MintPPC

I tried an apt upgrade and it tried to upgrade grub-ieee1275 on a G5 iMac (ppc64) which failed.

 Setting up grub-ieee1275 (2.12~rc1-12) …
Installing for powerpc-ieee1275 platform.
grub-install: error: cannot backup `/boot/grub/powerpc-ieee1275/adler32.mod’: Read-only file system.
Failed: grub-install –target=powerpc-ieee1275
WARNING: Bootloader is not properly installed, system may not be bootable
/usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig: 274: cannot create /boot/grub/grub.cfg.new: Read-only file system
dpkg: error processing package grub-ieee1275 (–configure):
 installed grub-ieee1275 package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 2

Also during boot I see an error.
Nov 14 12:34:33 debian systemd[1]: Mounting boot-grub.mount – /boot/grub…
Nov 14 12:34:34 debian systemd[1]: Mounted boot-grub.mount – /boot/grub.
Nov 14 12:34:38 debian systemd[1]: Starting grub-common.service – Record successful boot for GRUB…
Nov 14 12:34:39 debian grub-editenv[503]: grub-editenv: error: cannot open `/boot/grub/grubenv’: Read-only file system.
Nov 14 12:34:39 debian systemd[1]: grub-common.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Nov 14 12:34:39 debian systemd[1]: grub-common.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.

To solve this problem I had to do a filesystem check in the boot partition:

fsck.hfs /dev/sda2

If you are having trouble with a slow internet connection with your wireless airport card, you might want to upgrade firmware-b43-installer or firmware-b43legacy-installer, depending on what you use. It has to be either b43 or b43legacy. I ported an older version (019-3) and renamed it to a version later than 019-8, so it can be automatically installed by people who have 019-8 already running. To get this package:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade firmware-b43-installer

Replace firmware-b43-installer by firmware-b43legacy-installer if you use the latter.

If you have both packages installed remove them both and install only the one you need. See the installation instructions for more information about wireless connections.

You can also look at the airport page.

I forgot to add an important line in the /etc/apt/sources.list in the installation instructions. Add the following line:
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian-ports unreleased main

As with MintPPC64 I have been testing the email clients that are available to us. I am not very impressed by SeaMail and SpiderMail in the sid environment. It often crashes and the programs cannot remember the email password for retrieving new mails. I can only really recommend sylpheed. I will remove SeaMail and SpiderMail from the preseed file so future installations will no longer ship with these email clients.
To install sylpheed in your system do:
sudo apt install sylpheed

For those of you who would like to install MintPPC on top of Debian sid, there are instructions how to do this. I updated the page to make it work better.

I have been extensively playing around with various email clients. I even tried to build thunderbird but it failed. My conclusion is that evolution, which is installed by default in MintPPC64, is not a good alternative as it segfaults. In other words, this program is unusable. I tried claws-mail but I don’t like the way the mails are presented: there is too little space in between the various mails, it looks very clogged. I then turned to sylpheed. It is basically the same as claws-mail but it looks a lot better. The program works well and I can now recommend this program as default email client. It has been built successfully by bulldd for a while now, so I can safely add it to the preseed file for automatic installation. I will therefore replace evolution by sylpheed in MintPPC64.

I am happy to announce that MintPPC64 for G5 can be installed again after a long break. Please read the installation instructions carefully.

The browsers SeaLion and ArcticFox have been upgraded to the latest version thanks to wicknix, rmottola snd xeno74. To obtain these browsers simply apt update & apt upgrade as they were added to the wicknix repo.

Now that the installation of MintPPC for G3 and G4 works, it is time to focus my attention to MintPPC64. I have now successfully set up a cross compilation environment on my Asus laptop. The idea is to compile the missing ppc64 packages on this machine and to then upload them into the MintPPC64 repo. I will then also have to amend the preseed file for this architecture. If all is well, people willing to test it on their G5 may contact me. I don’t have a G5 here just yet.

Yesterday I tried an installation again myself to see whether it is still possible. At the moment it is not working successfully as some packages are in a broken state. To spare you the frustration I tell you here right now, that you better wait installing MintPPC using the net, i.e. with debian installer images.

I have a new idea to know in a better way whether there is a chance of successful installation.
I will try to make a test system on my spare PowerBook G4 with all the packages, required during installation with the preseed file. If that is done I will update and upgrade the packages which are in that system and monitor the status. If there are held back packages, I know that the installation will not work. If the system is clean, the chance is high that it will work. I am willing to announce a clean status in this blog when it arrives. It will be easier then for you to go for a netinstallation.