Debian PPC Starters Manual
Get inspiration and information from http://www.debian.org/doc/maint-guide/
keep this guide simple, in the form of:
Title / Why would you want to do that / tasks and commands to do it
Introduction
Why would you want to contribute to Debian powerpc?
- FREE software and DFSG
- PowerPC
- all the existing G3 G4 and G5 machines
- diversity, freedom and choice
- learning
- the PowerPCNotebook project
- saving the world :-)
The Debian Bug submission / testing / integration process
Simple description (graphical diagram) of content from https://wiki.debian.org/HowtoUseBTS
Installation of Debian powerpc
Now that you have decided to install Debian powerpc, you still have two more questions to answer:
- Which Installation Media do you want to use?
- USB stick: Very convenient - but not really straight forward. Becomes easy when you get the hang of it.
- CD : The easiest - if you still have some CD-R / CD-RW around, and your CD writer is still working :-)
- hard drive : Cannot see any real advantage over using USB stick - but you can do this if you want to.
- debootstrap : Very easy - almost magical - if you already have a running Debian installation on your target machine.
- Which Target Partitioning Scheme to use?
- Debian alone on target disk - with one or several partitions - the most straight forward.
- Debian sharing the disk with other OSes (MacOSX or others) - you will need to partition your disk, and move things around. Can be (is) worth it.
- Debian alone on an external "firewire" disk - Haven't tested this.
recommended installation method is to start with stable then upgrade to unstable
- find your computer in the "supported" list on:
https://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/inst/install
- follow the link to specific installation page
- the detailed installation page is on:
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/powerpc/
- you need to get Debian 8 "jessie" from:
https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/debian-installer/
- most efficient way is to get netinst, which is a minimal install:
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/8.7.0/powerpc/iso-cd/debian-8.7.0-powerpc-netinst.iso
- you will need to burn it on a CD - most if not all of our machines will not boot on USB.
- you will need a wired ethernet connection during install - after that, it is possible to use wifi - but that will require the use of evil non-free software - but it can be very convenient.
- sound setup
- cpufreq-set -g ondemand / powersave
- wifi (non-free): sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer
- compositing – how to prevent windows remanence
- 2d acceleration – without changing the ROM of ATI card
- changing the ROM of ATI card
- https://wiki.debian.org/PowerPC/FAQ
- update /etc/apt/sources.list
Installation of tools
tools used for development, debugging etc...
popcon: show Debian community that powerpc is still actively used!
this can help bringing back Debian powerpc as a release architecture
Getting source code and Compiling it
...
Patches
Making Patches, sharing and applying them
Packages
Creating Debian packages - Conditions and rules to follow for packages to be included in Debian
Creating ISO Images
...
Debugging and Profiling
...
64bits / 32bits
...
Kernel modification/reconfiguration/recompilation
...
Altivec - the PowerPC secret weapon
...
Drivers
...