Debian 9 PPC CD won't boot

[jcanuck]

I am trying to install Debian 9 on a G5 imac (2ghz processor, 2gb ram, 20inch screen). I downloaded both the live CD and the netinstall CD, neither boots. However, a lubuntu 14.04 ppc CD will boot. I noticed that the lubuntu CD has yaboot on it and the debian CD doesn't. Is yaboot necessary?

[jcanuck]

At this point I've burned the images onto several DVDs and CDs at different speeds and with the iMacs own burning software. They DO NOT boot - even from openfirmware. Does anyone know if these images are even bootable? Do I need to go back to an earlier version?

[jibberjabber]

According to this, ; https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... hitectures
There is no Debian 9 PPC release.
So where did you get these images ? What images exactly ?
I recently tested the Debian 9 netinstall image, and it certainly was bootable, on my hardware. But I don't think it would be on a PPC, Imack, or whatever, it is not intended for those.
I also looked, and did not find any in the Debian mirrors,...
And this:

From:https://www.powerpc-notebook.org/2016/1 ... d-powerpc/ Posted on November 17, 2016 by Guillermo Amat

As you probably know, the PowerPC Notebook team had already selected Debian 9 (Stretch) OS, as it seemed to offer a lot of advantages (DFSG, Altivec, compatibility etc…). Because of this, the Debian team has recently decided to remove powerpc (Big Endian) from its release architectures for the upcoming Debian 9 (Stretch) and Debian testing (Stretch) powerpc repositories have been removed. Besides that, they will keep ppc64el (Little Endian) as a release architecture (For those of you who don’t know the difference between powerpc, ppc64el (and ppc64) – check the short summary on the end of this message).

Kind of "Old News",...

by jcanuck » Do I need to go back to an earlier version?

There are older versions available, I don't know how much support will be available though.
http://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimag ... pc/iso-cd/

You could do some more research and searches, or use your Ubuntu one, or get a PC , that is supported by Debian, ...

[jcanuck]

Hi, thanks for replying. The Debian 9 ppc iso can be found here:

https://www.debian.org/CD/http-ftp/

I've also just now installed ubuntu mate 16.04 on the iMac. The iso is named "debian-9.4.0-ppc64el-xfce-CD-1.iso" (also got the netinstall). So yes, you can still get a ppc iso. The whole reason for doing this is just for fun. I enjoy the challenge. At any rate, I believe the reason the Debian iso won't boot and the ubuntu ones will is because the Debian ones lack yaboot. On the ubuntu CD there is a folder called install and in that folder are some files related to yaboot (including a yaboot.conf which points to vmlinuz etc.). On the Debian CD there is also a folder called install but it is empty. My next plan is to add the install folder from the ubuntu CD to the Debian CD and make the appropriate edits to yaboot.conf. If I'm successful, I'll add an update to this post and recommend the ppc iso be changed.

[jcanuck]

I have confirmed that the Debian 8 iso contains yaboot, so I'll try making that work with 9.