Ubuntu 8.10 on an iMac G5 PPC? You betcha!

[inigomontoya]

I just wanted to share with you all my success with getting a nice usable install of ubuntu 8.10 on a iMac G5. I think this section needs a bit more positivity.

Interesting story, bear with me. I acquired this machine at work. Do I work in an office or computer store? No, far from it. I am a simple garbage man (sanitation engineer sounds better). One of my customers had this stuffed in their garbage can. I've obtained many usable machines amid piles of trash bags in my day but I've never come across an Apple machine as new as this. Upon getting it home and scrounging for a power cable I plugged it in and it fired right up. The screen turned on and then displayed a ? and halted. Upon a little research I found out that this meant the OSX install was damaged or missing. Turns out all that was wrong with this machine was a dead hard drive. I just so happened to have a spare SATA drive I found (at work) and installed it. I decided to try OSX Leopard. Needless to say I found it a bit lacking. Why else would I be posting this?

I have a few years experience with linux. So, I set out to get a good os on this thing. The hurdle of the PPC architecture severely limited my options. I tried Fedora, SuSE, Yellow Dog, an older version of Ubuntu, but none of them had everything working correctly. Wireless didn't work, graphical problems, bootup failures, kernel panics. After reading the FAQs in this forum I got 8.10 installed just fine. At first boot I noticed some peculiarity in the rendering of the desktop, but it was quickly fixed by compiling the latest xf86-video-ati driver from git. Wireless was spotty but that was remedied by compiling the 2.6.28 kernel. Now everything works desktop effects included, well except the 24-bit color problems some seem to be having.

I then did some modifying. Installed wicd (much better than Network Manager IMHO), hyroxygen icons, and the dust theme. Thanks to this forum and Linux for the wealth of information and shared experiences. I now have a fast, free (in more ways than one), usable desktop which is also pretty to look at.

Here is the result:

[Houli]

Haha that's great mate. It's good that you've had a great experience with Ubuntu on a Mac. I however hadn't. Still can't get the bluetooth keyboard by Apple to work. Hopefully the kernel updates to support it.

-Houli

[stream303]

That's great!

I have the earlier version (no als, no isight) with an nvidia card, and it appears you have the more recent ati-driven rev-b or rev-c. Do you know which one you have?

Or more specifically, does yours have the built-in web-cam?

Also be sure to check the health of your motherboard capacitors - see if any of those little cylindrical parts have bulging tops or any signs of leakage just to be safe.

[inigomontoya]

That's great!

I have the earlier version (no als, no isight) with an nvidia card, and it appears you have the more recent ati-driven rev-b or rev-c. Do you know which one you have?

Or more specifically, does yours have the built-in web-cam?

Also be sure to check the health of your motherboard capacitors - see if any of those little cylindrical parts have bulging tops or any signs of leakage just to be safe.

This appears to be a revision B so no webcam. I too read about the bad capacitors issue and it appears my board does not have them. They appear to be of a newer type. I was sure to check all of them last time I had it open.

[stream303]

Ok, great - it will be interesting to see if the ALS (automatic light-sensor) works to automatically change the screen brightness, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesnt work.

However, at least on mine, the backlight for the lcd *will* turn off if you change that preference in the powersave menu.

Couple of tips - the font dpi calculates out to be about 99 as a starting point before adjusting any font sizes, rather than the default of 96. I use this calculation:

echo 'scale=2;sqrt(1680^2+1050^2)/20' | bc

And, doublecheck to see if your cpu is throttling speed if you don't want it running full-speed all the time. (just pop a cpu-freq monitor in the top panel if you are on gnome).

If it isn't scaling, you can fix the powernowd script, or alternatively install cpudyn for less latency during the switch. (It isn't in the index, but is about half-way through this faq: )

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCKnownIssues

The iMacs make for sweet machines - I'm surprised that with the ati card, you didn't have to manually edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

Good times ahead!

[inigomontoya]

Ok, great - it will be interesting to see if the ALS (automatic light-sensor) works to automatically change the screen brightness, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesnt work.

However, at least on mine, the backlight for the lcd *will* turn off if you change that preference in the powersave menu.

Couple of tips - the font dpi calculates out to be about 99 as a starting point before adjusting any font sizes, rather than the default of 96. I use this calculation:

echo 'scale=2;sqrt(1680^2+1050^2)/20' | bc

And, doublecheck to see if your cpu is throttling speed if you don't want it running full-speed all the time. (just pop a cpu-freq monitor in the top panel if you are on gnome).

If it isn't scaling, you can fix the powernowd script, or alternatively install cpudyn for less latency during the switch. (It isn't in the index, but is about half-way through this faq: )

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCKnownIssues

The iMacs make for sweet machines - I'm surprised that with the ati card, you didn't have to manually edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

Good times ahead!

Oh yes, the ALS sensor. I don't think it works, by shining light on it or covering it with my finger i see no change in LCD brightness. Scaling is not an issue for me as I'd rather have as much performance as possible with 0 latency between switches. I might just see if i can get it working for something to do

Oh and thanks for the font DPI tip. I thought something looked a bit off on the font size.

I was surprised as well that I didn't have to edit the xorg.conf. I did end up editing it to set some performance related options for xf86-video-ati. That driver has improved by leaps and bounds over the last 6 months.

The only thing that is really bothering me is that the LCD displays 16bit colors when set to 24bit. I know it has something to do with this screen only having 6 bits per pixel. The frustrating thing is that the "Dac6Bit" option in xorg.conf does nothing. I've played around with the source of xf86-video-ati and looked for a possible bug, but i'm afraid i'm not familiar enough with C.

[McFrostey]

well all I have to say is OMFG LUCKY lol I would soo kill for a iMac G5 even though the G4 is still awesome gratz... "i wish i was a garbage man"

[g0bez]

Would you be so kind as to post your install process? I'm trying to accomplish exactly the same thing that you are, on the same hardware.

Which iso did you use?
Any particular settings?

I like your theme/icons/etc... very nice setup!

[g0bez]

Would you be so kind as to post your install process? I'm trying to accomplish exactly the same thing that you are, on the same hardware.

Which iso did you use?
Any particular settings?

I like your theme/icons/etc... very nice setup!

Actually... scratch that. I think the repository was down last night when i was trying to install and tonight it is working just fine. I've used ubuntu alot on non-PPC architecture... so I thought I knew what I was doing, but was going crazy when I couldn't get it to update!

Currently i installed via the server iso (i want several server features)... and used apt-get install ubuntu-desktop -y ... 10 more minutes and I will hopefully be set!

Then it is time for the hardware config... should be interesting.

[inigomontoya]

Actually... scratch that. I think the repository was down last night when i was trying to install and tonight it is working just fine. I've used ubuntu alot on non-PPC architecture... so I thought I knew what I was doing, but was going crazy when I couldn't get it to update!

Currently i installed via the server iso (i want several server features)... and used apt-get install ubuntu-desktop -y ... 10 more minutes and I will hopefully be set!

Then it is time for the hardware config... should be interesting.

Be sure to let me know if any problems arise. If you have them then I'm sure I had them at some point.