Testers needed for PowerPC 12.04

[AnsonX10]

I've got this PowerBook G4 2002 TiBook, and finally got Ubuntu running on it. (I'm writing this on it right now.) Then I found this thread, and thought I'd post some info.

It's running 12.04 with all the updates as of right now.

The Live CD couldn't make the HFS drive a bootstrap/yaboot compatible drive or something like that, the alternative CD could though, and did. I used dd on a PowerMac G4 running Leopard to write the ISOs to a 1gb USB drive, and booted the laptop off of that.

All versions 10 would not show anything on screen upon booting from the USB, save for a few lines.

The mini CD for 11 couldn't make the internal drive boot without help, but That was almost a week ago that I last tried that.

The reason I tried installing Ubuntu on this thing is because the Mac OS 10.5 system it had on it had terrible graphical glitches, to the point that you couldn't see anything. I had fixed it once by installing the system anew, but the disc drive doesn't work anymore. I thought it must be the logic board had gone out, but I wasn't sure. So when I found out that Ubuntu 12 fixed everything, I knew it must've been the system.

Bugs:
The sound is not working right now, after I installed updates, but was working fine right after system install. I had/have to press fn with the volume buttons for them to work. However, the microphone level meter shows input when I'm yelling at the computer for not playing music. (lol) So the speakers and headphone output aren't working, but the microphone and sound input is.
EDIT: Nevermind that. (look down for info)

The simulated right click isn't working now either after updates. Ctrl click doesn't even work on an i386 pc. So, being deprived of my spell checking abilities, there may be some typos in this post.
EDIT: Nevermind this too.

The display works great when the system is giving it a signal, without any glitches whatsoever. But when the screen isn't getting any signal, the backlight and power stay on, but the picture gets buggy like a cheap LCD screen when it's turned off. (The picture slowly fades away, but a lot more slowly than it usually does.)

The screen also gives this response a few times during booting, but I find that almost natural. BUT when I change to a resolution other than the native (1280 by 854) it's the same thing. No signal. Luckily the timeout returned the screen to the previous resolution, restoring the picture without any further problems.

I haven't tried rotation yet because I want to get this posted before risking it.
EDIT: I tried rotation, and strangely it gives me graphical glitches amazingly similar to the ones I had on Mac OS X before I wiped it and installed Ubuntu 12.04. It does this at all three non-normal settings. I can see enough to click the restore button, which brings back the crystal clear picture I've come to know and love from Ubuntu on this computer.

The brightness buttons don't work, but I believe someone else mentioned that.

The battery works when I unplug the laptop, but doesn't seem to have any settings or indicators anywhere. However it wasn't in the computer when I installed the system, nor for the first boot, so that may be my fault.

The system runs a lot hotter than Mac OS X did, but both fans work, which is more than OS X did most of the time. I'm not worried about this though. Taking the keyboard off and touching the heat sinks and metal covers is more painful than it was with OS X, but that's the only way I'd know it was running hotter. OS X probably should have been running like this. There are temp warnings in there after all.

The keyboard's num lock doesn't work, but this may not be a bug.

Pressing f11 doesn't work to make anything fullscreen, it seems to cut and move text around. This is probably a result of my own ignorance though.

My "u" key keeps falling off. (The worst bug. FIX THIS NOW!) lol

Other than that everything seems to be working fine. As much as a community supported pre-released operating system should be anyway. Slight software incompatibilities, but I don't consider those bugs yet.

PS I accidentally just hit f12 and realized that it made a right click! I knew f12 was supposed to do that, but never had any luck with other computers. but I'm not going to go back and spell check everything because I'm feeling lazy. That and I have other more vital stuff to do. So maybe that means I'm feeling more diligent. lol

EDIT: I forgot to mention that this PowerBook doesn't have an AirPort card in it, so I can't say anything about that. But it does work with a Belkin USB Wireless antenna (F5D7050) that all Ubuntu versions have worked with since 7.10 (when I started using it.)

Also, a few more updates and a restart, sound seems to be working again. A few pops and such when starting audio, but it did that before as well. I have a feeling this one may have been my fault.

Simulated right clicking is working again as well.

I'm happy.

[svtguy88]

The module has now been built into the kernel - my concern now is do non G4 'books still have good thermal management? I really don't know enough about how the kernel works!?! Can people test with the new kernel please? THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!

I'm in class right now, and away from my PPC boxes. What module was compiled in? As long as a module was just added (don't remember off hand, something about ADT_temp, I think the name is?), and nothing was removed, everything should be good. The kernel will only load the modules it needs.

I'll grab a new USB stick and set it up for live CD testing (I think it's going to be painful with USB 1.1, but I'll try it...better than wasting stacks of CDs).

I should mention that I've built myself a few kernels and am *semi* familiar with some of the necessary PPC modules (as far as what's needed). Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

[svtguy88]

Oh, and I guess I should say how my testing has gone (Lubuntu daily CD used to install, and then updated via update-manager a few days later).

I had to do the usual fiddling to get my system to boot (to be expected - my SATA card is an "ACARD,6280M" which the yaboot installer (well, ofpath is really what fails, but it's during the yaboot install) can't deal with. But, this has been the case for a while, and I know what lines to ammend in yaboot.conf to get things working.

Other than that, most things work fine. I was having an issue with the lower half of the screen being blacked out, especially when maximizing windows. I'm not sure if this has been discussed already, or if it's a nouveau issue.

I don't recall what PPC Macs came with Nvidia video hardware (most were ATI, right? I think my Powerbook is), but my main PPC machine has a Geforce 6200 (PCI) in it, and I have some issues. The most pressing one is that the display seems to be in a low-depth color mode. Is there a way to check the bit-depth being used, or a way to force a higher one? All in all, X seems to behave better than the last time I had this machine up and running - I didn't need to make a Xorg.conf to get things to work (but I suspect I will to get the correct color depth working - I remember that issue from last time).

Speaking of nouveau, where do we stand on 3D support?

I know 3D should be supported, but I don't think the required version of nouveau and it's dependencies gets installed by default.

[AnsonX10]

Got an update:

Today's (Or should I say yesterday's) updates brought display distortion back. Ugh. Seemingly the same one that bugged Leopard. Not quite as bad, but exactly the same things.

To test my notion that it was the update, I reinstalled the OS from the 12.04 alternate USB I still had, and install went great. Right back to perfection. But after updating again the graphical glitches returned. So I know that's what caused them.

I would like to narrow it down to which package is causing this, but I have no idea which packages could be capable of this horrendous feat. I can install them one by one, but there's over a hundred on them, and I don't even know which ones deal with displays. Ubuntu 12 will be obsolete and the screen will burn out by the time I test all 150-or-so of them. Since I can't turn the brightness down, It'll probably burn out anyway. lol

So with some help, I'd love to get this fixed because this is the reason I'm running Ubuntu on this computer.

[rsavage]

Just a v quick message with a few more issues for people to have a look at:

I've been concentrating on the test cases to see if we can pass all of them. I reported the archive mirror problem again and Colin Watson has had another go at fixing it. It should appear in the live cds in the next few days so can people test when it appears? See original post.

I've tried to get usb/cd persistence to work - which it does - only gvfs-gdu-volume-manager immediately stops working and closes. Can anybody confirm this is a problem?

Automatic installing when there is already a ubuntu system installed causes problems because you get two bootstrap partitions labelled "bootstrap". ybin then doesn't update nvram correctly. The only way to boot the new system is holding down the option key.

[svtguy88]

Automatic installing when there is already a ubuntu system installed causes problems because you get two bootstrap partitions labelled "bootstrap". ybin then doesn't update nvram correctly. The only way to boot the new system is holding down the option key.

Does the live-CD give you the ability to run a shell before rebooting the system? You should be able to run chroot into the newly installed system, and run "ybin -b /dev/yourBootPartition" to update everything correctly....yes?

[rsavage]

Thanks pkmgarf. I can boot the system fully - no probs. I was wrong on the cause though. The installer is clever enough to figure it out and defines boot in the yaboot.conf via /dev/disk/by-id/ instead of /dev/disk/by-label/. So the labels don't matter. I can get a sensible value from ofpath so I don't think it is that either.

Has anyone else tried dual booting with different linux distros? I never know if something isn't working becuase of software or my hardware!

[rsavage]

I'm in class right now, and away from my PPC boxes. What module was compiled in? As long as a module was just added (don't remember off hand, something about ADT_temp, I think the name is?), and nothing was removed, everything should be good. The kernel will only load the modules it needs.

I'll grab a new USB stick and set it up for live CD testing (I think it's going to be painful with USB 1.1, but I'll try it...better than wasting stacks of CDs).

I see testing as checking what *should happen* actually is happening. I'd be a lot happier if windfarm/windtunnel/windwhatever users got in touch to say everything was okay. Also G4 iBook/Albook users to say it still works when built in.

Why don't you copy the CD files to a hard drive partition? That is what I am planning on doing. My USB stick is too dodgy and is beginning to be a pain to use. You can create a separate bootstrap partition to fire up the 'CD' or edit your existing bootstrap yaboot.conf. I can put instructions together if anybody is interested.

@AnsonX10 It could be your kernel or xserver-xorg-video-nouveau package causing your graphics glitch. For brightness adjustment see http://www.mintppc.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=773, but there is bound to be a better way. I don't have nouveau so can't help you more. Except to point you to the FAQ https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCFAQ#Configure_graphics .

[svtguy88]

Why don't you copy the CD files to a hard drive partition? That is what I am planning on doing. My USB stick is too dodgy and is beginning to be a pain to use. You can create a separate bootstrap partition to fire up the 'CD' or edit your existing bootstrap yaboot.conf. I can put instructions together if anybody is interested. .

Hmm...I may have to give that a go. It should be WAY faster than a disc or USB 1.1.

I should have some time tomorrow to play with this stuff. I'll try to get to get both my tower and Powerbook setup for testing. Oh, and if there's any need, I've "acquired" a G4 iLamp (err...iMac) that I'm pretty sure still works fine.

[rsavage]

I found my ybin problem. Stupidly I had missed the error message when I ran it. It is complaining about a lack of /dev/nvram. Has anybody else got this problem and anybody got a clue how to fix it properly so we can report it as a bug?

EDIT: Possibly this? :

CC [M] arch/powerpc/platforms/chrp/nvram.o

Used to be built in.