• PowerPCBeigeG3

I did not need to use the quik-first.b-g3 file. Quik on the current DebianInstaller appears to have the patch that that file had or work around the issue in other ways.

Quik Install Glitches

The fact that I had to put a hard disk on the internal SCSI bus seemed to be a big glitch, but it was one of OpenFirmware. I could have gotten a PCI SCSI card that was or could be flashed to be recognized by OpenFirmware. I actually have on in the system, but I chose not to make it Mac specific by flashing it.

I tried using the floppies, not the floppy-2.4 images listed above, but they created a blank boot disk.

I skipped the keyboard step, it didn't list the ?AppleDesktopBus (ADB) keyboard, and my keyboard was working fine.

I realize that I should only need to use either the cd-driver floppy or the net-driver floppy, but I found that I needed to use both. I loaded them in that order since the cd-driver floppy loaded a module that enabled the floppy drive eject and the net-driver floppy enabled hardware detection. I loaded installer components from both places, though perhaps just the net would have worked. I don't know. What worked for me was installing from both and then loading the base system. More on that later.

When the detecting network hardware hook would call, my DEC ?FasterNet card which had been detected and loaded with a tulip driver in the detecting hardware phase for loading the CD-ROM would always be detected a second time as a de4x5 which would fail to load. This seemed harmless. It also always re-detects the floppy.

I guess there isn't enough room on the floppies for a country list, though it seems one could have been pulled from my netinst CD-ROM. I had to use the "enter information manually" option and type in ftp.us.debian.org. (ftp.<country code>.debian.org should work for you.) The default directory, ''debian'' should work.

I liked the Workstation partition scheme from the Guided Partitioning. I ended up using a modified version of that since I had three hard disks in the system by the time I was done testing. If I only had one 8+gb SCSI disk I would have done this scheme as it was set up.

I tried just installing from the CD-ROM by not downloading installer components. When it gets to the kernel selection during "Install the base system" it prompted me with a -powerpc, -power4, -power3 and -apus kernel. I chose the kernel-image-2.6.8-powerpc image but the D-I menu appears before the install is done. If I load installer components from the CD and then download them from the 'net I only get prompted with kernel-image-2.6.8 and the install works great.

Installing Quik on a hard disk worked great and automagically when I used a disk on the internal scsi bus. When I started out using the IDE bus the install quik step seemed to work, but nvsetenv showed that the boot-device was not set. When I tried using a drive on a PCI SCSI card quik installed but I got a red background as it tried to update OpenFirmware. Neither of those cases worked. Just the one where I used the disk on the internal SCSI bus.

I need to fill out an installation report on this. It's unfortunate I didn't have the G3 months ago to try this out.

BootX Install Guide

If you only have the Internal IDE drive to work with, your easiest way may be to try using BootX. I didn't test this but the concept seems simple. If you're starting from scratch you need to use ?DiskTools to wipe the disk and make a small (maybe ["200MB"]) partition for os 8-9.5 to load on. You could use the [http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/Mac_OS_8.1_Update/Disk_Tools_PPC.img.bin ["MacOS"] 8.1 Disk Tools] System folder and maybe throw [ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/macosxserver/utilities/SystemDisk2.3.1.smi.bin System Disk 2.3.1] on as well for an OpenFirmware GUI (though you shouldn't need to mess with OF unless you mess something up, and even then you would probably get things set right faster just by zaping the PRAM (Command-Option-P-R).

base-config Notes

I re-installed a number of times just to test things and try different configuration options. I only went through base-config twice. The first time I allowed the updated Quik package to write to the boot block and stuff (Y to upgrade question) and I didn't check nvsetenv afterwards. Well, on the next boot the kernel started to load and choked. /etc/quick.conf was probably wrong.

When configuring the keyboard at this stage, I told it to not touch the keymap. Seems to work just fine.

Configuring xserver-xfree86 my ATI card is at PCI:0:18:0 even though lspci says 0000:0:12.0. I must just not understand lspci or something. The X logs said where the device should have been, so I adjusted the config accordingly (too bad I even had to specify if the X-Server can figure it out.)

Post install notes

Bonobo isn't running for me so the gnome-panels failed to load and the desktop didn't finish loading. XFCE loads, but I must have chosen the wrong mouse options. I can't seem to get the application menu to pop up.

Resources

I found a couple people on #debianppc to be very helpful. Especially simonrv and Bor_Ed, though others chipped in useful information as well.

You could check out the [http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.powerpc/ Debian 3.1 ["PowerPC"] installation manual] is better than the 3.0 one, but they have a difficult task of covering such a wide array of hardware with one grouping "["PowerPC"]". The 3.0 manual pointed to the [http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/macppc/SystemDisk-tutorial/ ["NetBSD"] ?SystemDisk tutorial]. You shouldn't need to mess with ?SystemDisk for your ?BeigeG3 if you can do the Quik install listed here. Simon Raven has taken content from the ["NetBSD"] site and added comments for a Linux/Debian view on the settings and information [wiki:?["MacPPC"] http://simonraven.nuit.ca/macppc/ at his] site.

Good explination troubleshooting quik and OF settings: http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/pipermail/yellowdog-general/2002-June/002674.html

More OpenFirmware commands including alias and listing: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-macppc/2000/03/08/0000.html

I came across a [http://mfdh.ca/apple/debian_on_oldworld_mac.html nice article] on installing Debian 2.2 "potato" on a Power Macintosh 9600. I would expect that this is much easier now with the new DebianInstaller, but I don't have a 9600 to test with. Perhaps someone will write about it at ["PowerPCMac9600"] or some better WikiName page.