: https://mirrors.servercentral.com/void-ppc/

 

[Andrew-R]

Trying to build ffmpeg-8.0 in this old virtual (qemu) Void-PPC installation, for some reason final linking step fails with various _atomic_* functions not found, and adding --extra-ldflags="-latomic" result in ld being unable to find -latomic, even if .so file clearly in /usr/lib.

Hm, installed libatomic-devel, and switched ffmpeg configure to --enable-shared --disable-static.

We will see if it worked in around 6 hours ...

 

[Andrew-R]

In more than 6 hours, but ffmpeg 8.0 compiled fine, I just needed to remove my hack edit from fftools/Makefile and "make clean" whole directory.

Compiled Cinlerra-gg against it, only problem was again at linking stage (-latomic and adding -L/usr/local/lib so my static libav*.a libs added before system's old shared ones). No screenshot because I am trying to back up my main drive to external usb hdd, and there was error freaking me out initially when I connected USB HDD to front panel usb socket ... It works better (no usb device reset in logs) when I connected it to usb socket directly from motherbaoard (speaking about my amd fx 4300 host here).

Hopefully in few hours ....

 

[Andrew-R]

Spoiler: Screenshot

It was long road. For some reason startx in chrooted system was not working (dead keyboard/mouse) but plain X worked, so I used X& as single command from console, set DISPLAY to ":0" , and from another virtual console launched xterm, monitored and finally killed X (in qemu it was ctrl-alt-2, then "sendkey ctrl-alf-f2/f7/f1" in qemu monitor . Graphics output on ctrl-alt-1, in gtk display)

 qemu-system-ppc -M mac99,via=pmu -cpu G4 -hda ~/AndrewR/5gb_ppc.qcow -device ati-vga   -cdrom ~/AndrewR/void-live-ppc-20210825.iso -boot d -m 1G -accel tcg,tb-size=512

Note that I set Evdev X input driver in /etc/X11/xorg.conf for both keyboard and Mouse, and then for keyboard picked up /dev/input/event1 and for mouse /dev/input/event2 as devices, for usb kbd/mouse. Screen was set to fbdev driver, 1024x768 modeline/mode. Not sure why r128 driver was saying "No modes" and failing hard ...

 

[Heindijs]

Spoiler: Screenshot

View attachment 2593367

It was long road. For some reason startx in chrooted system was not working (dead keyboard/mouse) but plain X worked, so I used X& as single command from console, set DISPLAY to ":0" , and from another virtual console launched xterm, monitored and finally killed X (in qemu it was ctrl-alt-2, then "sendkey ctrl-alf-f2/f7/f1" in qemu monitor . Graphics output on ctrl-alt-1, in gtk display)

 qemu-system-ppc -M mac99,via=pmu -cpu G4 -hda ~/AndrewR/5gb_ppc.qcow -device ati-vga   -cdrom ~/AndrewR/void-live-ppc-20210825.iso -boot d -m 1G -accel tcg,tb-size=512

Note that I set Evdev X input driver in /etc/X11/xorg.conf for both keyboard and Mouse, and then for keyboard picked up /dev/input/event1 and for mouse /dev/input/event2 as devices, for usb kbd/mouse. Screen was set to fbdev driver, 1024x768 modeline/mode. Not sure why r128 driver was saying "No modes" and failing hard ...

How well does TDE run on PPC? I'd imagine pretty well, right?

 

[Andrew-R]

How well does TDE run on PPC? I'd imagine pretty well, right?

No, sorry, TDE was on i586/AMD FX 4300 host! It compiles in 6 hours here, so multiply x40 for now long it will take in emulated machine , if nothing breaks ...

BTW, I found Slackware for exotic arches, but sadly without ppc installer iso ?

Slackware porting to arm[v5/v7/v8], ppc[32be/64be/64le], mips[32eb/32el/64el], riscv64, s390x

Hello all! At the following link you can find the Slackware porting to ARM, PowerPC, MIPS, RISC-V, and S/390x: https://bonslack.bonnix.org/ I know

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[ks23]

Sadly, yes

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/operating-systems-for-powerpc-macs.2004827/page-11?post=32680958#post-32680958