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Question on installing Debian ppc on iBook with small HD
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Fritz Hudnut
Jun 26, 2023, 12:20:05 PM6/26/23
to
CC-ing you at your suse email and hopefully on the powerpc list-serve??
On Mon, Jun 26, 2023 at 3:32 AM Adrian Glaubitz <adrian....@suse.com> wrote:
Hi Fritz!
We should probably move the discussion over to debian-powerpc [1].
The partitioning scheme was changed to accommodate the switch from Yaboot to GRUB as the
default bootloader.
> If running "custom" with the "/" "/home" and "swap" partitions pointed to, would that not work??
It would still work. All you need is an HFS partition mounted to /boot/grub.
So, I got into the Net installer on an '04 iBook with 40GB HD, I have approx 11 GB set for what is right now Lubuntu 16.04, which is booting from Yaboot in the HFS partition sda2, but that partition showed as 10MB, using 323KB for OSX and yaboot. When I was using the custom installer and went to that partition there was no option for "/boot" of any kind?? I thought that was because the partition is too small for grub?? which these days seems to need more space?? Like 200 MB or more??
Or, can I get the installer to use that HFS partition and finish out the install using it? OR, do I need to carve out another HFS formatted partition from the 10.4 GB of space in which I now have / and /home together, AND then run the installer? And, then, what would be the minimum space needed for grub to work?
F
> I haven't taken the time to check the Debian site . . . but today is Bookworm day in my
> daily desktop driver . . . so I'm close.
Yes, indeed.
Adrian
> [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/
John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
Jun 29, 2023, 6:20:03 AM6/29/23
to
Hi Fritz!
Apologies for the late reply!
On Mon, 2023-06-26 at 08:57 -0700, Fritz Hudnut wrote:
> So, I got into the Net installer on an '04 iBook with 40GB HD, I have approx 11 GB
> set for what is right now Lubuntu 16.04, which is booting from Yaboot in the HFS
> partition sda2, but that partition showed as 10MB, using 323KB for OSX and yaboot.
> When I was using the custom installer and went to that partition there was no option
> for "/boot" of any kind??
Old installation images which installed Yaboot as a bootloader used a different way
to create an HFS partition. This partition was not mounted by default in Linux since
Yaboot normally didn't have to write any files ot the HFS partition after installation
unlike GRUB.
> I thought that was because the partition is too small for grub?? which these days
> seems to need more space?? Like 200 MB or more?
We're using default sizes of 128/256/512 MB depending on the disk size these days:
> https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/partman-auto/-/blob/master/recipes-powerpc-powermac_newworld/atomic
> Or, can I get the installer to use that HFS partition and finish out the install using it?
It's most likely too small.
> OR, do I need to carve out another HFS formatted partition from the 10.4 GB of space in
> which I now have / and /home together, AND then run the installer? And, then, what would
> be the minimum space needed for grub to work?
I would recommend a fresh installation and let the partioning tool handling the partition
sizes.
Adrian
--
.''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' : Debian Developer
`. `' Physicist
`- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
Apologies for the late reply!
On Mon, 2023-06-26 at 08:57 -0700, Fritz Hudnut wrote:
> So, I got into the Net installer on an '04 iBook with 40GB HD, I have approx 11 GB
> set for what is right now Lubuntu 16.04, which is booting from Yaboot in the HFS
> partition sda2, but that partition showed as 10MB, using 323KB for OSX and yaboot.
> When I was using the custom installer and went to that partition there was no option
> for "/boot" of any kind??
to create an HFS partition. This partition was not mounted by default in Linux since
Yaboot normally didn't have to write any files ot the HFS partition after installation
unlike GRUB.
> I thought that was because the partition is too small for grub?? which these days
> seems to need more space?? Like 200 MB or more?
> https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/partman-auto/-/blob/master/recipes-powerpc-powermac_newworld/atomic
> Or, can I get the installer to use that HFS partition and finish out the install using it?
> OR, do I need to carve out another HFS formatted partition from the 10.4 GB of space in
> which I now have / and /home together, AND then run the installer? And, then, what would
> be the minimum space needed for grub to work?
sizes.
Adrian
--
.''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' : Debian Developer
`. `' Physicist
`- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
Fritz Hudnut
Jul 1, 2023, 12:00:05 PM7/1/23
to
I would recommend a fresh installation and let the partioning tool handling the partition
sizes.
Adrian
Adrian:
Thanks for the reply, it's been so long that I ran an installation that way, I'm usually installing "custom" into drives that are sliced and diced to contain a number of systems . . . .
I used to run installs "install alongside OSX" back in the day . . . I can't recall if the Debian installer offered me that option recently when I ran into the process a fair ways before aborting out of it . . . ??? I still want to preserve the OSX install on ye olden iBook . . . . Right now it's the third laptop down in the stack of laptops, in descending order of age . . . oldest on the bottom, and so forth. : - )
F
Fritz Hudnut
Sep 14, 2023, 7:40:06 PM9/14/23
to
Adrian:
Just providing feedback on the Debian Sid/PPC install that I ran a couple months back and then today did an apt dist-upgrade that brought in 489 packages. Because the machine has a 933 MHz cpu it doesn't do anything too fast, but it did get through the installation of 432MB of data in about an hour, but there were some errors . . . . I guess it installed the 6.5 kernel, but then did not dpkg it for use, then it showed that 6.3 kernel is "to be removed" but numerous attempts to remove it have failed . . . . I forgot to check uname -a??? for running kernel. Problems with grubieee1275 also, although a grub window opens and boots the system OK . . . . And then an issue with linux-image-powerpc as well have the dist-upgrade error out.
I was hoping that I could use the machine as a distributed.net "mule" to just slowly kick out some stats, for hours and see how that would work.
But the provided "web browser" is that epiphany?? launches briefly and then crashes. Tried that a couple times. I tried to install "firefox" via console and that had so many unmet dependencies that failed, and same for "chromium" . . . no candidate.
I ran "apt-get -f install" which in the olden day of PPC would clean up a problem install, that errored out as well.
So, there is a GUI, but somewhere in there the kernel got botched up?? or the machine can't support 6.5?? and won't remove 6.3 . . . the machine is very slow in spec, not sure if I could wget the right distributed.net "ppc" package and install it via console . . . . Ran out of time to mess with it, the lack of a browser kind of cuts down on usefulness, but had that problem with the OSX 10.4 install that was on there and the possibly Lubuntu 16.04??? browsers were almost dysfunctional . . . I think it has 946 MB RAM??? Don't think it has enough kick to run your SidsterPPC system??
F
Riccardo Mottola
Sep 15, 2023, 4:40:05 AM9/15/23
to
H Fritz,
Fritz Hudnut wrote:
> Adrian:
>
> Just providing feedback on the Debian Sid/PPC install that I ran a
> couple months back and then today did an apt dist-upgrade that brought
> in 489 packages. Because the machine has a 933 MHz cpu it doesn't do
> anything too fast, but it did get through the installation of 432MB of
> data in about an hour, but there were some errors . . . . I guess it
> installed the 6.5 kernel, but then did not dpkg it for use, then it
> showed that 6.3 kernel is "to be removed" but numerous attempts to
> remove it have failed . . . . I forgot to check uname -a??? for
> running kernel. Problems with grubieee1275 also, although a grub
> window opens and boots the system OK . . . . And then an issue with
> linux-image-powerpc as well have the dist-upgrade error out.
>
I think you need to share your errors. They way you described, it is
difficult to understand.
Perhaps your boot partition is too small and a second new kernel can't
be fitted on it?
While upgrading, I prefer a safer method, which conusmes more disk
space. First I do "apt-get upgrade", reboot and test, then "apt-get
dist-upgrade" and then "apt-get autoremove".
> <http://distributed.net> "mule" to just slowly kick out some stats,
with 68020 with FPU...
> But the provided "web browser" is that epiphany?? launches briefly and
> then crashes. Tried that a couple times. I tried to install
> "firefox" via console and that had so many unmet dependencies that
> failed, and same for "chromium" . . . no candidate.
No way you can expect to use firefox or chromium on such computer, just
because of the RAM! I don't know how chromium fares, I try to avoid it,
but firefox is a big monstrum not very big-endina friendly nowadays, but
remember that also the web pages have become heavier in 20 years: CSS,
JS, layers, compositing, videos with backgrounds...
For "quick" access you can browse with things like midori, or try your
luck with ArcticFox (there is no official deb package though)
>
> So, there is a GUI, but somewhere in there the kernel got botched
> up?? or the machine can't support 6.5?? and won't remove 6.3 . . .
> the machine is very slow in spec, not sure if I could wget the right
> distributed.net <http://distributed.net> "ppc" package and install it
since I also have a G3 iBook and G4 iBook.
Email (with a client, not webmail), image viewing, mp3 music, even some
image editing can be done Simple text processing, coding...
Just don't expect YouTube in a browser, although you might be able to
watch videos with VLC or similar.
A useful trick is to hook up ssh/telnet/whatever and do browsing on
another system and then copy links and wget them
Riccardo
Fritz Hudnut wrote:
> Adrian:
>
> Just providing feedback on the Debian Sid/PPC install that I ran a
> couple months back and then today did an apt dist-upgrade that brought
> in 489 packages. Because the machine has a 933 MHz cpu it doesn't do
> anything too fast, but it did get through the installation of 432MB of
> data in about an hour, but there were some errors . . . . I guess it
> installed the 6.5 kernel, but then did not dpkg it for use, then it
> showed that 6.3 kernel is "to be removed" but numerous attempts to
> remove it have failed . . . . I forgot to check uname -a??? for
> running kernel. Problems with grubieee1275 also, although a grub
> window opens and boots the system OK . . . . And then an issue with
> linux-image-powerpc as well have the dist-upgrade error out.
>
difficult to understand.
Perhaps your boot partition is too small and a second new kernel can't
be fitted on it?
While upgrading, I prefer a safer method, which conusmes more disk
space. First I do "apt-get upgrade", reboot and test, then "apt-get
dist-upgrade" and then "apt-get autoremove".
> <http://distributed.net> "mule" to just slowly kick out some stats,
> for hours and see how that would work.
>
I remember when running seti and distributed.net with NetBSD on a MacII
>
with 68020 with FPU...
> But the provided "web browser" is that epiphany?? launches briefly and
> then crashes. Tried that a couple times. I tried to install
> "firefox" via console and that had so many unmet dependencies that
> failed, and same for "chromium" . . . no candidate.
because of the RAM! I don't know how chromium fares, I try to avoid it,
but firefox is a big monstrum not very big-endina friendly nowadays, but
remember that also the web pages have become heavier in 20 years: CSS,
JS, layers, compositing, videos with backgrounds...
For "quick" access you can browse with things like midori, or try your
luck with ArcticFox (there is no official deb package though)
>
> So, there is a GUI, but somewhere in there the kernel got botched
> up?? or the machine can't support 6.5?? and won't remove 6.3 . . .
> the machine is very slow in spec, not sure if I could wget the right
> via console . . . . Ran out of time to mess with it, the lack of a
> browser kind of cuts down on usefulness, but had that problem with the
> OSX 10.4 install that was on there and the possibly Lubuntu 16.04???
> browsers were almost dysfunctional . . . I think it has 946 MB RAM???
> Don't think it has enough kick to run your SidsterPPC system??
A computer is not just for browsing... and your iBook can do linux,
> browser kind of cuts down on usefulness, but had that problem with the
> OSX 10.4 install that was on there and the possibly Lubuntu 16.04???
> browsers were almost dysfunctional . . . I think it has 946 MB RAM???
> Don't think it has enough kick to run your SidsterPPC system??
since I also have a G3 iBook and G4 iBook.
Email (with a client, not webmail), image viewing, mp3 music, even some
image editing can be done Simple text processing, coding...
Just don't expect YouTube in a browser, although you might be able to
watch videos with VLC or similar.
A useful trick is to hook up ssh/telnet/whatever and do browsing on
another system and then copy links and wget them
Riccardo
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