Installing Debian 3.0 onto an Apple iBook

These instructions should apply to any model of iBook, but they have only been tested on an iBook Dual USB.

I have a report from a PowerBook G4 (a.k.a. "Titanium PowerBook", a.k.a. "TiBook") owner that these instructions should also work for 550MHz and 667MHz models of that computer.

Update: The new-powermac flavor of the boot-floppies (Debian installer) has been released. This version comes with a 2.4 kernel which should support newer hardware like the iBook Dual USB much better.

Gather information.

Before starting a Debian install, you need to make some decisions and have some information at your disposal.

Determine how big your iBook's hard drive is (this can be confirmed later, but it's good to have it in mind).
Decide which operating systems you're going to want installed when you're done. Debian only? Debian and MacOS X? Debian, MacOS X, and MacOS 9? How about some extra room for a NetBSD partition or the experimental port of the Hurd to PowerPC? Make these decisions now.
Make sure your Ethernet port (the real, physical one, not the Airport card) is configured to talk to the Internet. You'll need to know either the IP of a friendly DHCP server, or know your IP address, subnet mask, gateway (a.k.a. router), and the IP's of one or more domain name servers. All this should be pretty old hat to most folks installing Debian. If you've already configured the Ethernet port under MacOS 9, you can find its configuration in the TCP/IP control panel, and if you've configured it under MacOS X, you can find this information in the Network panel of the System Preferences tool.

Prepare the hard drive for Debian under MacOS.

Okay, you're set to begin. How exactly you should handle partitioning depends on how the drive should end up looking; e.g., what operating systems are you going to have installed? A summary of procedures for a number of configurations follows, followed by some more detailed information.

Debian only (congratulations!)

Launch the Web Browser That Shall Not Be Named from within whichever version of MacOS is already installed and running on the machine, go to the following URL:
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/
and retrieve the following files:
- linux
- yaboot
- yaboot.conf
- images-1.44/root.bin
That's right, less than 3.5 MB of stuff.
Put those four files into the "root" of your MacOS 9 / MacOS X drive. "linux", "yaboot", "yaboot.conf", and "root.bin" should be right alongside the Desktop folder (only visible in MacOS X) in the root of the drive. (Note: this will not have the desired effect on UFS MacOS X partitions, but Apple does not ship MacOS X in that configuration.)
Go to the next section.

Debian + MacOS 9

Put the MacOS 9 Install CD-ROM into your drive and boot from it.
Launch the "Drive Setup" program.
Use Drive Setup to create a partition at the beginning of the disk. This partition needs to be big enough to house all of your planned Debian partitions (including swap), plus an additional 800kB bootstrap partition -- created later -- for use by the yaboot bootloader. Make this area a single partition of type "MacOS Extended". Do not attempt to use the "Linux" filesystem types provided by Apple in the Drive Setup tool. I suggest naming this partition "Debian" to prevent later confusion.
Create a second partition of type "MacOS Extended" after the Debian partition. I suggest naming this partition "MacOS 9" to prevent later confusion.
Initialize the disk. You remembered to back up any important data you had on the drive, right?
Install MacOS 9 to the partition at the end of the disk.
Reboot and set up MacOS 9 (be sure you do the network configuration part correctly). Note that you'll have two hard drive icons on the desktop, "Debian" and "MacOS 9" (or whatever you named them). Clearly you're not running Debian yet, so MacOS must be running out of "MacOS 9" if you followed the instructions.
Launch the Web Browser That Shall Not Be Named, go to the following URL:
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/
and retrieve the following files:
- linux
- yaboot
- yaboot.conf
- images-1.44/root.bin
That's right, less than 3.5 MB of stuff.
Put those four files into the "root" of the volume called "Debian". "linux", "yaboot", "yaboot.conf" and "root.bin" should all be present in the root directory of that volume.
Go to the next section.

Debian + MacOS X

Put the MacOS X Install CD-ROM into your drive and boot from it.
Select the "Disk Utility..." option from the "Installer" menu.
Use Disk Utility to create a partition at the beginning of the disk. This partition needs to be big enough to house all of your planned Debian partitions (including swap), plus an additional 800kB bootstrap partition -- created later -- for use by the yaboot bootloader. Make this area a single partition of type "MacOS Extended". Do not attempt to use the "Linux" filesystem types provided by Apple in the Disk Utility tool. I suggest naming this partition "Debian" to prevent later confusion.
Create a second partition after the Debian partition; this will house MacOS X. This can be of type "MacOS Extended" (HFS+) or "Unix File System" (UFS). As of this writing, Linux has read-only support for UFS, but neither read-only nor read/write support for HFS+, so you may want to let this factor inform your decision for the partition type. I suggest naming this partition "MacOS X" to prevent later confusion.
Initialize the disk. You remembered to back up any important data you had on the drive, right?
Install MacOS X to the partition at the end of the disk.
Reboot and set up MacOS X (be sure you do the network configuration part correctly). Note that you'll have two hard drive icons on the desktop, "Debian" (or whatever you named it) and "/". Clearly you're not running Debian yet, so MacOS X must be running out of "/" if you followed the instructions.
Launch the Web Browser That Shall Not Be Named, go to the following URL:
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/
and retrieve the following files:
- linux
- yaboot
- yaboot.conf
- images-1.44/root.bin
That's right, less than 3.5 MB of stuff.
Put those four files into the directory of the "Debian" volume. "linux", "yaboot", "yaboot.conf", and "root.bin" should all be present in the root directory of that volume.
Go to the next section.

Debian + MacOS 9 + MacOS X

Put the MacOS X Install CD-ROM into your drive and boot from it.
Select the "Disk Utility..." option from the "Installer" menu.
Use Disk Utility to create a partition at the beginning of the disk. This partition needs to be big enough to house all of your planned Debian partitions (including swap), plus an additional 800kB bootstrap partition -- created later -- for use by the yaboot bootloader. Make this area a single partition of type "MacOS Extended". Do not attempt to use the "Linux" filesystem types provided by Apple in the Disk Utility tool. I suggest naming this partition "Debian" to prevent later confusion.
(This step is interchangeable with the next one; you may do them in either order.) Create another partition to house MacOS X. This can be of type "MacOS Extended" (HFS+) or "Unix File System" (UFS). As of this writing, Linux has read-only support for UFS, but neither read-only nor read/write support for HFS+. On the other hand, MacOS 9 will only be able to share files with an HFS+-based MacOS X partition, so you may want to let these factors inform your decision for the partition type. I suggest naming this partition "MacOS X" to prevent later confusion.
(This step is interchangeable with the previous one; you may do them in either order.) Create another partition, this one of the type "MacOS Extended", to house MacOS 9. I suggest naming this partition "MacOS 9" to prevent later confusion.
Initialize the disk. You remembered to back up any important data you had on the drive, right?
Install MacOS X to the partition you set aside for it.
Reboot and set up MacOS X (be sure you do the network configuration part correctly). Note that you'll have two hard drive icons on the desktop, "Debian" (or whatever you named it) and "/". Clearly you're not running Debian yet, so MacOS X must be running out of "/" if you followed the instructions.
Put the MacOS 9 Install CD-ROM into your drive and boot from it.
Select the parition you reserved for MacOS 9, and install MacOS 9 to it.
Reboot and set up MacOS 9 (be sure you do the network configuration part correctly). Note that you'll have two hard drive icons on the desktop, "Debian" and "MacOS 9" (or whatever you named them). Clearly you're not running Debian yet, so MacOS must be running out of "MacOS 9" if you followed the instructions.
Launch the Web Browser That Shall Not Be Named, go to the following URL:
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/
and retrieve the following files:
- linux
- yaboot
- yaboot.conf
- images-1.44/root.bin
That's right, less than 3.5 MB of stuff.
Put those four files into the "root" of the volume called "Debian". "linux", "yaboot", "yaboot.conf", and "root.bin" should all be present in the root directory of that volume.
Go to the next section.

Run the Debian installer.

Now that the four files needed to start the Debian install process are in place, you're ready to proceed.

Restart the computer and hold down the four keys command + option + O + F. This puts you into OpenFirmware, which is a kind of boot monitor. At the OpenFirmware prompt, type the following:
boot hd:9,yaboot

The actual digit in the above command may vary depending on how many drivers Apple has placed on your hard drive; unfortunately, I know of no way to autodetect the correct number. What I have listed worked for my MacOS 9.2-based iBook.

You will next be greeted with the prompt of the yaboot boot loader. Type the following at its prompt:
install

The Linux kernel will boot and launch you into the Debian installer.

The Debian Installer is extensively documented elsewhere, so I'll just make a few miscellaneous remarks here.

The keyboard type to select is qwerty/mac-usb-us Unfortunately, this key mapping has the property of making the Command key the "alt" key, even though the Option key is the one engraved with the word "alt". So keep that in mind; in the Linux console environment, where you see references to the ALT key, use the Comamnd key instead. Furthermore -- and this is not Linux's fault -- iBooks require that you hold down the Fn key to get the function keys to scan as function keys. The order in which you press them is important, too! So, to switch consoles, learn this order: Command + Fn + F1 (where F1 might be F2, F3, etc.). When you see <ALT+F4> in the installer, think Command + Fn + F4. I have campaigned with the Debian PowerPC porting team to at least take care of the Alt/Command part of this problem, but so far to no success. I'll note cynically that the X server does it right. Alt is Alt.

Using mac-fdisk, which is the non-graphical partitioning tool into which the Debian installer throws you on PowerMac-based installs, is a cruel introduction to Debian. Here's a few tips:

You can always use the "p" command to print the partition table as currently configured by you.
Unless the drive has already has MacOS cleaned off of it, you will see quite a few partitions, many more than you might expect. On my iBook, there were fully eight partitions at the front of the disk, including a partition map, six driver partitions, and a patch partition. These are all used exclusively by MacOS and you don't need them if you will not be booting MacOS again.
If you have MacOS X installed to a UFS parition, you will actually see three partitions for it; a "Booter", a "SecondaryLoader", and finally the "Apple_UFS" partition which contains MacOS X itself.
People who will have Debian, and not any version of MacOS installed, should use the "i" command before doing anything else. This will wipe the partition table and initialize it with something sane for Debian.
Next, use the "b" command to create an Apple_Bootstrap partition. This is where yaboot will live, and the existence of this partition means that you don't have to boot into OpenFirmware manually to start Linux.
Anytime you are asked for a "block" count, you can use the number of a partition followed immediately by "p" to say "just use the beginning of this partition" (sometimes it means the end, but only where this makes sense).

Example: Here's the procedure I went through to partition my iBook's disk in the Debian installer. The dummy MacOS Extended partition I had set aside for Debian appeared as /dev/hda9.

d (delete partition; I am next prompted for the partition number to delete)
9 (my answer, "partition 9"; this now leaves empty space where I can create the partitions I need)
b (create an Apple_Bootstrap partition; I am next prompted for what "block" at which it should start)
9p (my answer, "whatever block partition 9 starts at" -- that's the beginning of the space I just freed)
p (take a look and confirm the existence of the new Apple_Bootstrap partition)
c (create partition; I am next prompted for what block the new partition should start at)
10p (my answer, "whatever block partition 10 starts at" -- unlike MS-DOS partition tables, free space gets numbers you can use for reference, so this is the partition right after the Apple_Bootstrap one I just created; I'm next asked how big it should be)
1200M (I am creating a 1200 megabyte swap partition -- yes, I know that is large)
swap (I give it the name "swap"; this is important, and I should not call it anything else)
c (create partition; I am next prompted for what block the new partition should start at)
11p (my answer, "whatever block partition 11 starts at" -- that starts right after the end of the swap partition I just created; I'm next asked how big it should be)
11p (a size of zero wouldn't make sense, so it knows that this means "wherever this free space partition ends")
root (I give it the name "root"; this is important, and I should not call it anything else)
p (I take another look around)
w (I write the partition table to disk)
q (I quit fdisk)

Run through the rest of the Debian installer, using "http" access methods. You won't need to configure any kernel modules.

Once Debian is installed, you can enable multi-booting with yaboot (if needed), by editing /etc/yaboot.conf and running ybin to commit your changes. For instance, I added the following lines right after the magicboot line in my yaboot config file:
macos=/dev/hda12 macosx=/dev/hda13
Note that the macosx line points to the MacOS X "Booter" partition, not the UFS filesystem partition. This is important, because OpenFirmware doesn't know how to read UFS partitions.

You can also add
enablecdboot
to your /etc/yaboot.conf file to add a CD-ROM boot option to the yaboot menu.

This document will be expanded to address various issues of hardware support on the iBook.

The first thing I can say about hardware support on iBooks and PowerBook G4s is that apparently anything less than a bleeding-edge kernel from Benjamin Herrenschmidt won't cut it if you want novelties like power management support. More info to come.

Notes

To boot from a CD-ROM on a Macintosh: restart the system (by whatever means) and hold down the "C" key when you hear the startup bong. Keep it down until you have visual or aural (i.e., you can hear the CD drive head seeking) confirmation that the system is in fact booting from the CD-ROM.

Yaboot doesn't actually need 800kB; the bootstrap partition is made this large because HFS partitions cannot be made any smaller, and OpenFirmware only knows how to read a few filesystem types.

MacOS 9's Drive Setup program apparently does not know how to create UFS partitions that the MacOS X installer recognizes.

How to translate from Apple's partition type names to the names the rest of the world uses:

MacOS Standard	HFS
MacOS Extended	HFS+
Unix File System	UFS

Branden Robinson; last modified 17 Apr 2002

Thanks to Colin Walters for contributing updates.