Just installed Ubuntu Mate on my PM G5....

[topbanana_]

Installed (eventually) Ubuntu 16.04.1 yesterday and this morning - all working really really well - much faster and more responsive than I expected but....

Firefox (47 - as installed and latest version available on Ubuntu for PPC) will play Flash video (which I wasn't expecting) but on Youtube HTML5 it looks like its loading the video (spinning circle) but never stops and never plays.
So downloaded a number of other browsers without any success until I hit upon Xombrero - this plays Youtube HTML5 really well but won't play flash (eg. news articles on BBC news website)...

So not wanting to go to one browser for youtube and another for everything else was wondering if anyone here with a Linux installation has had the same issue, Google searches are not turning up much except a couple of people with similar FF issues but no resolution.

I havn't gone down the route of providing acceleration with my card yet which may be the issue (though why does it work on Xombrero and not FF?).

Incidentally to get the display to work I ended up removing the 7800GTX and replacing it with the original card i still had lying round (6600) - now looks perfect at 1920x1080 but glxgears isnt working so need to work on the minefield that is nouveau, PPC & Linux... Shame about that 7800 sitting on a shelf now...

 

[dustinschings]

So not wanting to go to one browser for youtube and another for everything else

Ah, but that is the nature of PowerPC web browsing these days, no matter the OS I am afraid.

 

[Imixmuan]

Sounds like a gstreamer issue to me. There are lots of videos of Powermac G5's with Ubuntu MATE on youtube chewing through youtube just fine. Maybe install greasemonkey add on, then isebaros viewtube and the VLC plugin for mozilla and see if that works. Make sure to select VLC in the viewtube drop down thingy. That might also update your gstreamer. You need the most recent one from the gstreamer ugly repository. I know, ugly, it makes no sense, but this is Linux, not making sense is half the fun. Here is one:

 

[topbanana_]

Sounds like a gstreamer issue to me. There are lots of videos of Powermac G5's with Ubuntu MATE on youtube chewing through youtube just fine. Maybe install greasemonkey add on, then isebaros viewtube and the VLC plugin for mozilla and see if that works. Make sure to select VLC in the viewtube drop down thingy. That might also update your gstreamer. You need the most recent one from the gstreamer ugly repository. I know, ugly, it makes no sense, but this is Linux, not making sense is half the fun. Here is one:

Thanks for the reply, really appreciate the info and will try this tonight.

I did install another VLC FF plugin for Youtube ('VLC Youtube Shortcut') but it didn't work with VLC bumming out with a hieroglyphics error message (seriously hardly a word of english in there..but the gist of it was that it couldn't load the video from the URL) so will try your alternative suggestion tonight.
I just finished installing Lubuntu yesterday as a comparison to Mate and will let you know how I get on.

 

[topbanana_]

Just to let you know I have stuck with Lubuntu - Its working great except for having to ditch the 7800GTX as just could not get it working at all (garbage screen).

Firefox (47) now all sorted also - for some reason in Lubuntu the VLC FF Addon "VLC Youtube Shortcut" works (which it didnt in MATE) perfectly playing Youtube videos from a right click menu on the video - really good quality and smooth. Flash also works I guess through Gnash or some such though I didn't install that myself specifically.

Really really happy so far and amazed how snappy the interface is, 2D acceleration is working great (not 3D but I don't intend to play games on here) and loaded up Libreoffice, VLC, Okular, Shotwell, Cairo / docky dock (taskbar shifted to the top so even looks like a bit like OSX now...) etc and all working fine.

Early days yet but so far just so impressed, it's really given the machine a breath of fresh air just so quick and honestly much much snappier than Leopard on this machine - thanks again for the help.