Re: Debian SID PowerBook Pismo Installation
Hi Stan!
On Tue, 2023-05-30 at 17:30 -0600, Stan Johnson wrote:
> 1) During installation, I deselected X desktop and Xfce and added
> ssh-server. Please add a disk partitioner to the default base
> installation. Either parted or mac-fdisk would work (I used apt-get to
> install both).
The package lists are not architecture-specific. If you want certain packages
to be installed by default, you need to file a bug against parted and get
the package's priority to be changed from "optional" to "standard" [1].
> 2) Partition /dev/sda2 above is the bootstrap partition. Its type should
> be Apple_Bootstrap instead of Apple_HFS. Either way it's an HFS
> partition, but as type Apple_HFS, it won't be distinguished from any
> other HFS partition in Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X (though of course neither of
> those is installed here).
Partitioning is done by the partman-auto package here in [2]. Don't know
whether it's possible to change the partition type to »Apple_Bootstrap«
there [2].
If someone can do the work and read the documentation, I am happy to make
the necessary changes to partman-auto or related packages.
> 3) The mounted filesystems include /dev/sda3 and /dev/sda2:
>
> # df -k
> Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
> udev 498148 0 498148 0% /dev
> tmpfs 102116 432 101684 1% /run
> /dev/sda3 121257500 1064744 113987020 1% /
> tmpfs 510568 0 510568 0% /dev/shm
> tmpfs 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
> /dev/sda2 249988 11296 238692 5% /boot/grub
> tmpfs 102112 0 102112 0% /run/user/0
> tmpfs 102112 0 102112 0% /run/user/1000
>
> IMO, /boot/grub should only be mounted when GRUB is being updated or
> installed.
That would require adding a corresponding hook to the GRUB package, probably
in the »update-grub« script [3]. Not sure whether the maintainers of the
»grub2« package would want that in Debian.
> If the system crashes, /dev/sda2 could become corrupt, and I
> don't see an "fsck.hfs" or equivalent to fix it in Debian.
Uhm, the package »hfsprogs« exists in Debian and has been the focus of this
week's discussion on the debian-powerpc mailing list. The reason why it's
not installed by default is Apple's APSL license which makes everything much
more complicated.
> Users could add "noauto" to the /etc/fstab line for /boot/grub and manually mount
> /boot/grub only when updates are needed. Or maybe the grub* executables
> in /usr/sbin could look for an Apple_Bootstrap partition and mount it
> automatically if one is found.
As I said above, this would require PowerMac-specific modifications to the
»grub2« package. Remember, we're not maintaining »Debian Linux Apple PowerMac«
but a port of »Debian Linux« for 32- and 64-bit PowerPC which also happens
to run on Apple PowerMac. We don't own the codebase exclusively, so we can't
just make everything to suit our needs.
> 4) Selecting the GNU GRUB icon from the Apple boot selector (holding the
> option key at boot) doesn't work (the screen just goes blank). Booting
> works as expected using the GRUB menu.
Works for me on my iBook G4. Might be an issue with the old firmware in your
PowerBook Pismo.
Adrian
> [1] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s-priorities
> [2] https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/partman-auto/-/blob/master/recipes-powerpc-powermac_newworld/atomic
> [3] https://salsa.debian.org/grub-team/grub/-/blob/master/debian/update-grub
--
.''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' : Debian Developer
`. `' Physicist
`- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
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