Power Mac G5 Dual 2GHZ Nvidia 5200

[Seth Mac Fan]

Hi I have a Power Mac G5 Dual 2GHZ 1GB RAM , Nvidia 5200 video card and I can not install ubuntu power pc 12.04 at all , I boot the live cd and the screen goes into sleep mode . I am using a dvi to vga converter cable too , I did manage to get to a gui by typing live video=TV-1:d but mostly everything was white and I could not see unity at all . But I could seen some menus . Is there anyway to get it to work ? I really want to dual boot leopard and ubuntu 12.04 I am a huge ubuntu fan . Anybody have any help ?

[str8bs]

Hi,

I think you may be seeing the effects of this bug in addition to a phantom port issue the FX5200 has. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...au/+bug/952101 I've played around with it on mine some and the actual display behavior varies depending on your default resolution and what desktop you use. (IE Unity 3d vs 2D or vs. LXDE/ 1280x1024 vs. 1024x768)

Could you try:

boot: live nouveau.noaccel=1 video=TV-1:d

The additional parameter disables acceleration which should cause Unity to default to 2d and is one workaround to the bug. Please let us know if this changes anything.

[rsavage]

This your bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...au/+bug/902670 ? Compiz (unity-3d is basically compiz) also mention a white screen as a common problem http://wiki.compiz.org/Troubleshooting#White_Screen .

[str8bs]

rsavage-

I'm wondering if these(and others) are symptoms of a bug further up, or all separate. GNOME 3 does the same. Not sure how to verify, but I get what looks REALLY close with GNome on an AMD64 with ATI. Changing monitors (default display resolution) changes it too. Changing to Cinnamon-symptoms would be described completely differently, but the same workarounds apply. I put a couple pictures in the Debian report and asked the question. No answers yet.

noaccell throws out several variables all at once. I'm not sure how to go about isolating it down to one thing.
IE: EXA,compositing,themes,... Any suggestions?


seth - If you have the time:
Does your screen look like the first picture in this thread?: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2019042
Does noaccel/unity 2 load OK?

[rsavage]

I think you are probably seeing two problems. The Firefox corruption is possibly an EXA problem? Whereas, unity 3d is a problem with opengl support?

From memory, it is unclear what noaccel disables. I think it stops both 2D and 3D acceleration. You can probably be a bit more selective by specifying what EXA options you want to turn off http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/...an4/exa.4.html .

It maybe something else like colour tiling causing the problem. Increasing the virtual desktop size may disable this.

You could also turn off AIGLX like in the r128 instructions in the PowerPC FAQ. This will revert to the software rasterizer for the desktop environment, but applications still can use hardware acceleration. I'm not really sure how AIGLX works and fits into it all to be honest.

With my radeon card I have to use indirect rendering for compiz and opengl kwin. From unity-2d use:

LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1 compiz ccp --replace

This overcomes a problem with GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap . You could also use compiz config setting manager to try and solve the white screen. There are various options you can toggle - e.g. 'copy to texture' ?

I've compiled my own compiz - version 0.8.8, since this works (like lucid and maverick) much much better on my old radeon card. It uses less CPU than openbox and you can use emerald themes n stuff.

Gwjvan maybe able to help you more with compiz since he/she uses it with their radeon card and I think they also had problems with missing icons.

Raising a bug directly with dri/nouveau people or on their mailing list would also be a good idea. You'd probably be able to speak to somebody who will be able to put their finger on the problem straightaway.

[str8bs]

Thanks rsavage. Scouring the various bug systems, EXA options which appear to work around the same issue for ATI users don't seem to work for nouveau users. I am not sure if "Firefox" corruption is really specific to Firefox. Similar issues have been associated in terminal and corrupt menus in KDE and Libre office. This is an interesting read and may be at least partly related to one of these issues. (The title is misleading. See comment 135)https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=47266 As far as how that translates to 3d and AIGLX, no idea. Hence, my previous question.

Raising a bug directly with dri/nouveau people or on their mailing list would also be a good idea.

Good idea. A picture is worth a thousand words. Since I have no idea what words are appropriate, I might spend a day creating a photo montage with logs and hopefully someone there can parse/link what is related and get it to the proper place.

Specific to Unity and OP Seth reported issue.
It would be great if someone could confirm so known issues could be updated. I prefer not to claim things as "known" unless someone else confirms it.
On my FX5200, the exact issue described by Seth can be worked around on the live desktop boot by:

boot: live nouveau.noaccel=1 video=TV-1:d

(The TV-1 part is only relevant to a phantom port issue with this FX5200 card. Omit that if just booting "live" yields a screen described by the OP.)

boot: live nouveau.noaccel=1

If anyone is seeing the same in ATI, please test:

boot: live radeon.accel=0

From there, the install can be performed and then one can use Unity 2D.

It pains me a bit see people going through the trouble of downloading new/different ISO's just to work around a graphics bug. Or worse, abandoning their attempt.
If one is not a Unity 2D fan, they could simply use software manager,apt, or tasksel to install other desktops. IE: Lubuntu, Xubuntu, etc.

[rsavage]

(The title is misleading. See comment 135)https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=47266

That's an interesting bug report you've found there. I'm not sure it is what I'm seeing. I'll look into maybe compiling a newer version of radeon though. Thanks, I bet it took some time to find that.

I prefer not to claim things as "known" unless someone else confirms it.

I clung to the same ideals, but now I just write what I want.

It pains me a bit see people going through the trouble of downloading new/different ISO's just to work around a graphics bug. Or worse, abandoning their attempt.
If one is not a Unity 2D fan, they could simply use software manager,apt, or tasksel to install other desktops. IE: Lubuntu, Xubuntu, etc.

Agreed.

[Seth Mac Fan]

Hi,

I think you may be seeing the effects of this bug in addition to a phantom port issue the FX5200 has. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...au/+bug/952101 I've played around with it on mine some and the actual display behavior varies depending on your default resolution and what desktop you use. (IE Unity 3d vs 2D or vs. LXDE/ 1280x1024 vs. 1024x768)

Could you try:

boot: live nouveau.noaccel=1 video=TV-1:d

The additional parameter disables acceleration which should cause Unity to default to 2d and is one workaround to the bug. Please let us know if this changes anything.

Sorry about taking so long to reply, I will test it and let you know later today . Thanks again .

[Seth Mac Fan]

rsavage-

I'm wondering if these(and others) are symptoms of a bug further up, or all separate. GNOME 3 does the same. Not sure how to verify, but I get what looks REALLY close with GNome on an AMD64 with ATI. Changing monitors (default display resolution) changes it too. Changing to Cinnamon-symptoms would be described completely differently, but the same workarounds apply. I put a couple pictures in the Debian report and asked the question. No answers yet.

noaccell throws out several variables all at once. I'm not sure how to go about isolating it down to one thing.
IE: EXA,compositing,themes,... Any suggestions?


seth - If you have the time:
Does your screen look like the first picture in this thread?: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2019042
Does noaccel/unity 2 load OK?

Ok well I just tried again . Yes my screen does look like that when entering the stuff you told me too , and no I could not get it to work
I have successfully ran lubuntu but the problem with that is I can not get the resolution any higher than 1024x768 and firefox is choppy and all messed up .

[str8bs]

Seth - I hope my comments didn't imply "What's the hold up?" as that was not my intent. No apologies necessary. Thanks for persisting.

The symptoms you are describing with LXDE have also been reported to be avoided by noaccel. The better long term work around to that is a little more painful, but possible.
See this thread--http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1937940

Since you are already running LXDE, could you try the same again?

live nouveau.noaccel=1

Be weary of type-o's. If you can see well enough, could you post your /var/log/Xorg.0.log or look in the first few lines and you can see what was passed from kernel parameters.

Edit: Clarify boot params. Since we know yours does have a phantom port issue, always add that TV-1 disable to any boot parameters you try. Just put a space between any other parameters. Upper vs Lower case letters "d" does matter.

live nouveau.noaccel=1 video=TV-1:d

Once we get it going, we can set that TV disable permanent so you won't have to type it every time using yaboot.conf.