Testers needed for PowerPC 12.04

[abtabt]

Yeah, I was posting my experience in case it would help abtabt, but from his ( I think) recent post he was testing an "iMac 500???" (maybe that's a typo) . . . but I know from the past he has the same basic unit I do, as we've "talked" over the last couple years about what works for it. Abtabt is the one who gave me some hints about going to Xu, but with LXDE as best for the iMac 800, etc . . . so he's probably ahead of the game and actually knows how to do stuff with CLI, etc. But, from what I found in my iMac live test the xforcenv was very good right out of the box, but the fbdev option would probably need some xorg conf tweaking like we did in the past to get it to work.

e.e.p.

i can say that mine works with sus cd spinn down network goes down and the screen goes black and then press
enter ,screen comes back network starts and i am back and this with the nv driver

live nomodeset xforcenv

this is simular like ours I MAC 800 and i have some others mac too IMAC 500 and now a
IMAC 333 and this work with the cd if i use my own xorg.conf but its like 256 MB RAM but too little to use live cd but the
desktop shows up but the swap slowsdown things

http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl.../imac_333.html

have a nice day

btw eeep do you have a cable to use a ext screen VGA

[este.el.paz]

i can say that mine works with sus cd spinn down network goes down and the screen goes black and then press
enter ,screen comes back network starts and i am back and this with the nv driver

live nomodeset xforcenv


btw eeep do you have a cable to use a ext screen VGA

@abtabt:

Interesting that your iMac revives from suspend and my did not . . . maybe you have a bit more RAM?

As far as your question about a cable for ext screen . . . no, I do not. I know that Str8 has mentioned the difficulties of working with the iMac because of the port for ext screen?? can't recall the details, but everybody seems to agree it's not easy to get the iMac working with Linux. But, in terms of my situation I don't think it's the display that is causing my kernel panics--if that is what you are thinking about to help me--the CLI freezes up I think due to the FW ports. With this recent CD the screen did go black after a few minutes, but interestingly, the cursor was still visible and moveable . . . that is different than the "normal" KPs where the mouse freezes and nothing can be done--anywhere, including single user . . . . It's toast until I can find the time to take it apart, have a pro look at it, or get a new one. Is that what you were asking about? Using an ext screen to get around the internal display? Thanks for the thought . . . I'm thinking it won't solve the issue.

e.e.p.

[abtabt]

@abtabt:

Interesting that your iMac revives from suspend and my did not . . . maybe you have a bit more RAM?

As far as your question about a cable for ext screen . . . no, I do not. I know that Str8 has mentioned the difficulties of working with the iMac because of the port for ext screen?? can't recall the details, but everybody seems to agree it's not easy to get the iMac working with Linux. But, in terms of my situation I don't think it's the display that is causing my kernel panics--if that is what you are thinking about to help me--the CLI freezes up I think due to the FW ports. With this recent CD the screen did go black after a few minutes, but interestingly, the cursor was still visible and moveable . . . that is different than the "normal" KPs where the mouse freezes and nothing can be done--anywhere, including single user . . . . It's toast until I can find the time to take it apart, have a pro look at it, or get a new one. Is that what you were asking about? Using an ext screen to get around the internal display? Thanks for the thought . . . I'm thinking it won't solve the issue.

e.e.p.

i have 768 MB
about your kernel panics (i think we talk about that before and my suggestion is still same )
about the cabel only intrested if its work like my imac 500 its use framebuffer at ext screen (works with live cd direct no need to xforcenv , nomodeset etc etc then its easy to edit files to get the internal screen to work and if files need to be edit

have a nice day

[este.el.paz]

i have 768 MB
about your kernel panics (i think we talk about that before and my suggestion is still same )
about the cabel only intrested if its work like my imac 500 its use framebuffer at ext screen (works with live cd direct no need to xforcenv , nomodeset etc etc then its easy to edit files to get the internal screen to work and if files need to be edit

have a nice day

@abtabt:

Ah, 768 MB, that might explain the difference I think my iMac is 512 MB . . . but, right now that revive the iMac project is on the back burner. I'm about ready to pull the trigger on re-sizing my iBook HD to give 10 or 11 GBs for Linux, and giving the rsavage Xubuntu iso a fly. Have there been any changes that would make it better to re-burn the CD to pick them up since the what, the #226 posting? Or, any other recommends on the install, OK to install from the GUI desktop installer? Does "guided" install work out, or is it better to do "expert" and manually set the partitions? I've done enough installs to do it any way that's best, just trying to avoid any known problems . . . . Figuring I'll have to set wireless up afterward?? I have the laptop plugged in right now, probably could check it before doing the install . . . . The Wheezy system is just a bit too . . . uh, flakey . . . and I have to expand the partition to get around the "you have low disk space" error messages.

e.e.p.

[este.el.paz]

Sorry eep, bit of a mis-communication there. On your ibook, the only package that you may need to lock is abiword. The least painful way to do it is through synaptic package manager.

@rsavage:

Urgency level: Very
Defcon Alert level: Red

Latest update: Pulled the trigger and did your Xu 12.04 iso CD install on the iBook today . . . started off with choosing "Other" for method of install, but then didn't have the patience to figure out the math to set the partition start and end points . . . so I went with the low hanging fruit, avenue of least resistance and rolled back to "Install next to OSX" and I let the installer figure it all out. And it did find the 11GB "free space" I had cut out in OSX DU . . . so it all went OK. I'm typing in the xfce session right now.

So, now starting all over again . . . it looks like there is more "stuff" accessible in the "Xfce session" than in the "Xubuntu session"??? But, main reason for posting, I checked "download updates" in the first page of the auto-installer, and I saw updates being downloaded . . . but after the install the Ubuntu software update window shows "44 updates available" . . . so I went to Terminal and ran update/upgrade to see what would be there and right up top in the list were a number of Abiword updates, "abiword-grammer" and then some packages that were "held back" that were also for abiword . . . . So, not sure if it's too late to "lock" Abiword as you suggested before, like, I shouldn't have checked "download updates" booted up and locked abiword and then do any other updates . . . or, should I do this post-install upgrade including the abiword stuff . . . and then lock it?? Also wondering if I want to do the font enhancing thing that JD did over on the mintppc site . . . seems like the fonts in FF are a tad anemic . . . could they be better? But then I think I'd have to add mintppc to my sources list, turning it into a hybrid system, etc. But, main question right now is, should I lock abiword and not do these upgrades, or is that something for many months down the road??

e.e.p.

[superchar42]

13.04 is doing that pseudo 8 bit display deal, and I haven't been able to find a boot parameter to keep it from happening. I'm running a 12.04 session decently,
I'm on an iBook G4

NEVERMIND - I found that live video=radeonfb:1024x768-32@60 (per http://powerpcliberation.blogspot.co...all-guide.html) got it working.

Then I got wireless working on live, by loading the broadcom driver from USB. the b43 cutter is already on there.

To get the wireless working, I just did this:

tar xfvj broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3_mipsel.tar.bz2
sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3/driver/wl_apsta/wl_prebuilt.o

then this

sudo modprobe -r b43 bcma
sudo modprobe -r brcmsmac bcma
sudo modprobe b43

In about 2 minutes I saw all the local wireless networks. WOO! Man, this was the easiest distro ever.

[este.el.paz]

@rsavage:

I was following a thread where Str8bs had posted a link for someone to get to the .iso, and then checking back through this thread I see that the .iso has been "REMOVED"??? from post #226. Has it just been moved over to the regular Xubun 12.04 for PPC files, or is it just been taken down for more mods?

e.e.p.

[Svetlana Tovarisch]

Hi, sorry for sort of hijacking this thread with my lack of experience,

I own a Summer 2000 450mhz Ruby iMac G3 with 1GB RAM, currently triple-booting 9.2.2, 10.4.11 and Debian/MintPPC (which doesn't run very well and I don't bother using much).
So far my PPC Linux experience has been less than satisfying given even the desktop is significantly more sluggish than what OS X can achieve (understandable, given the opensource r128 drivers), so I figured since Ubuntu seems to have a bigger PPC userbase and activity, someone might've figured out a solution to this, and I decided to give it a try.

I apologize for skimming through the posts in this thread, but I can't really seem to find a definite place to get whatever ISO I need to get to run on my iMac. The first page has a post with a link, but it leads me to 13.04 rather than 12.04, and I feel like I might download the wrong thing. While on that same note, is there a bootable USB variant of the ISO (Or, can I just "dd" the ISO to an USB stick?) so I don't have to burn a CD for it?

Currently I've gotten about 22-30 FPS on glxgears, while Flurry on OS X 10.4.11 for example runs quite smoothly, meaning the Rage 128 in my iMac, while a less powerful version than later ones, should still be able to at least display a desktop environment and webpages without much hassle.

[este.el.paz]

@Svetlana T:

Welcome to the forum, it looks like your experience with finding a system to run on PPC parallels mine . . . I have 10.4.11 dual booting on a G4 iBook and iMac (having hardware issues) . . . and I also tried MintPPC but had a hard time keeping it in working order . . . so I went to straight Debian Wheezy . . . and then switched to Xubuntu 12.04. So far 10.4.11 runs the computer the best, but of course the browsers (other than Ten4Fox) are not supported . . . and so stuff isn't working on web sites. But, in terms of the G3 iMac I don't have any experience with that . . . Str8bs is the guy who has the experience there, so maybe you can look through his posts here and find something out. However, there was a post here for a Xubuntu .iso prepared by rsavage on post #226 with tweaks for PPC and both G3/G4 which would be the latest updates and probably your best choice . . . but if you read my last post it has been removed--I don't know what happened to it. Some people prefer Lubuntu 12.04. You could go to the Xubuntu home page and see if there is anything about an updated .iso for PPC posted there. Or maybe in a few days somebody else will reply to your post . . . .

e.e.p.

PS: Went to the Xubuntu.org home page and in LM13 MBPro there was no link there for PPC that I could see, so I found the wiki for PPC downloads here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCDownloads/ should get you something that will work, but it doesn't look like the desktop CD .iso for Xubuntu is there.

[este.el.paz]

@rsavage:

Looks like all the other kids are playing somehwere else, but my testing in the iBook G4 w/654?? MB RAM of the vanished Xubuntu 12.04 desktop .iso continues. And, overall, it's fine, but it isn't perfect. I installed disk utility and it shows before I added a few big apps like LibreOffice writer, and mini-tube (can't figure out how it works) . . . that the size of the installed system was only 2.73GB, so I could have easily got it installed into my old 5GB partition. More or less the same?? basic install in Wheezy was 4.73GB.

Where the Xu 12.04 perfection starts to show some cracks is in the "revive from suspend area" . . . there have been a number of problems there. Most times it's OK, but let's say 30%-45% of times either the screen will show after reviving from suspend, but clicking on main menu will not drop down, or clicking on minimized items will not maximize them, can't "log out" or "restart" . . . just have to shut it down. Yesterday I left the room for a few minutes and then when I came back the screen was breaking up horizontally like the old TV screen that needed an antenna, and there were two mouse cursors; fortunately there the right hand cursor was able to click on stuff and I could get the GUI to reboot . . . and after that restart it was OK. Also, yesterday, while looking at the screen doing something, suddenly there was a moment where the screen went totally black, and then it was back, clear as a bell.

So, it's fine, but there are problems that are showing up . . . much like the same issues that were there with Wheezy, those issues and the constant "Low disk space" error messages got me to move on . . . but the elusive search for the perfect Linux OS . . . is not over. : - )

Hopefully, there will be an answer to the question of what happened to the Xu .iso on post #226 . . . like how can folks like "Svetlana" find her way to this .iso if she ever passes by this thread again, etc?????

e.e.p.