Hello Power People! I have spent several days trying to get the latest Debian Sid installed onto my PowerMac G5 Quad. After watching several videos and reading through a few guides (including the one listed here!) I have found that either the install process for the PCIe-based Quad is broken or something has recently broken in general with the ppc64 installer for G5 hardware.
Running the normal Debian 11 NETINSTALL .iso always fails at partitioning, and so I am mostly using the Debian 10 NETINSTALL .iso provided by a forum post here. I have ran through the expert installer several times, however it always fails trying to install the discover package. If I bypass partitioning issues in Debian 11 I recieve the same issues with discover package, and this fails right after installing the libc-bin package.
Tried the Debian 8.11 DVD .iso but it locks up and is completely unresposive to input at the Select a language screen.
Below is a summary trying to install Debian to my G5, LOG is Alt+f4 while CMD is alt+f2
NOTE: Run through Debian sid installer in Expert mode
GUI: Select and install software [Expert Menu]
GUI: Installed discover (ppc64) [Frozen @ 11%]
LOG: in-target: Setting up discover (2.1.2-8)
LOG: in-target: Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.29-3)
LOG: pkgsel: dpkg-divert: warning: diverting file '/sbin/start-stop-daemon' from an Essential package with rename is dangerous, use --no-rename
NOTE: Reboot into Debian Installer
CMD: sudo debootstrap --arch ppc64 --components=main --resolve-deps --include=debian-ports-archive-keyring,debian-ports-archive-keyring --no-check-gpg sid /target http://deb.debian.org/debian-ports/
CMD: chroot /target
CMD: mount -t sysfs none /sys
CMD: wget https://repo.powerprogress.org/debian/install/grubfix.sh
ERR: /bin/sh: 2: wget: not found
CMD: apt install wget
ERR: apt: package wget not found
CMD: nano /etc/apt/sources.list
TXT: deb [trusted=yes] http://ftp.ports.debian.org/debian-ports/ unstable main
TXT: deb [trusted=yes] http://incoming.ports.debian.org/buildd/ unstable main
TXT: deb [arch=all trusted=yes] http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ unstable contrib non-free
NOTE: If I don't set sources as trusted, will fail with NO_PUBKEY, and gnupg
NOTE: Regardless, running 'apt install wget' fails and then when running an upgrade and trying again
NOTE: Gets stuck in an unfixable dependency loop where libcrypt1 is needed but cant be installed because a package requiring it is broken
NOTE: Partitioning under Debian 11 installer allows me to map bootstrap to /boot/grub, under Debian 10 it doesn't allow me to set a mount point. May be moot note.
Debian 7.11 DVD .iso worked, but is a pretty old release. Upgrading to sid is not recommended nor possible.
Can anyone assist me with the issues above? Or is there any info to manually debootstrap, chroot and build? Or does anyone have a modern FULL iso of 10 or 11 Sid put together? Really anything to help me learn what is happening and get modern Debian on this thing. Thanks!
Hardware Configuration:
2GBx2 DDR2 667MHz
128GB SATA SSD
GeForce 6600GS
Radeon HD5450
PCIe to USB3 Hub
PCIe to nVME 128GB
EDIT: I ran through installer again and noticed when I tried to set up mirror with 'deb.debian.org' and '/debian-ports/' it says it failed, and I click continue. May be part of why discover package fails.
EDIT 2: Tried the NETINST-2 .iso just to try, even through it's installing powerpc (32bit) applications. Hangs at 'Installed discover (powerpc)...