So I dug out an old Mac mini G4 and attempted to install the “powerpc NETINST
20190124-23:05” CD on it.
I accepted all the defaults (no “expert” mode) until it came up with the error
“No installable kernel was found in the defined APT sources”.
This occurred before it went looking for a network repo, so it must be talking
about the CD image not having an installable kernel.
I decided to “continue without installing a kernel” in hopes that I could get
one from the network repo later on.
When it came time to choose a network repo, I had no success trying to tell it
that
mirror protocol: http
mirror : ftp.ports.debian.org
directory : /debian-ports/
so I resorted to going to the <f2> console and doing “chroot /target” where I
was able to use nano to directly edit the sources.list file.
What I wound up with was this:
# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 10.0 _Sid_ - Unofficial powerpc NETINST
20190124-23:05]/ sid main
#
# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 10.0 _Sid_ - Unofficial powerpc NETINST
20190124-23:05]/ sid main
#
# Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
# deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security sid/updates main
# Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
# deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security sid/updates main
#
# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 10.0 _Sid_ - Unofficial powerpc NETINST
20190124-23:05]/ sid main
#
deb [trusted=yes] http://ftp.ports.debian.org/debian-ports sid main
deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 10.0 _Sid_ - Unofficial powerpc NETINST
20190124-23:05]/ sid main
Which allowed me to do:
apt intall linux-image-powerpc
and return to the installer where I continued to install a very basic system.
That ended with “Installin GRUB bootloader” failing when it tried to execute
“grub-install dummy”.
As this is a fatal error, I decided to go eat dinner.
Any suggestions?
Thanks for all your efforts!
Rick
