CRUX PPC 3.5 release 122220
This is a release update of crux ppc 3.5 for 32bit Apple PowerPC computers (new world only).
Changes since the previous release includes several updated package versions and misc bug fixes. This is likely the last release of a cruxppc 3.5 iso. Mainline crux has now released 3.6 and there are few (or no) further changes expected to 3.5. Not many further changes are expected to cruxppc 3.5 either. Future crux ppc efforts will be mostly devoted to 3.6. Some fixes/changes may be backported to crux ppc 3.5 but are not expected to be very many. Some of the 3.5 documentation will continue to be improved as time permits.
To use it, download the .iso image and verify that the md5sum matches burn a cd with it and then boot it with the normal 'c' key boot sequence. The handbook contains installation (and other) information. If you are already familiar with installing CRUX linux, it should be pretty straightforward. The notes section of this repository contains supplementary information which may be helpful for installing and using crux ppc but in many cases, the notes are still a WIP.
For space reasons, this install CD does not contain the linux-firmware package. linux-firmware is not usually needed on Apple PowerPC machines so it is removed from the CD to save space and provided as a separate package for use in situations where it is actually required. If your application requires linux-firmware, then after initial installation, copy the linux-firmware package to your machine and install it with pkgadd. linux-firmware has not been updated since the prior release so is not included in this 122220 release. If you need linux-firmware, download it from the 120120 release area.
The .iso file and possibly, but not likely, the linux-firmware file are the only two files that are required for installing CRUX PPC on your system. The other pkg files are provided for those who might want to use them but they are optional. A more "normal" CRUX way would be to compile those additional packages from source rather than installing them as binaries. So, use additional pkg files or not as you like.
For performance reasons, the install ISO provides netsurf and arcticfox instead of firefox as a browser. For those users that would like to use firefox it can be built and installed from source. There is also a binary firefox package in the previous beta/alpha releases. It might work with this release as well. This version of firefox is a somewhat old version. It also is not very fast or responsive and is not recommended.
A gcc6 package is provided or it can be built from source if preferred (a few hours to build it). gcc6 is needed only if the user wishes to rebuild arcticfox from source. It does not need to be installed otherwise.
crux pkg files have a '#' character in between the package name and version information. Apparently github changes that "#" to a "." when they are uploaded. If you download the gcc6 or linux-firmware packages, you will need to rename them to change the first "." back to a "#" for pkgadd to recognize it as a valid crux packge.
Additional binary packages will be added to this release area from time to time (e.g. clang, rust, etal). Note that these additional packages have received even less testing than the packages on the ISO (and maybe even not tested at all). The user should take any needed steps required to ensure that the packages (and every other part of CRUX PPC 3.5) are operating satisfactorily.
12/22: The additional binaries are in progress and should be available here within a week or so.
The additional binaries are split into several pieces. Several are large single pkg.tar.xz files which have no dependencies other than the packages installed by a full install of the install iso. Assuming that you've done a full install from the iso, these individual pkg.tar.xz files can simply be downloaded and installed with pkgadd. The other binaries are collected together into a tar archive and can be used as an overlay on top of the /usr/ports tree. Packages within the binary_pkgs.tar archive may have complicated dependency chains, post-install scripts and such which make them tedious to install with pkgadd. prt-get is convenient for handling the dependency chains and install scripts. To use the binary packages overlay with prt-get do:
cd /usr/ports (populate/update your ports tree first)
tar xvf binary_pkgs.tar (or whatever location it is at..)
touch //*.pkg.tar.xz
You must also have edited your /etc/pkgmk.conf and adjusted the pkg.tar type from gz to xz. And enable the contrib and scripts option in your /etc/prt-get.conf.
Then a package can be installed from the binary pkgs by simply doing 'prt-get depinst pkgname' and prt-get will handle installing all of the various dependencies and post install scripts for you. prt-get will then only recompile any packages that are out of date or otherwise need compilation instead of compiling everything needed to install the package.
So that binary pkgs will work regardless of pre-install scripts, the various opt pre-install scripts were run prior to the creation of the binary packages and the affects (users and groups) of those pre-install scripts are included with the initial install. It makes the passwd file look messy but allows the binary packages with pre-install scripts to work properly.
Additional binaries TBA.