Debian PPC Starters Manual: Difference between revisions
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Now, write the image: | Now, write the image: | ||
: <code>dd if=mini | : <code>dd if=mini.iso of=/dev/sdb</code> | ||
=== Boot on USB stick === | === Boot on USB stick === | ||
=== Base Installation === | === Base Installation === | ||
Revision as of 05:06, 11 May 2017
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
First things first: check if your computer is present in the supported list:
Now that you are ready 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. Could be interesting if you want to keep your internal disk as is, or if your internal disk is dead, and you do not have a replacement or you do not want to open your machine.
The rest of this section will describe an installation using a USB stick, on a supported machine - in my case, a venerable G4 PowerBook. Debian is alone on the disk.
(I also have an iMac G5 MacOSX / Debian stable / Debian unstable installation - where unstable was installed using debootstrap)
Download ISO image
Normally, I would install Debian stable first, then upgrade to Debian unstable. But we are not in a normal situation anymore, so we'll install unstable directly.
For G4 and earlier (32-bits disk image):
- ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/sid/main/installer-powerpc/current/images/powerpc/netboot/mini.iso
For G5 and later (64-bits disk image):
The one I used is from the 04/07/2017 (7th of April 2017).
Write ISO image on USB stick
The easiest (only) way to do this is using the dd command (on linux or MacOSX).
One thing to know about the dd command is that you need to be careful when using it - do not use it as root - unless you know what you're doing.
Now the thing is, we need to use it as root to write the ISO image on the stick...
First, cd to the directory containing the disk image.
Then you need to get the device name for your USB stick. Plug it in and type:
Linux:
lsblk
MacOSX:
diskutil list
Or you can just list the mounted filesystems:
df
On my computer it is /dev/sdb. There is a partition on it, and it is mounted on /dev/sdb1.
Second, you need to unmount the mounted partition:
sudo umount /dev/sdb1
Now, write the image:
dd if=mini.iso of=/dev/sdb
Boot on USB stick
Base Installation
Additional Components
When things go wrong (and they will)
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
...