Installation Procedure: Debian 7 (Wheezy) on PowerPC (G5 11,2) with Radeon Graphics

These instructions will guide you through installing a Radeon HD 4000 or 5000 series graphics card and Debian 7 Wheezy on a Power Mac G5 11,2.  Other Radeon cards may work, but I have not tested them.  Installing Debian 7 Wheezy is the easiest installation I currently have documented, and is a relatively recent and supported version of Debian. I will be experimenting with additional, more recent distributions and will post those instructions as I have them available.

Assumptions:

These instructions assume you want to install Debian 7 Wheezy as the primary and only OS on your Power Mac 11,2. Your hard drive will be formatted and you will lose any data stored on it. Backup data you want to keep before proceeding.  

What you will need:

• A Power Mac G5 11,2 system. The 11,2 systems have PowerPC 970MP processors and PCIe. Modern day graphics cards require PCIe, so these instructions will not work with previous Power Mac systems.

• Internet access via Ethernet

• Leave the stock Apple/Nvidia/Open Firmware graphics card in the 16X PCIe slot.

• Insert your Radeon card in the 8X PCIe slot.

• You must have 2 monitors - one monitor plugged into the stock Apple graphics card and another plugged into the Radeon.  It is possible to configure the system to be able to unplug the monitor plugged into the Apple/Nvidia card after installation and configuration, but that is not covered in this post.  

• You will need to download and burn the Debian 7 Wheezy installation image onto a disk. It can be downloaded here: powerpc
  Alternatively, you can download the image via BitTorrent here: powerpc

Additional Considerations:

For a much faster system, I highly recommend installing the OS onto an SSD. I use, and highly recommend the OWC Mercury Electra. Install the SSD in drive bay A, and put the HDD in drive bay B. 

Commands that you will enter are depicted in this font.  Type the command exactly as directed.  

Instructions:

1. Insert the Debian 7 Wheezy installation disk in the optical drive. Boot up (or restart) the system. When you hear the startup chime, press and hold the C key.
2. Installation will take place on the monitor connected to the stock Apple graphics card. The system should load to an installation boot screen. Type install64 desktop=KDE and press enter.
3. Proceed through the installation until you are asked about hard drive partitioning. If using an SSD, I suggest using the entirety of that drive for the OS (/ mount point); and placing your home and swap partitions on an HDD.
4. Continue through the installation until the CD ejects and you are advised to reboot the system. Reboot the system as directed.  
5. Still using the monitor connected to the stock Apple card, the system may boot into a GUI login screen or desktop, or may boot to a text console. If your system boots to the GUI, press CTRL + ALT + F2 (command + option + F2) to log into the text console.
6. Login to the text console using the username and password you set up during installation.
7. Type su and press enter. Then, enter the superuser password you set up during installation.
8. After logging in as superuser, type nano /etc/modules and press enter.
9. This will open a configuration file which tells the OS which modules to load during startup.  We will be editing this file to load the correct modules for sound on our 11,2 systems, as well as the radeon module.  You should see a line that says 'snd-powermac'. Delete this line and replace with the following:

snd_aoa

snd_aoa_i2sbus

snd_aoa_fabric_layout

snd_aoa_codec_tas

radeon

10. Always make sure there is an blank line at the end of any configuration files you edit or create. Press CTRL + X then press Y to save changes.
11. You will exit to the console; type nano /etc/modprobe.d/fbdev-blacklist.conf and press enter.
12. This will open a configuration file. We need to tell the system not to load the drivers for the Apple/Nvidia card to prevent conflicts with the Radeon card we want to use.  So, at the end of the document, type blacklist nouveau
13. Ensure there is a blank line at the end, then press CTRL + X and press Y to save.
14. You will exit to the console; type nano /etc/modprobe.d/radeon-kms.conf and press enter.
15. This will open or create a configuration file. This configuration file tells Debian we want to enable a feature called KMS.  Type options radeon modeset=1
16. Press CTRL + X and press Y to save.
17. You will exit to the console, type nano /etc/apt/sources.list
18. This will open a configuration file. This configuration file tells Debian what repositories to use.  Make the appropriate additions and changes so that your configuration file reads as follows:

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free

deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free

#wheezy updates

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib non-free

deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib non-free

#debian backports

deb http://http.debian.net/debian wheezy-backports main contrib non-free

#debian proposed

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-proposed-updates main contrib non-free

19. Press CTRL + X, then press Y to save.
20. You will exit to the console; type apt-get update and press enter.  
21. Type apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-radeon and press enter.  This will make sure the radeon driver is the most recent for the version of Debian we are using.  
22. Type apt-get install firmware-linux-nonfree and press enter.  This will download firmware needed to run 3D acceleration with Radeon graphics cards.  
23. Type /etc/init.d/kdm stop and press enter.  
24. Type nano /etc/yaboot.conf
25. This will open the configuration file for yaboot. Add the following line to the end of the configuration file:

append=”video=offb:off radeon.modeset=1”

26. Type CTRL + X then press Y to save
27. You will exit to the console; type ybin -v and press enter. This will update the yaboot boot-loader. You may see an error, this will not cause any issues.
28. Type nano /etc/initramfs—tools/modules and press enter.  
29. This will open a configuration file that tells Linux what modules to load immediately at startup.  At the end of this file, type radeon
30. Make sure there is a blank line at the end of the file, then press CTRL + X and press Y to save.
31. You will exit to the console; type update-initramfs -u and press enter.
32. Type ybin -v and press enter to ensure the boot-loader is configured.
33. Type reboot and press enter. The system will restart, and may show a graphical interface via the Radeon card. However, it will not yet have 3D acceleration, so don’t stop here.
34. If the system boots to the graphical interface, press CTRL + ALT + F2 to go to the text console. This will likely appear on the monitor connected to the stock Apple/Nvidia graphics card.
35. Login to the text console using the username and password you set up during installation.
36. Type su and press enter, then enter the superuser password you set up during installation.
37. In order to have 3D acceleration on the Radeon card, we will create a script that will “hide” the Nvidia card from Linux/Debian. Type nano /etc/init.d/hidenv and press enter.
38. This will create a new text document. Enter the following:

### BEGIN INIT INFO

# Provides: hidenv

# Required-Start:

# Required-Stop:

# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5

# Default-Stop: 0 1 6

# Short-Description: hides nv card

### END INIT INFO

echo 1 > /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0b.0/0000:0a:00.0/remove

39. Press CTRL + X and press Y to save.
40. You will exit to the console; type chmod +x /etc/init.d/hidenv and press enter.  This makes our script into an executable file.  
41. Type update-rc.d hidenv defaults and press enter.  
42. Type reboot and press enter.
43. The system will now boot the graphical interface to the monitor connected to the Radeon card, and the card will provide both 2D and 3D acceleration.  The monitor connected to the Apple/Nvidia card must stay connected for the system to boot up.  There is a way to configure Open Firmware so you do not need a monitor plugged into the Apple/Nvidia card, see this post.