Ubuntu Bionic for PowerPC!

[Hypex]

Hi guys!

So last night I was looking for something else on the net when my results revealed a secret I didn't know about. And it looks like no one else in PPC land possibly knew either.

Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic for PowerPC!

Someone set up a Bionic repo with ppc packages available to install. And where is this secret? It's here!
https://sourceforge.net/projects/powerp ... c-powerpc/

As you can tell I'm excited to test it out. It doesn't look too complicated. Just a new line in your sources list and a dist upgrade.

I've set about to backup my Xenial. Or make another backup since I still have two. But unfortunately, using GParted to copy a partition fails. For some reason it just doesn't work on my system and takes it down. The copy starts okay but then stops and shells stop responding. There's no I/O errors spewing out on any terminal so I don't know why big disk operations never work. I am using the 6.15 RC7 kernel so should probably use a stable release.

I could just upgrade one of my Xenials and save myself the trouble. See how it goes. It will be that or backing up a Xenial to external HDD image and then copy it back to another partition.

[musa]

Hi
Thanks Hypex
Exciting but couldn't upgrade due to incorrect key.
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 2ADEC8BDDF66C3EF
Have a nice day

[xeno74]

Interesting. I am looking forward to your test results.

[musa]

hi
I've come a little further with tryin to upgrade ubuntu 17 to ubuntu 18
I've solved the problem with the key file
ping keyserver.ubuntu.com
Then this will be
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 2ADEC8BDDF66C3EF
This
apt-key adv --keyserver ip address --recv-keys 2ADEC8BDDF66C3EF
Got the key and it install
Modify your /etc/apt/sources.list adding the entry:
deb https://sourceforge.net/projects/powerp ... c-powerpc/ bionic main
I remove the old entry because they gave problems
sudo apt update && apt dist-upgrade
System reads all the new files but fails to download the files
Says not found but they are there and I have no error in the path
must think a little

[Hypex]

Okay finally testing this right now. Had to get inside my case and jiggle my SATA cables and bring power closer to drive. Was able to copy my Xenial to a new Bionic and set new partition up for booting into.

I followed the guide but found it needs some changing to work. So here's what I did. These steps worked for me:

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sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 2ADEC8BDDF66C3EF
sudo apt install apt-transport-https

I already had the last package installed. So I added the deb line to my sources list. Stripped of comments here's my sources.list:

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deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ xenial main multiverse restricted universe
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ xenial-updates main multiverse restricted universe
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ xenial-backports main multiverse restricted universe
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ xenial-security main multiverse restricted universe
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ xenial-proposed main multiverse restricted universe

deb https://sourceforge.net/projects/powerpc-linux-builds/files/ubuntu-bionic-powerpc/ bionic main

Then I did:

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sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade

I also did did an apt upgrade in the middle because it's so common. But it just gave some error so won't work. It didn’t break anything so I continued.

Right now that's worked so far and it is downloading packages. Unfortunately the speed from SF is slow. At least over here. I thought I was shaped back to 256Mb. But a speed test came back full speed.

So now half way there. Think I will go to bed while it gets the other half. Still needs to install it so will check how it went in the morning with my fingers crossed.

Notes:
I am upgrading from a Xenial install. Are you upgrading from Yakkety? While it in theory should work I found your sources need to work. As it downloads extra stuff from base repository.

I had no issues with certificates nor https transfers. In case it's needed I had previously installed ca-certificates 20210119~16.04.1:
https://www.ubuntuupdates.org/package/c ... rtificates

I have (of course) installed this package to fix the broken Xenial package lists. I don't know if Yakkety is broken in the same way. But since I'm running Xenial I need this for downloading most packages:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VxKpC0 ... vwosb/view

[musa]

Hi Hypex
I gave up on ubuntu 17 and copied a copy of ubuntu 16.04 over instead.
This time there were no problems and file transfer from sourceforge also works.
I'll wait for the actual update until tomorrow

[Hypex]

Musa, I actually gave up on it for the time being. Although it seemed to work fine at first I ran into a problem beyond my control. I kept hitting this:

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429  Too Many Requests

It seems that somehow you and I downloading PowerPC software off SourceForge has broken the limits and it refuses to serve files. It's working again now but this is really an incremental update as the speed here is between dialup and slow as well as 429 server errors. It would be good if this work could be hosted on ports.ubuntu.com as a community offering so the speed is decent and server can cope with the sudden popularity of PowerPC.

Right now it's still downloading packages so will report back when it's got them all.

[musa]

Hi
@Hypex
I can't see how to proceed. Downloading via apt doesn't work.
You're absolutely right Hypex. This good initiative should be on a server that works.
Now I'm taking a break after many attempts.
Have a nice day

[Hypex]

Okay I got somewhere. It finally downloaded all packages it needed. Then started the slow process of installing the packages...

I had ran it from a terminal on the desktop. After it had installed a heap of packages the system noticed it had been updating. The Software Updater loaded and said there was some problem and that I could do a partial upgrade. At this point I though it best to reboot. So logged out and restarted.

Upon reloading it looked promising. A pointer appeared. But then it delayed for too long. Went to a terminal. But then it snatched it away again. Back to terminal and type. It snatched it away again! I don't know how they design these things to be so unusable when things don't work. If it has problems loading a desktop why does it go into a loop trying to constantly load a desktop!? Duh!

It was even worse than I thought. There was no internet! I pressed reset combo to get out and then booted into Xenial to fix it. I did a chroot to it and it still had problems. It didn't have host internet from a chroot either. It was going downhill. I realised I hadn't installed any modules. So I coped both 5.10.235 and 6.15-RC1 over. In the meantime I kept doing the apt install dist-upgrade. I also had an inkling the desktop issue was due to lacking 3d hardware support which gnome 3 requires. So also tried an apt install gnome-shell and apt install gnome-flashback. It had cached enough packages so they could be installed. I found the gnome-flashback package can help alleviate desktop issues. It also installed all these other packages in the meantime.

I logged out of the chroot and rebooted into the system again using kernel 6.15-RC1. I had upgraded it with 5.10.235. This time it could boot! Plus the internet was back. It loaded the desktop! I could see the difference. Some things like icons are enlarged which looks strange. But others like user widget are missing from menu bar. I tried to continue the apt install dist-upgrade. It got further but broke on this:

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Unpacking crda (3.18-1build1) over (3.13-1) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/crda_3.18-1build1_powerpc.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/lib/crda/pubkeys/sforshee.key.pub.pem', which is also in package wireless-regdb 2020.11.20-0ubuntu1~16.04.2
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/crda_3.18-1build1_powerpc.deb

Apparently it's an old bug. I don't use a wireless card so could just remove it. But for now here's a screen shot!

[musa]

Hi
@Hypex
wow congratulations. when you write download, is it apt download or is it manual download?