Hi
I am the proud owner of this ancient machine on which I am attempting to
install Debian. This machine is equipped with a Gotek floppy emulator
and a ZuluSCSI emulator (for HDD and CD-ROM) for convenience reasons.
For reference, this is a 32bit PowerPC machine following the PReP[1]
specification.
[2] says:
> Debian on 32-bit PowerPC (powerpc)
> It first became an official "release architecture" with Debian
> GNU/Linux 2.2 ("potato") and had retained that status until the
> publication of Debian 9 ("stretch"). The last supported release for
> 32-bit PowerPC is Debian 8 ("jessie"). See the release note and
> installation manual for further information.
Therefore I am focusing on Jessie.
[3] is rather sparse on details regarding installation media options.
> In some cases, you'll have to do your first boot from floppy disks.
> Generally, all you will need is a high-density (1440 kilobytes) 3.5
> inch floppy drive.
Does this apply to my machine? I don't know. Where would I find the
respective floppy image? [4] doesn't have a 'floppy' folder or something
similar.
> CD-ROM based installation is supported for most architectures.
Again, I don't know if CD-ROM based installation is expected work on
PReP. [5] doesn't contain any ISO images. I've tried [6] though that
doesn't boot.
> Booting the installation system directly from a hard disk is another
> option for many architectures. This will require some other operating
> system to load the installer onto the hard disk. This method is only
> recommended for special cases when no other installation method is
> available.
I've tried the image contained in the .gz at [7], though that doesn't
boot either. There are several other files at the parent directory of
[7]. I am not sure what to do with them though.
Then there is [8]. Way older Debian release, but worth a try. The link
to floppy images doesn't work anymore, but IA has a copy, see [9].
The image debian-7248-boot.img isn't recognized by the FlashFloppy
firmware as being a valid floppy image, hence it doesn't boot. It's
unclear to me what the problem with the image is, `file` recognizes it
just fine.
> $ file debian-7248-boot.img
> debian-7248-boot.img: DOS/MBR boot sector; partition 1 : ID=0x41,
> active, start-CHS (0x0,0,2), end-CHS (0x4f,1,18), startsector 0, 2879
> sectors
Now I don't know what else to try anymore. If anybody is reading this
who has worked on a 43p before, I'd appreciate any pointers.
-Alex
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_Reference_Platform
[2] https://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/
[3] https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/powerpc/ch02s04.html.en
[4]
https://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie/main/installer-powerpc/current/images/powerpc/
[5]
https://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie/main/installer-powerpc/current/images/powerpc/cdrom/
[6]
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/archive/8.11.0/powerpc/iso-cd/debian-8.11.0-powerpc-netinst.iso
[7]
https://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie/main/installer-powerpc/current/images/powerpc/hd-media/boot.img.gz
[8] https://tldp.org/HOWTO/IBM7248-HOWTO/x390.htm
[9]
https://web.archive.org/web/20061111195147/http://users.linpro.no/ingvar/43p/images/Debian/
