[1] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2022-03-18/
[2] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2022-03-18/non-free/
I have created the first set of installation images in 2022, these are available at the usual location in [1].
The ISO image for sparc64 has been verified to work correctly, I don't
know about the other architectures, however.
I have also created the first images which include non-free firmware packages but these are completely untested and firmware installation might not work correctly as DEP-11 information is not available on the Debian Ports mirrors.
The non-free images can be found here [2].
On Mar 20, 2022, at 6:12 AM, Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Mar 20, 2022 at 9:07 AM John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
On Mar 20, 2022, at 1:53 PM, Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> wrote:
Unfortunately, we still can't boot a PowerMac. Yaboot does load, but
it results in Unknown or corrupt filesystem.
I do not quite understand the connection to Yaboot. The current images use GRUB, both for booting the installer and the installed system.
Yaboot is unmaintained upstream, so it’s unlikely it will be able to work with modern ext4 systems in the foreseeable future.
If you insist on using Yaboot, you will have to use ext2 or ext3.
I don't insist on it. The instructions tell us to use it. The only instructions I am aware of is the one where we do 'boot
cd:,/install/yaboot'.
If the instructions have changed, can you please tell us where the
updated instructions are located?
The README on the ISO has an Installing section, but there are no instructions.
Jeff
Jeff, the debian installation process moved to GRUB a while back.
I still think the monthly install/setup FAQ would be a good plan, by the way. There was a flurry of interest for a short while.
On Mar 20, 2022, at 9:55 AM, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
On Mar 20, 2022, at 5:01 PM, Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Mar 20, 2022 at 11:40 AM Ken Cunningham
<ken.cunningham.webuse@gmail.com> wrote:
If the webmaster would provide the actual instructions (or the ISO
README would provide it), then we could perform an install.
Haven’t you posted to this list before and used the Debian Ports images in the past or am I confusing you with someone else?
Anyway, the documentation is outdated when you use the Debian Ports ISO images.
Adrian
On Mar 20, 2022, at 5:01 PM, Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Mar 20, 2022 at 11:40 AM Ken Cunningham <ken.cunningham.webuse@gmail.com> wrote:
If the webmaster would provide the actual instructions (or the ISO
README would provide it), then we could perform an install.
On Mar 20, 2022, at 5:01 PM, Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Mar 20, 2022 at 11:40 AM Ken Cunningham <ken.cunningham.webuse@gmail.com> wrote:
If the webmaster would provide the actual instructions (or the ISO
README would provide it), then we could perform an install.
Haven’t you posted to this list before and used the Debian Ports images in the past or am I confusing you with someone else?
Anyway, the documentation is outdated when you use the Debian Ports ISO images.
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2022-03-24/
works without a problem, and my iBook boots and starts loading the
kernel. I added linux-firmware-nonfree, but it boots to a completely
black screen. I can only access the iBook via ssh.
On Mar 26, 2022, at 12:07 AM, Peter <petrvz@gmx.net> wrote:
Or does this mean that /boot/grub is mounted read-only and I have to
follow the procedure you described?
Hello,
My installation attempt using CD [2] above on a PowerBook G3 Pismo (500
MHz; 2 GiB memory) failed.
1) I started with a blank 120 GB disk. I partitioned the disk to include partitions (after the Apple drive partitions) for Apple_Bootstrap
(/dev/sda6; 10 MiB), Mac OS 9 (/dev/sda7; 1 GiB), Mac OS X (/dev/sda8; 7 GiB), Debian rootfs (/dev/sda9; 16 GiB), and swap (/dev/sda10; 2 GiB) --
I left the rest of the disk un-partitioned.
2) The installation CD booted and GRUB worked. I chose a default
installation with manual partitioning, using the partitions I set up in
step 1. Everything worked as expected until GRUB installation, which
failed. The error message was that GRUB failed to install on /dev/sda9
(the rootfs, not the Apple_Bootstrap, partition).
3) In step 2, I thought it might have failed because my Apple_Bootstrap partition could have been too small, so I tried the installation again, choosing a default installation using the entire disk with only the
default partitions. The resulting sizes were approximately as follows: Apple_Bootstrap (/dev/sda2; 256 MB); Debian rootfs (/dev/sda3; ~115
GiB); and swap (/dev/sda4; ~768 MB). So this Apple_Bootstrap was
certainly larger than the one I used in step 1, and I was optimistic
that everything would work. But GRUB installation failed again, with the error message that "grub-install /dev/sda3" failed. Even if this had
worked, it appears that I would have lost the Apple drivers needed to
boot Mac OS 9.
4) Booting into rescue mode on the installation CD, I was also not able
to install GRUB on the Apple_Bootstrap partition directly (e.g. after
step 3, I tried "grub-install /dev/sda2"). The error message was that
the partition was not a partition of type PReP.
Please let me know of anything else that I could try.
thanks
-Stan Johnson
On Mar 25, 2022, at 10:09 PM, Stan Johnson <userm57@yahoo.com> wrote:
On 3/25/22 10:12 PM, Ken Cunningham wrote:
Completely erase the hard drive, until you have a totally blank disk, with no partitions whatsoever on it.
To do this, I mounted the HD using Firewire disc mode from another system, and formatted it until it was bare.
Erasing the beginning of the disk (including the partition table) with something like "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=64k count=100" from
rescue mode on the installation CD should be sufficient (and not as hard
on the disk or as time consuming as erasing everything).
Then let the CD installer ISO take care of doing everything. Let it use the whole disk mode. Don’t try to outsmart it in any way. Don’t use manual anything.
I think that's what I did when I let it take over the whole disk. It
deleted everything, including Apple driver partitions, leaving only four partitions -- partition table, Apple_Bootstrap, rootfs and swap (see my
step 3 below).
Success should follow.
Not for me on the Pismo.
Ken
Hello,
My installation attempt using CD [2] above on a PowerBook G3 Pismo (500
MHz; 2 GiB memory) failed.
1) I started with a blank 120 GB disk. I partitioned the disk to include >>> partitions (after the Apple drive partitions) for Apple_Bootstrap
(/dev/sda6; 10 MiB), Mac OS 9 (/dev/sda7; 1 GiB), Mac OS X (/dev/sda8; 7 >>> GiB), Debian rootfs (/dev/sda9; 16 GiB), and swap (/dev/sda10; 2 GiB) -- >>> I left the rest of the disk un-partitioned.
2) The installation CD booted and GRUB worked. I chose a default
installation with manual partitioning, using the partitions I set up in
step 1. Everything worked as expected until GRUB installation, which
failed. The error message was that GRUB failed to install on /dev/sda9
(the rootfs, not the Apple_Bootstrap, partition).
3) In step 2, I thought it might have failed because my Apple_Bootstrap
partition could have been too small, so I tried the installation again,
choosing a default installation using the entire disk with only the
default partitions. The resulting sizes were approximately as follows:
Apple_Bootstrap (/dev/sda2; 256 MB); Debian rootfs (/dev/sda3; ~115
GiB); and swap (/dev/sda4; ~768 MB). So this Apple_Bootstrap was
certainly larger than the one I used in step 1, and I was optimistic
that everything would work. But GRUB installation failed again, with the >>> error message that "grub-install /dev/sda3" failed. Even if this had
worked, it appears that I would have lost the Apple drivers needed to
boot Mac OS 9.
4) Booting into rescue mode on the installation CD, I was also not able
to install GRUB on the Apple_Bootstrap partition directly (e.g. after
step 3, I tried "grub-install /dev/sda2"). The error message was that
the partition was not a partition of type PReP.
Please let me know of anything else that I could try.
thanks
-Stan Johnson
On Mar 26, 2022, at 4:19 AM, Stan Johnson <userm57@yahoo.com> wrote:
My installation attempt using CD [2] above on a PowerBook G3 Pismo (500
MHz; 2 GiB memory) failed.
1) I started with a blank 120 GB disk. I partitioned the disk to include partitions (after the Apple drive partitions) for Apple_Bootstrap
(/dev/sda6; 10 MiB), Mac OS 9 (/dev/sda7; 1 GiB), Mac OS X (/dev/sda8; 7 GiB), Debian rootfs (/dev/sda9; 16 GiB), and swap (/dev/sda10; 2 GiB) --
I left the rest of the disk un-partitioned.
2) The installation CD booted and GRUB worked. I chose a default
installation with manual partitioning, using the partitions I set up in
step 1. Everything worked as expected until GRUB installation, which
failed. The error message was that GRUB failed to install on /dev/sda9
(the rootfs, not the Apple_Bootstrap, partition).
3) In step 2, I thought it might have failed because my Apple_Bootstrap partition could have been too small, so I tried the installation again, choosing a default installation using the entire disk with only the
default partitions. The resulting sizes were approximately as follows: Apple_Bootstrap (/dev/sda2; 256 MB); Debian rootfs (/dev/sda3; ~115
GiB); and swap (/dev/sda4; ~768 MB). So this Apple_Bootstrap was
certainly larger than the one I used in step 1, and I was optimistic
that everything would work. But GRUB installation failed again, with the error message that "grub-install /dev/sda3" failed. Even if this had
worked, it appears that I would have lost the Apple drivers needed to
boot Mac OS 9.
4) Booting into rescue mode on the installation CD, I was also not able
to install GRUB on the Apple_Bootstrap partition directly (e.g. after
step 3, I tried "grub-install /dev/sda2"). The error message was that
the partition was not a partition of type PReP.
My installation attempt using CD [2] above on a PowerBook G3 Pismo (500
MHz; 2 GiB memory) failed.
1) I started with a blank 120 GB disk. I partitioned the disk to include partitions (after the Apple drive partitions) for Apple_Bootstrap
(/dev/sda6; 10 MiB), Mac OS 9 (/dev/sda7; 1 GiB), Mac OS X (/dev/sda8; 7 GiB), Debian rootfs (/dev/sda9; 16 GiB), and swap (/dev/sda10; 2 GiB) --
I left the rest of the disk un-partitioned.
2) The installation CD booted and GRUB worked. I chose a default
installation with manual partitioning, using the partitions I set up in
step 1. Everything worked as expected until GRUB installation, which
failed. The error message was that GRUB failed to install on /dev/sda9
(the rootfs, not the Apple_Bootstrap, partition).
3) In step 2, I thought it might have failed because my Apple_Bootstrap partition could have been too small, so I tried the installation again, choosing a default installation using the entire disk with only the
default partitions. The resulting sizes were approximately as follows: Apple_Bootstrap (/dev/sda2; 256 MB); Debian rootfs (/dev/sda3; ~115
GiB); and swap (/dev/sda4; ~768 MB). So this Apple_Bootstrap was
certainly larger than the one I used in step 1, and I was optimistic
that everything would work. But GRUB installation failed again, with the error message that "grub-install /dev/sda3" failed. Even if this had
worked, it appears that I would have lost the Apple drivers needed to
boot Mac OS 9.
4) Booting into rescue mode on the installation CD, I was also not able
to install GRUB on the Apple_Bootstrap partition directly (e.g. after
step 3, I tried "grub-install /dev/sda2"). The error message was that
the partition was not a partition of type PReP.
Please let me know of anything else that I could try.
I used the image from your 18 Mar 2022 message: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2022-03-18/non-free/
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2022-03-24/
AFAIK, GRUB needs to use Apple_Bootstrap (how else will Open Firmware
know how to boot?). And the Apple_Bootstrap partition is formatted as
HFS (but "Apple_Bootstrap" instead of "Apple_HFS" so Mac OS won't access
it).
https://opensource.apple.com/source/bless/bless-37/README.BOOTING
And if you used the correct image, what steps did you perform?
I booted the installation image and chose a default installation.
Did you run in expert mode? I could imagine that expert mode turns off all >> warnings and therefore it didn't tell you when your manual partitioning
resulted in an unusable partition layout.
In my second test (step 3 from my earlier message) I chose a default installation and told the partitioner to use the entire disk. The
installer repartitioned the disk to contain the following partitions:
1: /dev/sda1 - partition map
2: /dev/sda2 - Apple_Bootstrap (hfs, 256 MB)
3) /dev/sda3 - Debian rootfs (ext4, ~110 GB)
4) /dev/sda4 - Linux swap (swap, ~768 MB)
On 3/26/22 10:58 AM, Ken Cunningham wrote:
I think that people are used to installing linux on PPC Macs being very
very very difficult, with many arcane manual steps and many hours needed
on every walkthru available anywhere on the internet.
Like everything else, installing GNU/Linux on PPC Macs really is "very
very very difficult" until you know how to do it. And even then it
doesn't always work. For example, the latest installation CD doesn't
even boot on the PowerBook Lombard, despite the Lombard being a
perfectly good New World system. It has been suggested that the version
of Open Firmware on the Lombard may be too old to work with GRUB; fortunately, yaboot continues to work quite well.
Your steps 2 and 3 should not be necessary. It should be possible to use manual partitioning (I'm testing that next); otherwise, it will not be possible to boot multiple operating systems.
they just can't believe that is all you need to do.
If you want to trash all of the other operating systems on your disk,
then by all means you should choose to use the entire disk. But I
suspect that many users will not want to do that -- they'll instead want
to continue using Mac OS, Mac OS X, and whatever other GNU/Linux distributions they may have in addition to Debian.
It would be better if the HFS partition (/dev/sda2) were type
Apple_Bootstrap instead of Apple_HFS so that it is not visible to Mac OS
or Mac OS X. And changing it doesn't break anything (as the
Apple_Bootstrap partition, it's still formatted as HFS, so it's the
first HFS partition that Open Firmware sees):
# parted -l
Model: ATA ST9120822A (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 120GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: mac
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 512B 32.8kB 32.3kB Apple
2 32.8kB 256MB 256MB hfs Apple_Bootstrap boot
3 256MB 119GB 119GB ext4 untitled
4 119GB 120GB 759MB linux-swap(v1) swap swap
And it is arguably a bad idea for GRUB to delete the Apple device driver partitions, even when it's using the entire disk (the "entire disk"
should start after those partitions).
Of course, these are just suggestions, and I'm providing them as part of
my feedback on whether GRUB installation works using the latest Debian PowerPC installation CD. Debian (and GRUB) maintainers should do
whatever they want. I don't anticipate ever using GRUB on a New World
PowerPC system as long as it doesn't work at least as well as yaboot
(and there's no need for you to say again that yaboot is not supported upstream; that doesn't stop it from working).
On Mar 26, 2022, at 11:47 AM, Stan Johnson <userm57@yahoo.com> wrote:
Your steps 2 and 3 should not be necessary. It should be possible to use manual partitioning (I'm testing that next); otherwise, it will not be possible to boot multiple operating systems.
they just can't believe that is all you need to do.
If you want to trash all of the other operating systems on your disk,
then by all means you should choose to use the entire disk. But I
suspect that many users will not want to do that -- they'll instead want
to continue using Mac OS, Mac OS X, and whatever other GNU/Linux distributions they may have in addition to Debian.
After following these steps, and with the latest image from https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2022-03-28/
which installs fine btw, the screen stays blank.
Adding nomodeset to Grub enables me to boot to a login screen, but then
after installing a desktop environment startx will fail with an error
related to nomodeset. (it did in my previous install, I haven't tried
to install a graphical environment this time.)
Hi Peter!
On 3/25/22 11:58, Peter van Zaanen wrote:
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2022-03-24/
works without a problem, and my iBook boots and starts loading the
kernel. I added linux-firmware-nonfree, but it boots to a
completely
black screen. I can only access the iBook via ssh.
Yes, that's a known issue, you have to install the AMD graphics
package manually:
# apt install firmware-amd-graphics
Make sure that the filesystem in /boot/grub is mounted read/write, it
can sometimes
happen that the filesystem gets corrupted such that it gets mounted read-only.
You need to install hfsprogs in this case, run fsck.hfs and remount
the filesystem rw:
# apt install hfsprogs
# umount /boot/grub
# fsck.hfs -y /dev/sda2 (for the case that /boot/grub came from
/dev/sda2)
# mount /dev/sda2 /boot/grub
After that, run update-grub:
# update-grub
After rebooting, graphics should work.
FWIW, you can also boot the machine with "nomodeset" added to the
command line
in GRUB in case SSH is not available.
Future images will install the graphics firmware automatically.
Adrian
What kind of VGA adapter does this machine have? Is it actually an
Radeon
GPU or something different?
lspci shows: VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV280/M9+ [Mobility Radeon 9200 AGP] (rev 01)
My iBook is this 12" G4: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/ibook/specs/ibook_g4_1.2_12.html
Today I went with the 3/28 powerpc on a G4 desktop from 2002 (quicksilver). The install went well, but seemed much slower. The boot went to corrupted graphics, so I tried again adding nomodeset to grub boot. The boot started normally, but eventually hung with a blinking underscore cursor in the upper left corner of the display. I then tried to boot into recovery mode, but ended
up with a corrupt graphics screen.
The graphics card in the G4 is an Nvidia GForce4 Ti 4600 which is listed as unsupported, but is supposed to work with the nouveau or vesa drivers. Are they part of the netinst image, or do I need to reinstall and offer a usb stick when asked for additonal software?
I'd like to thank everyone for the work, especially John Paul. Those of us that are complete novices wouldn't be able to use our mac's without all your workl
nVidia cards are probably not well supported on big-endian systems anyway, so I would probably try swapping the card with a Radeon one.a radeon 9000 pro and a reinstall got me up and running
It might be worth capturing the kernel and Xorg log files and report the issuethat's beyond this carpenters ability at the moment, but i'm learning
to the Xorg graphics driver bug tracker.
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 296 |
| Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
| Uptime: | 47:21:56 |
| Calls: | 6,648 |
| Files: | 12,198 |
| Messages: | 5,329,924 |