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Lubuntu 16.04 Remix (updated)

I inserted the parameters in yaboot: 'live radeon.agpmode=-1 radeon.modeset=1 video=offb:eek:ff nosplash' . Lubuntu 16.04 remix, starts well, but after a minute the image freezes and starts flashing black (still frozen) what do I do?
 
Rikintosh said:
I inserted the parameters in yaboot: 'live radeon.agpmode=-1 radeon.modeset=1 video=offb:eek:ff nosplash' . Lubuntu 16.04 remix, starts well, but after a minute the image freezes and starts flashing black (still frozen) what do I do?
Click to expand...
Sounds like the same issue my G4 MDD has with its Radeon 9000. In that case, near as I can tell, you have to completely turn off 3d acceleration to keep that from happening. I don't really know how to do that for a live disk.
 
Just want to clarify that you aren't inserting the ' in to your command. It should be just: live radeon.agpmode=-1 yadda yadda.

Sometimes all that is needed is radeon.agpmode=-1. Sometimes disabling the radeonfb driver is required (video=radeonfb:eek:ff). Sometimes providing the max video resolution is required. For example: video=1920x1080-16

Hopefully you can find the right combination for your card.

Cheers
 
wicknix said:
Just want to clarify that you aren't inserting the ' in to your command. It should be just: live radeon.agpmode=-1 yadda yadda.

Sometimes all that is needed is radeon.agpmode=-1. Sometimes disabling the radeonfb driver is required (video=radeonfb:eek:ff). Sometimes providing the max video resolution is required. For example: video=1920x1080-16

Hopefully you can find the right combination for your card.

Cheers
Click to expand...
I've personally tried all of that, with no success. And according to the Debian Wiki PowerPC FAQ:
Radeon 9000 cards, possibly only in Power Mac towers, freeze with accelerated graphics enabled. This requires turning off acceleration when KMS is enabled. This is done by enabling this option in xorg.conf (see below for how to generate a xorg.conf file):

Code: 
Option    "NoAccel"   "True"
Click to expand...
Setting this up on an existing live disk is a little outside my wheelhouse.
 
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wicknix said:
Gotcha. Yeah that'd be a bit tough.
Click to expand...
And it's a shame, too. There's really only one other video card I would want in that G4 MDD, a Geforce4 Ti 4600, but those are next to impossible to find at this point, and I can't really imagine Linux support is particularly good. But this is what I get for trying to keep Mac OS 9 alive on this old system.

The 12.04 live disk has trouble with one of my Mac OS installations, and gives an error about how it can't recognize it when it tries to install, fails, and that leaves a non-working installation on my drive. I wish I had some idea what that was about, but it means the system just doesn't look destined for Linux.
 
repairedCheese said:
And it's a shame, too. There's really only one other video card I would want in that G4 MDD, a Geforce4 Ti 4600, but those are next to impossible to find at this point, and I can't really imagine Linux support is particularly good. But this is what I get for trying to keep Mac OS 9 alive on this old system.

The 12.04 live disk has trouble with one of my Mac OS installations, and gives an error about how it can't recognize it when it tries to install, fails, and that leaves a non-working installation on my drive. I wish I had some idea what that was about, but it means the system just doesn't look destined for Linux.
Click to expand...
I too have an old Power Mac G4 sporting a Radeon 9000 (not running at the moment - it's in pieces while I experiment with a few things). I also planned to keep the 9000 in it for OS 9, and because despite its lack of support for CI it's no slouch in OS X either. But, I had hoped to be able to run Linux on it as well, so this is disappointing.

I wonder if a Radeon 8500 runs acceptably under Linux. I had one of those years ago, and if anything it's an even better card than the 9000 under OS 9. It's almost certainly easier to acquire than a Geforce 4 Ti, even if you had to flash a PC version. If the 8500 is supported with graphics acceleration under Linux, that might be the sweet spot.

EDIT: Perhaps not. A very cursory search suggests that the R200 family (Radeon 8500) tends to suffer the same shortcomings as the RV250 (9000) when it comes to 3D acceleration, in Ubuntu at least. Too bad.
 
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Raging Dufus said:
I too have an old Power Mac G4 sporting a Radeon 9000 (not running at the moment - it's in pieces while I experiment with a few things). I also planned to keep the 9000 in it for OS 9, and because despite its lack of support for CI it's no slouch in OS X either. But, I had hoped to be able to run Linux on it as well, so this is disappointing.

I wonder if a Radeon 8500 runs acceptably under Linux. I had one of those years ago, and if anything it's an even better card than the 9000 under OS 9. It's almost certainly easier to acquire than a Geforce 4 Ti, even if you had to flash a PC version. If the 8500 is supported with graphics acceleration under Linux, that might be the sweet spot.

EDIT: Perhaps not. A very cursory search suggests that the R200 family (Radeon 8500) tends to suffer the same shortcomings as the RV250 (9000) when it comes to 3D acceleration, in Ubuntu at least. Too bad.
Click to expand...
Mostly I want an OS 9 capable video card that doesn't crash in Linux. If I didn't care about OS 9, there are plenty of better agp video cards that with a little modification could easily work, but I did go out of my way to get a Mac that can run OS 9, so that would defeat the purpose of it. And it's a shame, too, because the Radeon 9000 really can do well enough in Leopard, despite the limitations.

Considering the roadblocks I ran into in the first place, having to choose between OS 9 and full Leopard support, this isn't really a surprise. Mind you, I'm pretty sure none of the OS 9 cards actually do much for Linux, but I'd take "not crashing" at the very least.
 
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I know it doesn't help, but you could always snag a g4 mac mini. It'll run os9 and the Radeon 9200 has ok Linux support.

Unfortunately the only cards I have the ability to test Linux with is the ati 9200, 9600, 9700 and the nvidia GeForce fx5200.

Cheers
 
wicknix said:
Just want to clarify that you aren't inserting the ' in to your command. It should be just: live radeon.agpmode=-1 yadda yadda.

Sometimes all that is needed is radeon.agpmode=-1. Sometimes disabling the radeonfb driver is required (video=radeonfb:eek:ff). Sometimes providing the max video resolution is required. For example: video=1920x1080-16

Hopefully you can find the right combination for your card.

Cheers
Click to expand...
I tried all of this, without success. The problem is that in a powerbook, it is not possible to simply remove the video card and put a compatible one ... I don't understand how a person can compile a kernel for powerpc, and not implement the necessary resources to work!
 
Not sure what to say. The 9700 mobility is supported and works fine. Same gfx card is in my PowerBook and it works with every Linux and bsd distro I've tried.
 
Imixmuan said:
Man, a Puppy Linux like Ubuntu or Debain based distro, with JWM as the window manager, with just what you need and nothing you don't, that'd be the ticket for our aging PowerPC hardware. It's amazing what the Puppy community does to keep old hardware on song. Bionic Beaver Pup may actually have support till 2028.
Click to expand...
It's a different model, the idea of "support" is different. If you ask about an older version on an Ubuntu forum, you'll be treated like a hardened criminal. Not so with Puppy, and they don't purge the repositories of old software. If you want to install Ardour, Audacity, LMMS, KdenLive, etc. into an older version, you certainly can, although not all software is available for all versions.

There is actually a version of Puppy for PPC, but it's super basic and has no window manager.

But to get back to topic, I installed the 12.04 remix into a Mac Mini G4. It runs pretty smoothly and fast if you don't want sound or video. I can browse forums, use web shops, read articles, etc. with practically no problems.

I can listen to mp3s from a USB stick, but if I download a video with the Youtube DL program, either the video will not play, or the sound will not play. Works if I export it on a USB stick and play it on another computer.

Arctic Fox will not play Youtube because it needs HTML5, SpiderWeb looks like it will play, but just loads the video forever and cannot play it.

This is surprising, as Ubuntu Mate played youtube videos fine, but it didn't recognise my sound card. Also did some weird stuff when I was installing GIMP (although it installed fine), and had a few other problems, so I just installed this over it. It didn't seem a lot slower than this.

Plus I'm not sure the firewall is even on after booting. When I run the program, it seems off. I would prefer a firewall indicator on the taskbar, if there is an easy way to install something like this.

No doubt all these problems can be fixed by installing stuff, although I'm debating whether it's worth it, or if I should just try the 16.04 remix. I've also been wanting to try Debian 7.11.
 
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@C.D.Burner
You can watch YouTube easily by doing this small modification. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-powerpc.2253214/?post=28870303#post-28870303

To enable sound open terminal and type: alsamixer and use arrow keys to highlight PCM then up arrow until volume level is about 65. Then unmute the taskbar volume icon.

For a firewall taskbar icon id search synaptic for one. I'm sure something is available.
Edit: after a quick search you can install nufw and nuapplet for a firewall & system tray applet.

Check your youtube-dl settings. You want mp4 as default.

Cheers
 
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wicknix said:
I know it doesn't help, but you could always snag a g4 mac mini. It'll run os9 and the Radeon 9200 has ok Linux support.

Unfortunately the only cards I have the ability to test Linux with is the ati 9200, 9600, 9700 and the nvidia GeForce fx5200.

Cheers
Click to expand...
As much as I'm sure I could find a place to stash a Mac Mini, I don't have anywhere to set one up. I'm already using a kvm switch to make my MDD work. I'd have to choose one or the other, and I'm fairly sure my dual 1.25 GHz G4 MDD is the more powerful machine.

It's a shame proper Radeon 9200 Mac cards aren't common.
 
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Yeah, no doubt the dual is more powerful. However, depending on useage, the mini is probably comparable in normal tasks. If you watch my 2 videos of 12 remix on my dual 2ghz g5 vs the 1.5ghz g4 mini the mini actually does everything at the same or similar speed. The only real difference I notice is obviously when compiling software, or using something heavy like blender. For general browsing, youtube, twitch, irc, streaming music etc there isn't much difference.

Watch the videos and decide for yourself.


Cheers
 
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wicknix said:
@C.D.Burner
You can watch YouTube easily by doing this small modification. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-powerpc.2253214/?post=28870303#post-28870303

To enable sound open terminal and type: alsamixer and use arrow keys to highlight PCM then up arrow until volume level is about 65. Then unmute the taskbar volume icon.

For a firewall taskbar icon id search synaptic for one. I'm sure something is available.
Edit: after a quick search you can install nufw and nuapplet for a firewall & system tray applet.

Check your youtube-dl settings. You want mp4 as default.

Cheers
Click to expand...
Contrary to how it was supposed to be, the volume was never off when installed, unless it changed something when I physically plugged something into the 1/8" jack. I tried the alsamixer way back, and the sound was on full.

And sound is working, as I have posted earlier. Like I said, I can play an mp3 from a USB stick.

As far the videos from the YouTube DL, I didn't select anything, I just let it download whatever was selected and it simply downloaded both an mp4 and a webm video. If I try to play the mp4, I get video but no sound. If I play the webm video, I get sound but no video. Both videos play properly on another computer. Seems more like a codecs problem to me.

Haven't installed that viewtube script yet because I'm not sure where I'm supposed to.

If I take all the steps, will I get sound on the internet across the board? I'm not interested in just YouTube, but also sites like Bandcamp or SoundCloud.
 
Just tried the 16.04 remix on my Mac Mini G4. Previously had only tried the 12.04 remix.

Again, sound is there. The volume is on max in alsamixer without me doing anything. I can play an mp3 from a USB stick.

Unfortunately, that's about as far as I could get, as the screen started blinking/blanking when I turned on the internet by ethernet and the computer bricking. It also happened a week or two ago when I tried the Lubuntu 16.04 PPC regular version, not the remix. It was constantly happening back then both with the live DVD and installed, even with nothing on the ethernet connection.

Tried booting into the live remix a few more times, and it was even worse, bricked when i tried to play an mp4 from the USB stick, and one or more times when I rebooted again and didn't even try anything that complicated. I didn't even have the internet on.
 
sanfrancisofont1984 said:
FWIW https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AGP-Radeon-Nouveau-Drop-RFC
Click to expand...

Dropping AGP driver support is bound to happen sooner or later, at which point the only PPC Macs capable of running the newer kernels will be the dual-core PMG5's. But nothing new there, G3's/G4's have been on community support for some time now, and as 32-bit machines, even that can only last so long. It's inevitable; c'est la vie.

Doesn't mean I won't still be using my PPC Macs though :cool:
 
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Raging Dufus said:
Dropping AGP driver support is bound to happen sooner or later, at which point the only PPC Macs capable of running the newer kernels will be the dual-core PMG5's. But nothing new there, G3's/G4's have been on community support for some time now, and as 32-bit machines, even that can only last so long. It's inevitable; c'est la vie.
Click to expand...

I think it meant AGP will become regular PCI. Which might actually be a good thing?
 
@Raging Dufus If I remember correctly when looking into this (back in May, I guess it was), what Phoronix reported was unclear. Apparently, (I think) AGP-gart mode is what is being discontinued, and newer kernels will just use AGP ports in some kind of PCI mode, which all PowerPC machines have already been set at for years. Supposedly.

In any case, AGP ports won't become glorified PCI slots, but they'll still use some kind of different signaling method (or something to that effect) that is easier to maintain than AGP's traditionally 'special' requirements. Curiously enough, I don't believe they mentioned that there will be any performance penalty as a result of this, though.
 
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Interesting. I know that AGP support is something they've been struggling with over in the Snow Leopard on PPC forum, and there's been some speculation that AGP support was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, for Apple's decision to cut off PPC from Snow Leo. Makes me think, regardless of what's been proposed, that the effect of removing it from Linux graphics drivers will, by default, mean a lack of graphics acceleration for AGP-equipped machines.

I'd like to be wrong, but - if it proved too thorny a problem for Apple to sort out, my hopes for an open-source community successfully sorting it out are kinda dim. Of course, I'm assuming that Apple actually wanted to sort it out, which may be more credit than they deserve.
 
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