For those of you who are willing to go down the rabbit hole, I hereby present a quick guide to get Debian sid with an LXDE desktop installed reliably on PowerPC based computers.
Quick installation guide
Install an lxde-desktop with the latest sid image:
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2023-06-18/debian-12.0.0-powerpc-NETINST-1.iso
If you boot into a black screen, follow this page.
Then after reboot make sure that you have ntp installed apt install ntp
as you need to have the correct time and date. On my old iBook the battery that keeps the date and time correct is dead, so syncing with a time server is needed. You may need to add:deb [arch=all] http://ftp.debian.org/debian sid main
to the apt sources list with apt edit-sources
then update apt update
apt install ntp
then make sure you have the correct time and date
We also want to fix the Home folder:apt install xdg-user
–dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk
Then it is time to edit the apt sources file again: apt edit-sources
and add the following line: deb http://ftp.ports.debian.org/debian-ports unstable main
apt update
then it will complain about the missing key for debian-ports (outdated needs to be changed, key is old): gpg --recv-keys 81DCBC61
gpg -a --export 81DCBC61 | sudo apt-key add -
uncomment the DVD/CD deb line as well as the sid repository you just added apt edit-sources
and then update apt update
The better way to have the right key is to download debian-ports-archive-keyring and install it withdpkg -i debian-ports-archive-keyring_20xx.xx.xx
use the correct date
If everything went well you are in sid/bullseye! cat /etc/debian_version
Reboot and enjoy your Debian sid LXDE.
Please feel free to give comments and corrections to this guide. I will try to make a wiki post out of it later.
Great guide, just followed your steps above on a powermac g5 and now waiting on the apt dist-upgrade 😉
I did a fresh installation of Debian Jessie and I noticed that there is something wrong with creating the right directories in the Home folder. I can only see Desktop, but normally it contains folders like Downloads, Music, Documents and so on. Strange. This is not ideal as it will also affect the folders you have in sid. If I install sid directly from a sid installer image, I don’t see this problem.
Just do:
sudo apt install xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk
Apparently Jessie does not install these packages by default. These packages take care of the Home folder.
Nice to read that you tried it out. Were you finally able to boot into
Debian sid LXDE ?
helo i just installed debian 10.0 on titi powerbook, instalation went fine i thinks but it boot directly on the terminal , how do i come to desktop? thanks
actualy the sid didnt work with grub at the end, so i installed the 10,0 buster and it went good throu!
Yes, the latest installer tries to install Grub which fails.