Re: Recipe for installing Debian on powerpc (G4, 32-bit) Mac? [failed installation -- looking for advice]
Installation report follows at end.
On Wed, Dec 15, 2021, at 12:53 AM, Johannes Brakensiek wrote:
> Am Dienstag, dem 14.12.2021 um 17:12 -0800 schrieb Rick Thomas:
>> What is the URL for the latest Debian installer iso for a powerpc
>> (32-bit, G4) macintosh?
>>
>> Is there anything I need to do (e.g. manually add a few lines to
>> sources.list after/during the install) other than the the normal
>> installation process (i.e. same as I would use for an amd64 machine)?
>>
>> Is there anything in particular you would like me to report on after
>> I'm done with the installation?
>>
>> Thanks for all your hard work!
>>
>> Rick
>
> Hi Rick,
>
> you may find the last snapshot of the PowerPC ports image here:
> https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2021-10-20/
>
> As far as I know you should be able to just run and install it. See my
> note over here on how to boot from an USB stick. I don't know if a G4
> will be able to do that as well:
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2021/01/msg00035.html
>
> Otherwise just burn a CD.
>
> If you encounter any issues just tell here. Adrian is doing all the
> hard work of making the port work (thanks again!). It seems there is
> not much manpower left for updating the documentation at the ports
> site. I don't even know how this works in this Debian universe… (if
> it's kinda straight forward I may try to update some information at
> some point…)
>
> Good luck and happy hacking
> Johannes
So... I downloaded the "powerpc" netinst iso from ports/snapshots/2021-10-20/ and burned it to a CD-R (the CD-RW's I had on the shelf were so old they couldn't be recognized in the burner) It booted fine and I chose to do the default non-graphical install in non-expert mode. I accepted all the default options up to partitioning disks, where I chose "guided -- use entire disk" with "Separate /home partition" this resulted in a partition scheme with a hfs partition mounted on /boot/EFI but no /boot partition per se. I assume this means that /boot should be included in the root partition and that the new Grub would be able to find it, and the kernel/initramfs contained therein. So I accepted that scheme and allowed it to proceed.
When it got to "Install the GRUB boot loader" it failed with this message:
Unable to install Grub in /dev/sda3
Executing "grub-install /dev/sda3" failed
This is a fatal error
I called it to continue without installing grub and when it rebooted, it gave me the grub menu, but was unable to load the kernel and initramfs.
Did I do something wrong?
Next step is to boot from the CD into "rescue" mode so I can get the installation log files and post them here.
Thanks for any help you can give!
Rick
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