This is the FAQ for the PowerPC port.
What kernel to use ?
Benjamin Herrenschmidt maintained a PPC-specific branch for a long time. More information can be found on ppckernel.org.
Use of 2.6 is recommended for new hardware, as support for PPC hardware has been discontinued in 2.4 series. Using 2.4 kernel is _strongly discouraged_
yaboot isn't booting my initramfs on XFS partition
This is a known bug of yaboot 336993 which prevents an initramfs on /boot on XFS filesystem to properly boot with this error:
"VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)"
The cd booting shows me a blue/red screen
This is an issue linked to the default boot resolution. To solve it, press 'alt' 'cmd' 'P' 'R' keys while booting. After a grey screen it will reboots by itself. During this new boot, press the 'C' or 'alt' key. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
wireless is not working
Apple G4 iBooks and ?PowerBooks come with Broadcom chips. You will need to determine the model before you install the proper driver. Run the command lscpi |grep Wireless to find out.
You will also need the contrib and non-free repositories in your sources.list file. If you have the BCM4318 chip, for example, you would install the following package,
apt-get install firmware-b43-installer
For more help, see bcm43xx
How to get Graphics working: ATI/Radeon
Since Jessie KMS is on by default, now these parameters are needed at boot to get accelerated graphics working,
Linux radeon.modeset=1 video=offb:off video=radeonfb:off radeon.agpmode=-1
Once you login add these to the yaboot.conf file and update using the command ybin -v as root. See example
image=/boot/vmlinux label=Linux
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="quiet splash radeon.modeset=1 video=radeonfb:off video=offb:off video=1024x768-32 radeon.agpmode=-1"
Radeon 9000 graphics cards, however, freezes with accelerated graphics enabled. This requires turning off acceleration when KMS is enabled. This is done by enable this option in xorg.conf
Option "?NoAccel" "True"
For more help on Radeon graphics see Dan DeVoto's blog
