[PPC] Finally Lubuntu Run on my Quad G5

[luigiburdo]

@yangdh
I can help on everything im here for this , share my esperiences wirth all users , my hope is with this i can help all the G5 users and devs for make a better life to our great machine right now totally alone and unsupported by Apple in hardware too... break the wall of Video Boards is a great advantage.

About your ask
After work at home i will try to upload and share the configs and everything needed, im in italy and here the working day start now

I will try to have the root privilage using the theread you posted me , Xorg.conf im pretty sure is in the /root directory because was there in the Wheezy distro.
During install sprocess Lubuntu differing from the wheezy bercause the second ask me for make a root user and root password and the second pass is make an user and a password for it.
on Lubuntu i dont have this opportunity just ask for make and user and a password for it.
Thanks for your tips and help

@alan26
Thank you for motivate my esperiences


Now is time to share some other esperiences
I installed a simple game a pacman clone "tomato" (sorry i dont remember the name) it use sdl , and there was wrong colors and trasparents sprites.
I test the mozilla plugin gnash "the flash player" and i can see only one frame of the video... on wheezy was running perfect at 720p res too.

I think everything is related to the wrong video board configurations of 3d gnash use opengl if i right undestand

Tested the VLC and a huge 3.2 gb Mkv 1080p with surround audio and was running perfect with only 30% of one cpu core. it means the GPU video accelerations are running in right way.

[yangdh]

@luigiburdo

Thank you for your valuable work. I'd like to know if you can boot to a console with Nv 6600 card in PCIEx8 slot and HD card in PCIEx16 slot using Lubuntu. From my experience Nouveau driver has problems with HW acceleration on PPC64, a way to work around is to pass kernel param "NoAccel=1" when loading the kernel. I tried Fedora 20 on my PowerMac G5 2.0 with Nv 6800Ultra AGP card months ago, and succeeded in installation when HW acceleration was disabled. I had only garbage or artifacts when acceleration was enabled(which is default for Nouveau drivers).
I think if you use ATI HD card with an Nv card, you could follow the steps below:
1). Install the kernel and boot to a console(Does Yaboot of Lubuntu have an option of booting to tty?).
2). Install Xorg and Gnome.
3). Edit xorg.conf, in the Nv card section enable "NoAccel=1" Option.
4). Execute "startx" in the console.
The X and Gnome should run. I haven't tried to run Lubuntu on my G5 with two video cards.
In Fedora 20 PPC version the boot loader is Grub2, you can insert directly the kernel param when it's called and shown on the screen. Don't know if Yaboot loader could also be edited online to pass param in the same way. You could install Lubuntu all the way through if Yaboot can accept param when running, without the trouble of following steps.

[luigiburdo]

On debinan Wheezy 7.5 i have Xorg with Nouveau full working without problem (only small glitch some times random, with compositing windows) with Hardware acceleration and no 3d wrong colors do you downloaded the 7.5 ? Note i use the DVD version not the net version.
From my previus tests where
Pcie 16x + Pcie 8x
Lubuntu:

x1900 + Nv i had black screen during installation process and system dont run .
Nv + RadeonHD same like previous post.
Nv 6600 and/or Nv 7800Gtx .. Lubuntu Logo and after graphic totally glitched and unusable pretty sure no acceleration will make right graphic .
RadeonHD + X1900 right installation and right graphic (3d with same problems) but really unstable system (the video exit only on the RadeonHD)
X1900 + RadeonHd = everything perfect only 3d color wrong (the video exit only on radeon hd)
x1900 only no video

Fedora 20
Nv6600 No video
X1900 No Video
Nvidia 7800 No video
X1900 + RadeonHD ... I have the Video (terminal only, didn't check the xorg, video on RadeonHD)


Gentoo
Nv no video
X1900 + RadeonHD ... I have the Video (terminal only, didn't check the xorg, video on the RadeonHD)

Debian
Nv 6600 with Nv 7800Gtx Perfect video but only on first video board
Nv 7800Gtx with Nv 6600 Perfect video but only on first video board
Video Boards Nv alone perfect like previus post
Radeon X1900 No video (terminal only Xorg error)
X1900 and Radeon HD (terminal only,Xorg error on video ,video only on the first video board)


YellowDog 6.5
Nv6600 and 7800gtx No video
X1900 Video but glitches not usable
X1900 and RadeonHd not tested but sure because really hold built will be same as previous post


On the X1900 where you can see Terminal only i found on terminal Xorg asking for X86 firmware for the video boards.... and there i have the idea to put a second Pcie in the machine
PowerMac G5 have 4 Pcie slots from the down to up Pcie 16x, Pcie 4x, Pcie 8x, Pcie 4x ... i put the RadeonHd on the PCie 4x too and was working there too.. but for speed is better the 8x.
Have it running on 16x will be for sure better.
I will test with RadeonHd 6570 if it will work on Lubuntu without system freeze on the 16x with radeonHd 1900x on the 8x slot.

[yangdh]

Thank you for your very informative explanations. It's really interesting! I would plan to get some hardware if you had a positive result about HD6570.
PS: By "No video" do you mean a totally black screen even no Yaboot info, except your further explanations in parentheses?

[luigiburdo]

Thank you for your very informative explanations. It's really interesting! I would plan to get some hardware if you had a positive result about HD6570.
PS: By "No video" do you mean a totally black screen even no Yaboot info, except your further explanations in parentheses?

Hi Yangdh
Yaboot is an open firmware (macos bios) software and all distros (old and ancient too) it make a video exit but only on the apple flashed video board,
after loading ramdisk and inizializing linux kernel the video become black ( i cant see the loading modules too).
Note i test with the ofonly too for all the distros without positive results, Im sure is something related kernel signals probably in future will be better.

eg: the kernel of debian wheezy 7.5 is more older but much better optimized for Nv pcie gpu compared the Lubuntu/fedora/gentoo.

The other difference of the Debian compared with the other distro is: the X1900 is used but in terminal only (no xorg) after launching xinit i had there the message of
"no X86 bios found" etc etc... (and there the idea... the lucky things was that i have a free 4650HD at home )
Lubuntu/fedora/gentoo look like the kernel dont like the macbios modded Radeon (x1900) and pratically dont use this board for use directly the 4650 HD.
If i dint have a RadeonHD card i will not have video at hall (only the yaboot).

[luigiburdo]

RadeonHD 6570 2gb come ... and ?

The board is working!!!!!
But ... a small problem i dont have chars on the screen
I have windows and bars and backgrounds but no chars ... in console too .
I run Prboom the doom clone and the video is super fluid ! windows are resizing really smooth
Now i have to try to reinstall the Lubuntu hope this will fix the chars problem...
Because it is a Radeon R600 i will try the Xeno74 Mesa Patch.

Will report soon .. and i will make a good video on youtube

Bad news The installer make this things too
Here an image of the actual 6570 video exit

[xeno74]

But ... a small problem i dont have chars on the screen
I have windows and bars and backgrounds but no chars ... in console too.

The solution is to set the option "RenderAccel" to "false" in the xorg.conf file.

[yangdh]

RadeonHD 6570 2gb come ... and ?

The board is working!!!!!
But ... a small problem i dont have chars on the screen
I have windows and bars and backgrounds but no chars ... in console too .
I run Prboom the doom clone and the video is super fluid ! windows are resizing really smooth
Now i have to try to reinstall the Lubuntu hope this will fix the chars problem...
Because it is a Radeon R600 i will try the Xeno74 Mesa Patch.

Will report soon .. and i will make a good video on youtube

Bad news The installer make this things too
Here an image of the actual 6570 video exit

How about other distros like Fedora and Gentoo? Is it a problem with fonts rendering, or HW acceleration as xeno74 said? How much memory does your HD4650 have?

[luigiburdo]

Xeno thanks for your tip, but i have a big problem.
On lubuntu distro i cant enter in the /root where is the Xorg.conf.
This bug (no chars) is present in installation cd too , if eg. i dint have a RadeonHd 4450 to swap with the 6570 pratically will be impossible install lubuntu.
I have found how to go in the terminal mode screens on Lubuntu i have to push "control-alt-F(keys)" and had the opportunity there to read the X.log (in screen terminals the chars are ok) and there i read that the assigned vmem for the radeon 6570 is 128mb (!)
I had been try to go in irc for find the PPC developer for been allert about this GPUs are running but they are impossible to find.
Hope they are reading this thread.
i had been noticied they about thru some others guys

[luigiburdo]

Hi yangdh,
like i wrote to xeno74 big problem is enter in the root for mod the conf..
The 4650hd is 512mb dd3
the 6570hd is 2048mb ddr3
but for what i had been understood only 128mb are assigned to Vmem... lather i will check better.
i will swap the 6570 with 4650hd and write you x.log that you requested days ago.

about the other distros i dint check how will be with Fedora and Gentoo first i have to check if this distro support the 6570 hd on powerpc side

i will try alternate installer for lubuntu hope will gave me more expert user options