Re: installation-reports: - succesfull installation on iMac G5 and powermac G5 Quad (ppc64)
Hi Adrian,
On 4/27/20 9:04 AM, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
On 4/27/20 8:52 AM, MH wrote:
I succesfully install debian with grub via NETINST.iso. On both (iMac and powermac G5)
installer work out of the box, I tested guided and manual partitioning.
Installation reports send (958835,958844).
Great to hear!
Thank you very much for great work.
Thank you for testing and reporting back.
I have only two minor things, but they are connected more with mac OF, than with debian.
1) grub partition is not visible on mac early Startup Manager.
solution is simple - to "bless: file "/System/Library/CoreServices/BootX" on grub partition.
Unfortunatelly I dont't know how to do it from debian itself. hfsutils: hattrib can "bless" directory, not file.
Do somebody know how to "bless" single file ( like ybin does ?)?
I fix it with MorphOs command HFSSetMacBoot, but this is not available without MorphOS.
Thanks for the feedback. I look into this and see if there is a solution for this.
I wasn't aware of this problem.
If you have debian only system, it is not a problem.
installer sets nvram boot-device to correct linux paths
and nvram boot-command is set by default to 'mac-boot' ( I think that
installer don't touch this variable)
in this situation system boots normaly via grub.
In case of two or three systems (i have Debian, OSX, MorphOS) on one mac
we need some boot menu. I know basically two ( or three) ways how to do it -
i) set macs graphical early Startup Manager:
on first boot stage hold alt/option key, and after that you will see
graphically bootable devices ( i.e. MacOSX, MorphOS, bootable.iso and
most like grub) - example:
https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/206157040
We can do it by it by blessing the file, which contents graphical info
and executable paths. Debian grub installer allready have this
file:"/System/Library/CoreServices/BootX". But it is not "blessed" - I
have to check what "blessing" means exactly, but is some sort of file
attribute, needed for open firmware.
It can be provided by morphos command HFSSetmacBoot, and also ybin
command from yaboot package did "blessing". I try to look to ybin or
HFSSetMacBott souce how to do it.
I don't find this feature in hfsutils package - how to bless single file.
After the blessing grub partition is visible, and can be easily selected
for booting.
ii) we can add menu entries for other operating systems manually to
grub.cfg - I will test it later.
iii) every time boot to open firmware and manually type boot command for
selected operating system. Very uncomfortable.
2) if OF "boot-command" is set to something other than "mac-boot" (in my case I have here
exact boot-command with path for starting MorphOS) mac don't boot with grub, and if there
is no grub visible on Startup manager, only way how to boot linux if OF command.
It can be fixed by setting nvsetenv boot-device to "ofpath\grub" or to "mac-boot"
Not sure I understand how you end up in this situation. Can you explain in detail
how to reproduce this problem?
sorry I slightly mispelled this. Here is longer expalnation:
In open firmware are several nvram vars bor booting. Two of them is:
"boot-device" specify the boot device and root partition to load on
boot. This variable is set correctly with debian installer.
"boot-command" is command for booting the OS, mac default value is
"mac-boot". In this default case mac boots according to boot-device value.
It works fine with linux.
In case with linux + OSX it also works, we can boot linux via grub
automatically, and if you want to boot OSX, you can do it with Startup
Manager.
In my case (+MorphOS) the variable boot-command is set to MorphOs
bootable kernel, and not to default value (mac-boot)
Debian installer set correctly boot-device and don't change boot-command.
With this situation (after fresh debian installation) I cannot boot to
debian ( only with direct command from open firmware).
Grub partition is not visible to Starup Manager, thus cannot be
selected, and automatic boot using nvrams boots to kernel specified in
boot-command.
Quick fix is: set nvram "boot-command" to it's default ='mac-boot' by
installer.
But as I said, it is no debian problem, I think it is waste of time try
to add menus with other OSes to installer.
I can wrote how to do it to wiki.debian/powerpc.
I am very happy that there is again modern Debian for these machines.
Glad you enjoy Debian!
I also installed desktops ( lxde, lxqt, mate ) - all without problems, 2D,3D working on
iMac. ( on powermac I have X1900 G5 Edition card, which is incompatible with linux)
Now I will try installations on powerbook G4, and try to made custom vmlinux to install
Debian on Pegasos2 and AmigaX1000.
I have a Pegasos II box myself but I haven't gotten around testing Debian on it yet,
so I cannot comment on this yet and whether it works. So it's completely untested.
Problem with PegasosII is, that we need functional vmlinuz package. Two
years ago I tried install Lubuntu 16.04 with so success.
I will test made new kernel on old Debian8 installation.
I am using Pegasos2 daily, it my favorite computer . Last year I
modernized him and overclocked to 1.33GHz
https://translate.google.cz/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpowerpc.lukysoft.cz%2Fupgrade-pegasos-ii-0
thanks to all for a lot of hard work
Sure :).
I can't even imagine ...
> Adrian
--
Martine
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