Problem installing Debian PowerPC Jessie on PowerMac G5 7,3 PCI-X

[Rick Thomas <rbthomas@pobox.com>]

I’m trying to install Debian Jessie ppc64 8.11 on my PowerMac G5 7,3 machine for comparison purposes with Adrian’s 10.0 “ports”.

I downloaded the PowerPC 8.11 DVD and used it to install a default system.  The only thing out of the ordinary was that I had to manually enter the packages mirror name as “archive.debian.org” since Jessie is no longer available on the normal mirror network.

The installation ran to completion, finishing up with installing yaboot on the hard disk.

But when it tried to reboot into the installed system, it got to “second level boot loader” and stopped with the blinking question-mark folder icon.

Does anybody have any ideas as to what’s going wrong?

I can provide log files for the installation if you think they would help.

Thanks!
Rick