Late 2005 2.0Ghz PM G5, Linux, and modern graphics cards.

[TorCoolguy]

Also, drivers arent an issue. If it works the modding community will write one. There are enough PPC supporters to keep it alive.

Really? I do want this heavily to work, but I really don't think it will and I don't want anyone to get their hopes up. Though, didn't we run into this problem almost exactly here? https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1524791/

 

[MisterKeeks]

Really? I do want this heavily to work, but I really don't think it will and I don't want anyone to get their hopes up. Though, didn't we run into this problem almost exactly here? https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1524791/

That's a ROM. A driver is what the OS uses to interact with the card.

 

[TorCoolguy]

That's a ROM. A driver is what the OS uses to interact with the card.

Sorry, I feel embarrassed now

 

[wobegong]

I doubt it will work for reasons given on here by others already, namely that there are no model specific drivers under PPC Linux for a modern card, only generic ones which will not have the necessary components to mine with.
However as it is indeed only a 15 minute or so job to test this out it is indeed worth trying on a wet afternoon

So whats the result? Does it work or not?

 

[Wildy]

I'm hoping so. Based on that post I linked to earlier it seems linux looks at graphics cards on a mac the same way your intel mac looks at them when you boot windows. They usually don't work (or work poorly) in OSX if they aren't supported. You lose a boot screen, (no biggie really) and sometimes you lose stuff like DVD player and steam might not work. But when you boot the same card under windows it works fine because the driver support is there once the OS loads.
So I think it's the same on Linux. I might not have that boot screen, but if I can install linux with the original card, and get SSH running then I can install the latest Linux AMD drivers and reboot with the 7950 in it. Should work. The real question, and all I really care about, is can I get that setup to then run CGminer and start hashing.

Someone has probably already said this, but I'm in a rush and can't read the rest of the posts. You will have to make do with the open source AMD driver (Radeon) because AMD only supplies binaries which are built for x86, not PowerPC. I'm not sure if open source drivers support OpenCL or not.

 

[CIA]

Someone has probably already said this, but I'm in a rush and can't read the rest of the posts. You will have to make do with the open source AMD driver (Radeon) because AMD only supplies binaries which are built for x86, not PowerPC. I'm not sure if open source drivers support OpenCL or not.

Yea. this is probably the biggest hurdle to be honest. While the card may "work" at a basic level in Linux, the features I need for mining probably won't be there. PPC drivers are....not really there. If I find the equivalent PC card to the Mac Card that shipped with it there might be a driver, but probably not much in the recent cards aspect. After spending a few days perusing Linux on PPC forums this seems to be most likely. Again I'll still give it a shot. Since the AMD drivers are proprietary and not open my luck may run out beyond basic "it works" functionality though. It's all in good fun though as this is more me figuring the ins and outs of Linux.

 

[CIA]

Well, I got the G5, went away for the holiday weekend, and came back and got slammed by work. Anyway, finally got to set it up and tinkering with it Sunday and sadly found out they gave me a dual 1.8 G5 and not the later models with PCIe. Kinda bummed but it's now setup as a decent garageband box for audio voiceover stuff here at work.
Still looking for a newer G5 to try with but with the expected difficulty jump coming in the next few weeks GPU mining is dying anyway so my interest in bitcoin in waning.

 

[lucasfer899]

Well, I got the G5, went away for the holiday weekend, and came back and got slammed by work. Anyway, finally got to set it up and tinkering with it Sunday and sadly found out they gave me a dual 1.8 G5 and not the later models with PCIe. Kinda bummed but it's now setup as a decent garageband box for audio voiceover stuff here at work.
Still looking for a newer G5 to try with but with the expected difficulty jump coming in the next few weeks GPU mining is dying anyway so my interest in bitcoin in waning.

Damn those Asic guys!
Ruining all the fun

 

[sysmem]

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to say that I was able to stick a Nvidia GT610 and Debian for PPC was able to recognize it. I was not able to get it to display, but again, it did recognize it in a PPC G5 2.0GHz PCIe model. On the other hand, it would not even boot with a GT640