The Mother of all Debian PPC Links
 

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/powerpc/install

<<<I think I have some cd's with potato for ppc on somewhere, so if I could "just" get that to work, then opgrade will be a walk in the park (in comparison)?
>>>

Be careful!!!! Potato is no longer supported for the ppc, I believe.......... not sure...

Another way would be to go to an internet cafe that would let you burn a base CD for a minimum install.

Here's the Danish site

http://www.dk.debian.org/index.da.html

Here's the plain text manual in Danish for a ppc installation
http://www.dk.debian.org/releases/st...install.da.txt

Here'a the HTML Danish manual
http://www.dk.debian.org/releases/st...nstall.da.html

Here's the Danish PDF
http://www.dk.debian.org/releases/st...install.da.pdf

My 7500 has two hard drives, both are about 1 Gig each, master and slave. I suppose I could just install Debian on the slave and not even touch the master with it's OS 8.6?

I have my 7500 networked to my G4 and within arms length. So, I could just have all the relevant materials available without printing them, plus any other internet resources I may need right in front of me. As far as the hardware specs; couldn't I get them by simply printing out an Apple System Profile? Also, since I have never done this before, the plan in my head isn't real clear as of yet. Last night, I downloaded the ISO image of the binary-i386-1 to burn to a CD-RW. Would that be the correct installation for me?

Oh, forgot to mention that the 7500 is a SCSI machine and has a couple of extra cards installed, one for video ram at 8 MB, the other an extra NIC.

i386 is strictly for INTEL architecture... you need the PPC for your type of system, whatever that is.... I don't know because this iBook is the first Mac I've ever owned.


This is for all of you:::
Debian PowerPC port was first officially released with Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 (`potato'). Support for PowerPC is maintained in the release 3.0 (`woody'). Please see the release notes http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...release-notes/ and installation manual for more information.

When upgrading from Potato to Woody or changing kernels, there is some important information http://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/keycodes you should be aware of regarding a change in keyboard coding. This could save you some time and headaches!

And check this page>> http://www.debian.org/ports/index
and
http://www.debian.org/distrib/

So it would appear by its name. And I thought this too at first. But on the faq page for downloading, it lists:I interpreted that to mean that the first CD would work for other architectures. And this was the only download I could find at all and was referenced from the PowerPC pages.

I guess that's it....... At work, I did a network install....... I'll check that now to see whaaSSSSSsssUP with that......... to see if we're doin' the same thingy* here.

Be back...

*thingy= catch-all tech term to hide or to reveal the incompetence, Inability; insufficiency; inadequacy; disqualification;
incapability; unfitness.... of the user of the term.... [Glanz's Universal Dictionary of Whatchamacallits]

Kernel Skinny
 

OK..., here's where I got my PPC kernel

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/ports/ppc

I did not follow the same procedure as I would have for a PC portable. I networked to configure for a local network install at the university. I "kerneled" first, then went and loaded the Debian ppc tree.... I have no idea where I got that now.... I am not at work at present. I'll look that up tomorrow.

nb: Patches are only available from the linuxppc_2_4 tree.

Maybe I'm way off in my interpretations. But I'm having the darndess time finding the installer for old world powerpc's. Perhaps there isn't one for an ISO image to CD. I can't find where it says that though. I found that there are some choices of BootX, miboot and quik; whatever they are? Further investigation says they are to put in your system folder where you also put a kernel. I'm confused. I would like to have the whole installer on one CD or several floppies. Or a net install would be fine too. Can you tell me where to get that if it is even available for old world macs? I have a feeling it's not though. At least I can't find one. Hmmm.

Diskless installation, using network booting from a local area network and NFS-mounting of all local filesystems, is another option — you'll probably need at least 16MB of RAM for a diskless installation. After the operating system kernel is installed, you can install the rest of your system via any sort of network connection (including PPP after installation of the base system), via FTP, HTTP, or NFS.

here>>>
http://www.phy.olemiss.edu/debian-cd/
and/or here>>>
http://people.debian.org/~ieure/netinst/
and/or here for boot floppy inst>>
http://people.debian.org/~dwhedon/boot-floppies/
here too>>>
http://people.debian.org/~blade/boot-floppies/cvs/
Here's an XFS netinst image>>>
http://people.debian.org/~blade/XFS-Install/download/

Here's the Woody PowerPC-1 ISO
http://www.phy.olemiss.edu/debian-cd...-powerpc-1.iso
Here's the pkg list needed for install
http://www.phy.olemiss.edu/debian-cd...rpc-1.packages
Here's the raw 186M download
http://www.phy.olemiss.edu/debian-cd...-powerpc-1.raw
Here's the SRC iso if you want source (I don't think you do)
And finally here's the raw source which you don't want either, but maybe somepne does
http://www.phy.olemiss.edu/debian-cd/woody-src-1.raw
http://www.phy.olemiss.edu/debian-cd/woody-src-1.iso

Glanz, thanks for taking such trouble; it is much appreciated.
I take it woody is the way to go.
BTW, I'm preferring the english version (us), as I hate the mixup of different language files. (Was worse in pre-X days, but I stick with the international edition).

<<Here's the Woody PowerPC-1 ISO
http://www.phy.olemiss.edu/debian-c...y-powerpc-1.iso
Here's the pkg list needed for install
http://www.phy.olemiss.edu/debian-c...erpc-1.packages>>

As far as I've understood, any installation of deb requires a mac partition. Would it be possible to run the installer off W-PPC-1 ISO. It would be easy to download the image and burn it, question is if it will run from the expansion bay CD-drive.
I could install from net as well, having access to high speed at work.

I, personally have always installed from network. I seldom get a Installation I made myself CD to work right. I installed the first edition of FreeBSD from a network tape drive once. [That gives you an idea of how old I am].... Here's the site to check for the info I just gave and much more than I had time to give...
http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

Now don't forget to cram. Study. Make sure of what you are doing. Do some research so that everything becomes clear in your imagination. Note that I didn't say "mind".... That will come later after all the mistakes you will make, that is, unless of course, you happen to have one helluva geek guardian angel lookin' after you. :)

As for the little bit of help I provided; it was a pleasure. :D

Glanz, thanks for all the info and your time here. I'm still not certain that woody is the one for my old rig though. I could just download it and try it. Or maybe I should just post to the mailing list over there at Debian and wait for someone to tell me which one exactly. So, I'm still a bit confused about all that. There are so many links and resources. But they don't tell me exactly which one is the one for me. :confused:

Yes, it is confusing! I am sure that Woody is the way to go......... but I'd check out those boards too...

Look, I've installed Woody on a Toshiba portable that was more than five years old.....

Glanz, okay, woody it is then. I was just about to burn a potato CD too. I'll keep the image around just in case.

Rember all, that in those "TREES" there are little tarred-n'-feathered birdies called "ReadMe" and "Install"..... To hear their song, you must untar the poor little creatures.

thatch, you may want this one, if you haven't got it already:
goget'em
I think the non-us contains gpg and other 'security-related'

I did all this a bit differently than youZZZe GuyZe..

I compiled a kernel.

- Get the Debian source for 2.4.10
- Get and apply the PPC patch
- Get and apply the XFS patch while we're patching

Now try your normal kernel building techniques.

Like that.

<<So, it pays to get the source from the PowerPC kernel developers themselves. If you're using a newer PowerMac (e.g. the iBook2) then right now this is a must. Fortunately, it's quite easy to obtain.



If you have rsync installed, then you can obtain the latest versions of the benh development version of the kernel source by running the following command:


rsync -arvz --delete rsync.penguinppc.org::linux-2.4-benh [directory]


where [directory] is the name of the directory you would like the source to be downloaded into. (See the the rsync man page for more info.)>>

But here's the real skinny....

Get the latest kernels using rsync. I suggest the benh tree...

type in this command to get the latest kernels:

rsync -avz --delete source.mvista.com::linux-2.4-benh

This will download the source into the destination_path directory. Note that these kernels are specifically tuned by clued people so that they compile nicely on PPC (PowerMacs).

Good luck all!!!!!

"Normal"?
Well, i guess there's gotta be a first time for everything:p
It sure looks more elegant..But, someone ignorant as myself, may have to cross this debian river many times for a drop of water

So, I use rsync for my automated backups in OS X, but can it direct the download onto the pb3400 connected to the G3 directly through a cross-over ethernet cable?
-Guess I can find out by trying.

And that's just getting it down, nothing's configured yet!
It sure would be easier to have everything on a bootable cd.
Getting there must be part of the fun.:D

Sure you can direct, but you can also fetch the data via networking as if the data were an image.

<<Getting there must be part of the fun.:D >>

Yeah, like the peregrinations of Gautama Sidhartha!

That's why Debian users are so "faithful"... After the trip, they are too tired to return. They have to stay on top of the mountain, never to return to the marketplace with gift-bestowing hands.

Well guys, my progress report is just about nil. I have been busy with my usual day's work but also have been trying to get a CD which will mount on the 7500 in my spare time. I chose the woody_netinst-20020626-powerpc.iso to burn. Toast 5.2, no matter what options I used, will not do anything but copy the ISO file and it won't mount that way. I must have tried erasing and burning again with different options a half dozen times with no luck. I tried using Disk Copy which seems to have made the correct files appear in the CD. But it still won't mount on the 7500. I am using CD-RW media. The 7500 has OS 8.6. Since I rarely use the old bugger for much, I put in a music CD just to see if the drive was working. That mounted and played just fine. So, I'm at a standstill without any accomplishments. How frustrating that something so elementary isn't working.

I don't think it can boot directly off the cd, as neither can my pb3400. there has to be a mac partion for booting into debian (methinks).
From the manual

But, I'm a little confused. I'm not sure I'm up to building the kernel myself.

Well, sofar I'm backing up everything on the ol' thing (my wife's away:D )