As I write this new post, Adrian Glaubitz has been working hard within the Debian community to make the installer work for ppc users. Apparently, the GRUB issue has been solved now finally. I have not had the time to do a test myself yet. I will do this as soon as I think that the time is right. If it all works as expected, I will make new MintPPC installer images.
To be continued…
Well, excellent news, thank you and the Debian community for your hard work and resolution of giving life to these old (but useful and even practical to learn and understand the Power architecture) macs, whenever you ask us to test, count me in
Great work! I’m looking forward to the day that the new installer is ready.
The installer is ready.
I am going to test the new Debian Installer today.
Ok guys, good news. The Debian Installer images of 19.4.2020, which can be found here (https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/2020-04-19/), seem to work. I did a test run on an iBook G4 with “automated installation” and a preseed file which is accessible via http://u58733p55594.web0093.zxcs-klant.nl/d-i/jessie/preseed.cfg (only works with powerpc image, not the ppc64 image). I ended up with a fully automatic installation of MintPPC. The only problem I found so far is that X is not working out of the box. I had to manually install xorg and xserver-xorg-video-all to make X work. So, for the impatient ones I can recommend the process as described. For a more user friendly experience, I would wait a bit more until I have polished it a bit. I will also start working on a preseed file for ppc64.
Hello Jeroen! I just tried your new installer on a Powerbook G4 (Powerbook 5,4 15 inch, 1.33) after already spending many days trying many different distros: Lubuntu 16.04 (freezes after login), Lubuntu 14.04 (many problems), Ubuntu 12.04 (fixed everything but sound does not work). After deciding to quit, I found your installer and decided to give it a try.
Installation went OK using wired ethernet, I used a USB boot disk but the Open Firmware boot command did not work. Instead, I pressed the option key while booting and chose the USB disk to boot from, and this worked OK.
I used the whole disk without any problems, the installation was easy. The results: no problems with the Radeon display and the various systems, but I have no sound and also I have no network manager, I can’t find anything to try to see if I have wireless or not. I have been using Ubuntu and Gnome for many years but Mint and LXDE are not very familiar so I don’t know how to proceed. Any ideas?
Hi Costas!
Welcome on board. I recommend you use the forum for these kind of problems but here we go anyway.
Sound: https://www.u58733p55594.web0093.zxcs-klant.nl/community/user-issues/sound-on-my-ibook-g4-1-0ghz-12inch/#post-16
You should be able to see the network manager in the panel (bottom right). Use a mouse in the beginning, it’s easier. Click on the second icon (this is the usual spot, the first is clipit) and you will see all the available wireless networks.
Can you make a screenshot (scrot) and send it here to see if something is wrong ?
Good luck!
Jeroen
There is no network manager there, no icon at all. I also look for it at the Preferences menu but it is not there. I have Lubuntu on another machine and I can compare the menus and the icons, but on the G4 there is nothing. No icon, no menu item. By the way, thanks again for the time you spend on this project, I really appreciate your work.
Costas,
Please post a screenshot in the forum.
Sorry, tried to register but something is not working properly, I don’t have the time to troubleshoot right now, this is quicker: here is a photo of my screen: https://ibb.co/NFvd0fx
You are not logged into the “Mint-LXDE” session (see installation instructions). You have the option in the login screen to alter the session. What you see now is plain LXDE.
Your desktop should look like the first photo depicted:
https://www.u58733p55594.web0093.zxcs-klant.nl/screenshots/
I don’t have a choice at the login screen, only username and password: https://ibb.co/ByHR567
Click on the first icon in the top and select ‘Mint-LXDE’. Then login.
OK, now I am in Mint-LXDE (the letters and icons at the top are white letters on a light grey background, if you don’t know to look for them, you won’t see them…) but I still do not have a network manager, not as a menu item and not as an icon at the bottom bar. Same as before. The wired ethernet is OK but I can’t see network connections and wifi interface.
What happens if you do the following in a shell:
sudo nm-applet
sudo: nm-applet: command not found
first login as root:
suthen root password
then
nm-appletStill the same. See:
https://ibb.co/4KX3DNy
as root:
apt install network-manager network-manager-gnomeFor this to work you need a working internet connection, so use your cable.
I am going to bed in a couple of minutes…
Everything OK, now I have network manager and wifi!!! Thanks a lot and please note that your automatic setup is missing the network manager. Also, I would suggest that you add the sound setup note in the installation instructions. Thanks again and best regards_C.
Something must have gone wrong during your installation. The network manager is normally installed automatically. I will adapt the installation instructions to also include sound. Thanks for your patience.