Debian does not impose hardware requirements beyond the requirements of the Linux kernel and the GNU tool-sets. Therefore, any architecture or platform to which the Linux kernel, libc, gcc, etc. have been ported, and for which a Debian port exists, can run Debian. Please refer to the Ports pages at https://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/ for more details on PowerPC architecture systems which have been tested with Debian GNU/Linux.
Rather than attempting to describe all the different hardware configurations which are supported for PowerPC, this section contains general information and pointers to where additional information can be found.
Debian GNU/Linux 13 supports 9 major architectures and several variations of each architecture known as «flavors».
Arkitektur | Debian Designation | Subarchitecture | Flavor |
---|---|---|---|
AMD64 & Intel 64 | amd64 | ||
Intel x86-based | i386 | default x86 machines | default |
Xen PV domains only | xen | ||
ARM | armel | Marvell Kirkwood and Orion | marvell |
ARM with hardware FPU | armhf | multiplatform | armmp |
64bit ARM | arm64 | ||
64bit MIPS (little-endian) | mips64el | MIPS Malta | 5kc-malta |
Cavium Octeon | octeon | ||
Loongson 3 | loongson-3 | ||
32bit MIPS (little-endian) | mipsel | MIPS Malta | 4kc-malta |
Cavium Octeon | octeon | ||
Loongson 3 | loongson-3 | ||
Power Systems | ppc64el | IBM POWER8 or newer machines | |
64bit IBM S/390 | s390x | IPL from VM-reader and DASD | generic |
This document covers installation for the PowerPC architecture using the Linux kernel. If you are looking for information on any of the other Debian-supported architectures take a look at the Debian-Ports pages.
Multiprocessor support — also called «symmetric multiprocessing» or SMP — is available for this architecture, and is supported by a precompiled Debian kernel image. Depending on your install media, this SMP-capable kernel may or may not be installed by default. This should not prevent installation, since the standard, non-SMP kernel should boot on SMP systems; the kernel will simply use the first CPU.
In order to take advantage of multiple processors, you should check to see if a kernel package that supports SMP is installed, and if not, choose an appropriate kernel package.
You can also build your own customized kernel to support SMP. You can find a discussion of how to do this in Seksjon 8.5, «Compiling a New Kernel». At this time (kernel version 3.16) the way you enable SMP is to select «Symmetric multi-processing support» in the «Processor support» section of the kernel config.
Debian's support for graphical interfaces is determined by the underlying support found in X.Org's X11 system, and the kernel. Basic framebuffer graphics is provided by the kernel, whilst desktop environments use X11. Whether advanced graphics card features such as 3D-hardware acceleration or hardware-accelerated video are available, depends on the actual graphics hardware used in the system and in some cases on the installation of additional «firmware» blobs (see Seksjon 2.2, «Devices Requiring Firmware»).
Details on supported graphics hardware and pointing devices can be found at https://wiki.freedesktop.org/xorg/. Debian 13 ships with X.Org version 7.7.
Almost any network interface card (NIC) supported by the Linux kernel should also be supported by the installation system; drivers should normally be loaded automatically.
Wireless networking is in general supported as well and a growing number of wireless adapters are supported by the official Linux kernel, although many of them do require firmware to be loaded.
If firmware is needed, the installer will prompt you to load firmware. See Seksjon 6.4, «Loading Missing Firmware» for detailed information on how to load firmware during the installation.
Wireless NICs that are not supported by the official Linux kernel can generally be made to work under Debian GNU/Linux, but are not supported during the installation.
If there is a problem with wireless and there is no other NIC you can use during the installation, it is still possible to install Debian GNU/Linux using a DVD image. Select the option to not configure a network and install using only the packages available from the DVD. You can then install the driver and firmware you need after the installation is completed (after the reboot) and configure your network manually.
In some cases the driver you need may not be available as a Debian package. You will then have to look if there is source code available in the internet and compile the driver yourself. How to do this is outside the scope of this manual.