Linux on g4 ibook g4

Установка Lubuntu на PowerBook G4

Здравствуйте всем! Принесли PowerBook G4, на котором не возможно уже работать, в связи с устаревшей сильно системой. Решил поставить Lubuntu. Все установилось замечательно, без ошибок и прочего. Но есть очень плохая проблема. Когда Lubuntu загружается и до ходит до окна с пользователем, то при вооде пароля и нажатие кнопки вход, система просто зависает намертво. Пока не введешь пароль и не нажмешь вход, все работает.

Или подскажите дистрибутив линукса, который можно поставить на сие чудо.

Есть какие-то идеи? Спасибо заранее.

Попробуйте курсором повозить подольше. Если поможет — ставьте пакет haveged

Так если все замертво зависает, то как водить курсором?

А какая, кстати, видяха? На моем G4 — geforce mx400, и в какой-то момент в ядре поломали kms для нее. Правда, оно у меня и так давно использовалось без иксов в качестве сервачка.

А, я думал просто дальше окна логина не продвигаетесь.

Ну тогда цепляйтесь по ssh да смотрите dmesg\syslog, или переключайтесь на другой VT и пытайтесь так понять в чем дело. Без логов тут можно сколько угодно гадать.

Чего можно испытать: — бета версию Lubuntu 18.10, раз вас устраивает Lubuntu. В нём вместо LXDE используется LXQT, так что эта ошибка возможно исправится сама собой. Окончательная версия Ubuntu 18.10 ожидается 18 октября. — Xubuntu 18.04. Ваш интерес к Lubuntu возможно вызван малым объёмом памяти макбука. Xubuntu — самый экономный вариант по памяти (из-за использования XFCE, которое доступно и для других дистрибутивов, правда, выгляди грубовато). Интересные дистрибутивы с XFCE — Linux Mint (один из вариантов) и MX Linux (этот на основе Debian).

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Linux on an iBook G4

On one of the last days of august 2005 I purchased a brand-new 12″ G4 Apple iBook Laptop. This page is dedicated to this beautiful piece of hardware, I will share my experiences here. You can also read here how I installed Gentoo Linux on it back then.

I needed a laptop so I could conveniently work for school anywhere on campus, and drag around my work with me. So I took a look at laptop offerings from various hardware companies. I made a list of guidelines in selecting my machine of choice:

• Well within budget (I find 2000 euros to be a lot of money for a computer!)
• Light and small (the more the better)
• When I see people drag 17″ wide-screen laptops around, I often ask myself if the words mobile and portable lost their meaning somewhere along the way.

Along with those qualities, the iBook had some nice features that made me hooked on it even harder:

• A very beautiful design, like all Apple hardware
• It couldn’t physically run windows, not in a thousand years.
• If I ever get tired of Linux, I’d have to resort to Mac OS, a fine operating system, with UNIX underpinnings
• It’s clearly not «just another portable», compared to my fellow students’ laptops.

When it comes to running Linux on it, hardware accelerated 3D video is certainly missed (there are no proprietary ATI drivers for PowerPC available), but besides that, all hardware works and is supported by Linux.

Linux installation

The following text dates back to 2006

I wrote down the hardest tricks that I had to pull to get Gentoo Linux running on my iBook. Back then, most Linux distributions didn’t support the new hardware, and I had quite a struggle getting everything to work. These days everything works well.

Device drivers

Universal Serial Bus (USB)

USB worked out of the box, no problems whatsoever, be sure to enable the following things in your kernel:

• USB Human Interface Device
• USB Mass Storage support
• OHCI HCD Support
• EHCI HCD (USB 2.0) Support

Firewire

Works fine. Enable Firewire (enable IEE 1394 in kernel)

Audio

The iBook’s PowerMac Snapper chip, gets detected fine and works great on kernels after 2.6.14. I had to make an effort to get it working on Linux 2.6.13.1, but since this information is irrelevant now, I removed it.

Touchpad

As of kernel 2.6.14, the appletouch driver is included with Linux. This driver works great. To have a middle and left mouse button, enable mouse button emulation by putting dev/mac_hid/mouse_button_emulation = 1 in /etc/sysctl.conf

100mbit wired Ethernet

Works perfectly, use the sungem kernel driver

Hotkeys

Works, with pbbuttonsd, this program also does power management.

Telephone modem

I haven’t done any modem-related research since I don’t want or plan to use the modem.

Wireless LAN (Airport Extreme)

Development of a free driver is ongoing, and since Linux 2.6.17, an experimental driver is included into the kernel. This driver however, doesn’t play nice with the later revisions of the bcm43xx chipset (my iBook has one) Take a look at the Native Airport Express Drivers thread on the gentoo forums.

Accelerated Video drivers

Since ATI doesn’t release enough specifications, it’s hard for Open Source developers to write 3D drivers, Mesa emulates OpenGL on the CPU, but this is slow and consumes a lot of CPU. There is related info though, a howto on the gentoo ppc forum titled «Get DRI working on a Powerbook with Radeon 9600/M10». This forum thread is about the older generation of ATI cards, included in older Powerbooks.

Suspend (to ram/disk)

Suspend to ram works great.

Cdwriter/dvdrom

This works great, the built-in ATAPI Matshita drive works fine with cdrecord, and therefore all GUI programs like gnome baker, k3b, . work perfectly.

VGA Output (External Monitor)

If you connect the monitor before X is started, you get a cloned screen. It should be possible to do dual screen, have a look at Alessandro Ronchi’s Linux On The IBookG4 page.

Bluetooth

My iBook has a Cambridge Silicon Radio chipset, it is connected via the USB bus. The command hid2hci has to be run before the bluetooth services are started, in gentoo this is done by setting HID2HCI_ENABLE=true in /etc/conf.d/bluetooth. It works fine using the bluez bluetooth stack.

Userspace Tools, pbbuttonsd

I use ifplugd with the wired Ethernet chip, this way plugging in a cable automatically configures the link with a static or dynamic IP address. Pbbuttonsd is the power management daemon that proceeds to suspend on cover close and resumes later. Because ALSA acts weird after suspend to ram, I put a script in /etc/power/event.d (named alsasound) that runs alsasound stop before, and alsasound start a suspend to ram. The same for ifplugd (because the link doesn’t seem to come up after resume).

Gentoo Linux Installation

There is not much special about installing Gentoo on a PPC machine. The Gentoo install documentation is very good, all I have to add is some advice: copy the live CD kernel and modules, to your new root, and add an entry in your yaboot.conf for it (give it an obvious name; eg ‘live CD kernel’).

I had to change my kernel configuration several times before I had a working kernel. It’s faster to boot from disk than from CD-ROM, this trick would have saved me some time.

Liked something? Worked on something similar? Let me know what you think on Mastodon!
You can direct-message me, or mention me @thouters@hsnl.social

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Thread: How to Install Only Ubuntu On iBook G4?

5 Cups of Ubuntu

How to Install Only Ubuntu On iBook G4?

I’m trying to install ubuntu on an old iBook G4. I have two cds (9.10 (not PPC specific) and 8.04.1 (the PPC specific version)) along with the G4 install cds. I’ve tried booting while holding down C, and I’ve tried to boot holding down option. When the boot menu comes up it does not recognize either one. I’ve also reset the PRAM.
I’ve read a lot of guides, and look through this very thoroughly. I don’t even want to dual boot, just Ubuntu.
So how can I get Ubuntu to install on this old iBook? Thanks!

Ubuntu addict and loving it

Re: How to Install Only Ubuntu On iBook G4?

You need a PPC version of Ubuntu. You should be able to start the CD by holding c during startup (so holding the key after the system boing). If this fails, I would boot the CD from open firmware:

start your mac with the on/off button
then press:
option+command+o+f (alt+apple+o+f)

you then enter open firmware
then you issue this:

Just Give Me the Beans!

Re: How to Install Only Ubuntu On iBook G4?

i learnt a great deal about ppc versions today, and encrypted drives. i love ubuntu, its my first ubuntu day ever.

good luck with your install

Ubuntu addict and loving it

Re: How to Install Only Ubuntu On iBook G4?

Download a recent version of Ubuntu PPC, I would go for the alternate installer. http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/rele. te-powerpc.iso

Check its md5sum, cause if you don’t have a bad CD, which will not work. Another tip I can give you is that you need to burn at low speed for such old machines. It should work with the two options I gave you. Either booting with the c pressed during boot (hold it until it starts booting from CD), or boot from open firmware. You might also want to try booting with the command (Alt) key pressed. If there is a bootable device, your Apple will show it and you can then select it.

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