Blog 2019/11/22
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Though Debian no longer officially supports 32-bit PowerPC, it is still unofficially supported via ports.debian.org.
Unfortunately, the unofficial install cd doesn't support the yaboot boot loader, which means you can't complete the installation.
However, a working install CD for Debian 8 (Jessie) is still available for PowerPC, so we can first install Debian 8, then upgrade to the unstable powerpc port.
I used the netinst CD. Note that the package mirror selection step will fail (Debian 8 packages have been moved to archive.debian.org, which breaks the installer). When this happens, select "Go Back" and "Proceed without selecting a package mirror" (not sure of the exact wording there). The install will proceed normally, but you will only have access to the packages on the install cd.
After rebooting, edit /etc/apt/sources.list to use ftp.ports.debian.org:
deb http://ftp.ports.debian.org/debian-ports main
Then apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade. You will be prompted about not being able to verify many packages.
We will fix tis momentarily.
When the upgrade has finished, reboot.
My eMac has an nVidia Geforce 2 MX graphics card, and it appears modern kernels cause the framebuffer to stop updating when the nouveaufb driver is used.
However, the terminal is actually still working: it is just that the framebuffer is no longer updating.
Wait a moment to ensure you system has finished booting, then (blindly) log in as root and reboot:
root
<your password>
reboot
When the system reboots, interrupt it at the yaboot prompt and issue a custom boot command:
Linux nomodeset
When the system finished booting, disable the nouveau framebuffer in order to avoid screen lock-up. Edit /etc/yaboot.conf. Insert a new (indented) config to the main image=... stanza: append=nomodeset.
For example, if your yaboot.conf looks like this:
image=/boot/vmlinux
label=Linux
read-only
restricted
Edit it to look like this:
image=/boot/vmlinux
label=Linux
append=nomodeset
read-only
restricted
Run ybin to deploy your config change to the boot partition, then reboot to test.
This happens because debian-ports uses a different keyring. apt-get install debian-ports-archive-keyring should fix this issue.
Sorry, I haven't figured out how to get this working yet :(
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/another-emac-g4-lubuntu-graphic-issue.2127163/?post=26241280#post-26241280