Weird. Still doesn't work. But as a sanity check I tried on another PPC Mac and sure enough, it loads up fine. It's clearly an issue on my end, just weird that it doesn't see it during boot.
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Lubuntu 16.04 Remix (updated)
- Thread starter wicknix
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You might have to try starting up with the Option key held down, three or 4 times, maybe more. I’ve run into this too and it was the one of the ways I could get it to show up. Once it did, it worked fine. You could try booting the DVD through OpenFirmware too. I don’t recall the commands you need to enter but I know there are instructions all over the place on booting a cd/dvd using Open Firmware on a Mac.
Also, resetting the PRAM, or completely powering down (pull the power cord and hold the start up button for about 30 seconds) then plug back in and start up. This also worked for me.
Also, resetting the PRAM, or completely powering down (pull the power cord and hold the start up button for about 30 seconds) then plug back in and start up. This also worked for me.
Last edited:
It's not a true 18.04/18.10. More of a Frankenstein. If you read that guide, it basically pulls in updated debian ports packages to update some packages on 16.04 since Debian and Ubuntu are compatible. I'm sure there is a file somewhere I forgot to mention to edit to change the version.
Cheers
Cheers
Back to MacBuntu on the G4 with the Nvidia card. Burned the latest Macbuntu ISO to a DVD and loaded it up and installed it, same issues with Ubiquity and /root/.cache/dconf and "some documents and files didn't transfer" errors. Attempting to continue using live DVD results in message the installer has crashed. Rebooting gets to where the DVD ejects and it's time to hit ENTER and the key puts "a square, slash, insert sign " on the screen and nothing input from the keyboard takes the unit to restart. Powering down the computer (in the nuclear business we used to call it SCRAMming the reactor) and restarting it, holding down the option key to see what bootable disks exist, the linux drive does not show up but going into Tiger, Disk Utility shows that the drive had been partitioned in UNIX format but is not bootable.
The sad thing is I've successfully loaded and used Macbuntu on this machine in the past, got greedy and loaded 16.04 remix successfully and then got real greedy and tried to load Debian Remix on it but none of them install to the point of being able to use them (mostly black screen, no CLI access).
I haven't changed anything on the machine. I have checked to make sure everything is seated, and working and Tiger and OS 9 runs just fine. I cannot for the life of me figure out why this machine is now fighting me.
Can you think of anything that would cause the installer to crash and perhaps some way to check the installation before shutting down/rebooting the computer? I've looked and the /var/sys/log or what ever it's called but see no obvious indication as to why this isn't working.
On a side note, Debian Remix installed beautifully, no errors on boot up but, due to not being able to determine how to get to a GUI desktop, have given up trying to get it on this G4.
You have been a ton of help through out this process and the amount of knowledge you have blows my mind. It's been an absolute pleasure following you on this and the Linux forum. I can tell you you are very well known throughout the Linux/Mac world!!!!
MacMaverick855
The sad thing is I've successfully loaded and used Macbuntu on this machine in the past, got greedy and loaded 16.04 remix successfully and then got real greedy and tried to load Debian Remix on it but none of them install to the point of being able to use them (mostly black screen, no CLI access).
I haven't changed anything on the machine. I have checked to make sure everything is seated, and working and Tiger and OS 9 runs just fine. I cannot for the life of me figure out why this machine is now fighting me.
Can you think of anything that would cause the installer to crash and perhaps some way to check the installation before shutting down/rebooting the computer? I've looked and the /var/sys/log or what ever it's called but see no obvious indication as to why this isn't working.
On a side note, Debian Remix installed beautifully, no errors on boot up but, due to not being able to determine how to get to a GUI desktop, have given up trying to get it on this G4.
You have been a ton of help through out this process and the amount of knowledge you have blows my mind. It's been an absolute pleasure following you on this and the Linux forum. I can tell you you are very well known throughout the Linux/Mac world!!!!
MacMaverick855
I honestly tried everything to get my iMac G3 CRT with a R128 card working on Linux, old Ubuntu, new Debian, Void, Adelie, almost got there nearly, but not quite. I thought the r128 driver was just broken.
Then (apologies for the segue) I dug out an old OpenBSD 6.8 install, pulled the latest release off ftp.openbsd.org for a full online install (which was slow but worth it), dropped in a hacked xorg.conf file I'd found online, changed Driver "fbdev" to "r128" and started xenodm... And, it just worked.
Here's a screenshot, and the xorg.conf for anyone having hassles with a G3. From what I'm seeing on glxinfo it looks like the graphics card is in use (although I am new to this actually working, so...).
glxgears sadly throws a core dump so I can't see what kind of FPS I'm getting on this, but aside from the usual gripes with OpenBSD (the, ah, prickly forums and lack of a JS-capable browser) I'm really pleased with progress.
The xorg.conf for anyone interested.
Then (apologies for the segue) I dug out an old OpenBSD 6.8 install, pulled the latest release off ftp.openbsd.org for a full online install (which was slow but worth it), dropped in a hacked xorg.conf file I'd found online, changed Driver "fbdev" to "r128" and started xenodm... And, it just worked.
Here's a screenshot, and the xorg.conf for anyone having hassles with a G3. From what I'm seeing on glxinfo it looks like the graphics card is in use (although I am new to this actually working, so...).
glxgears sadly throws a core dump so I can't see what kind of FPS I'm getting on this, but aside from the usual gripes with OpenBSD (the, ah, prickly forums and lack of a JS-capable browser) I'm really pleased with progress.
The xorg.conf for anyone interested.
Code:
Section "Module"
Load "GLcore"
Load "bitmap"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. Rage 128"
Driver "r128"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "iMac"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 60-60
VertRefresh 75-117
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "ATI Technologies, Inc. Rage 128"
Monitor "iMac"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSectionTo close this out, apparently my MDD is just temperamental. It seems like 1 time in 10, it will boot from the Linux disc by holding "c" on the keyboard. The other times, it spools up, but then reverts to booting from the HDD.
On the times that I could get it to boot from the optical drive it gets me to the initial environment, where I enter the command for Radeon 9xxx machines. Then it's about 10-15 minutes of verbose feedback... a lot of lines about how something is not a typewriter. Eventually I get to what looks like a live environment - I have a cursor and the blue wallpaper. But that's it - nothing further loads no matter how long I let it hang out. Any clues?
Well that was interesting. While troubleshooting the G4 as to why I was having issues with MacBuntu I discovered the G4 no longer wanted to start up in OS 9. OS 9 resides on the same hard drive as OS 10 Tiger but a separate partition. It would work in Classic. Long story short the System folder was “excommunicated”, OK became un-blessed. It took a while but I finally got it working. I haven’t had a chance to try loading Linux onto a separate HD in the G4 since this repair. I’m hoping there was a connection.
Mav
Hi. As far as I know, the Mac Edition x1900 isn't supported in any Linux distro. I think your best bet would be to add a cheap PC Radeon HD card in the 8X PCIE slot and use is as your main GPU in Linux. The biggest drawback is that the x1900 fans will go full speed, which can be a bit annoying.
ah bummer, i could do that though? I've got an r7 240 i could use. would i need to pass any parameters during boot?
I don't know how a r7 will behave under Linux. The 2GB of RAM could be a problem, as PowerPC Macs can't address more than 1GB without stability issues (it was mentioned in a thread here, but I can't remember which one). My last experience was with Void Linux and I had no problem : booting from the DVD, the x1900 turns on first , then display is transferred to the Radeon HD.
With Ubuntu, you'd could start with this old thread : https://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-2221421.html. There is also this https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1056950-start-0.html. Last post on this thread will help you configure Xorg.
Hi. I've got a strange problem. I've installed MacBuntu remix on my PPC and I can't hear any sound.
With AlsaMixer I can control only the master volume, all of the other volumes remain at 0.
No sound from speakers and no sound from headphones.
Speaker are working cause I can hear the "boing" on startup.
Any suggestion?
With AlsaMixer I can control only the master volume, all of the other volumes remain at 0.
No sound from speakers and no sound from headphones.
Speaker are working cause I can hear the "boing" on startup.
Any suggestion?
That's right! Thanks... and congratulations for the excellent job!
Hi @wicknix. 
I'm still using MacBuntu 12.04 on my iMac G5 and loving it. Had a question for you about the updated ffmpeg version that you have in the first post. I am using that, and trying to convert an mp4 video to mp3 audio, but I'm getting an error that libmp3lame is an unknown codec. I've checked and lame is already reported as installed by apt. Sorry for my newbish question, but could you please advise me on how I can configure ffmpeg to use it? (or if I'm just going about using it wrong perhaps!) Thank you as always for your awesome work on this distro.
Output for reference:
I'm still using MacBuntu 12.04 on my iMac G5 and loving it. Had a question for you about the updated ffmpeg version that you have in the first post. I am using that, and trying to convert an mp4 video to mp3 audio, but I'm getting an error that libmp3lame is an unknown codec. I've checked and lame is already reported as installed by apt. Sorry for my newbish question, but could you please advise me on how I can configure ffmpeg to use it? (or if I'm just going about using it wrong perhaps!) Thank you as always for your awesome work on this distro. Output for reference:
Code:
user@imacg5:~/Desktop/Leonard Fletcher$ ffmpeg -i videoplayback -vn -acodec libmp3lame -ac 2 -ab 160k -ar 48000 c.mp3
WARNING: gnome-keyring:: couldn't connect to: /tmp/keyring-hNEone/pkcs11: No such file or directory
ffmpeg version 4.1.5 Copyright (c) 2000-2020 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 4.6 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.4-1ubuntu1~12.04)
configuration: --enable-gnutls --prefix=/usr
libavutil 56. 22.100 / 56. 22.100
libavcodec 58. 35.100 / 58. 35.100
libavformat 58. 20.100 / 58. 20.100
libavdevice 58. 5.100 / 58. 5.100
libavfilter 7. 40.101 / 7. 40.101
libswscale 5. 3.100 / 5. 3.100
libswresample 3. 3.100 / 3. 3.100
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'videoplayback':
Metadata:
major_brand : mp42
minor_version : 0
compatible_brands: isommp42
creation_time : 2020-09-25T12:34:13.000000Z
Duration: 01:28:37.90, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 333 kb/s
Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 640x360 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 234 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 15360 tbn, 60 tbc (default)
Metadata:
creation_time : 2020-09-25T12:34:13.000000Z
handler_name : ISO Media file produced by Google Inc. Created on: 09/25/2020.
Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 96 kb/s (default)
Metadata:
creation_time : 2020-09-25T12:34:13.000000Z
handler_name : ISO Media file produced by Google Inc. Created on: 09/25/2020.
Unknown encoder 'libmp3lame'
user@imacg5:~/Desktop/Leonard Fletcher$ sudo apt-get install lame
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
lame is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 4 not upgraded.Glad you're still enjoying it. As for ffmpeg... not sure how... but it looks like it built without lame/mp3. If you run: ffmpeg -encoders you'll get a list of all audio and video encoders built in. Not sure if you could use another encoder for what you want, but some popular ones listed are: aac, ac3, flac, mp2, opus, wav and vorbis.
I just tried with a mp4 video and converted to wav with this command:
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 audio.wav
then i used lame to convert the wav to mp3
lame -b 256 audio.wav audio.mp3
It's an extra step compared to having ffmpeg do it all, but this still does the trick.
Cheers
I just tried with a mp4 video and converted to wav with this command:
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 audio.wav
then i used lame to convert the wav to mp3
lame -b 256 audio.wav audio.mp3
It's an extra step compared to having ffmpeg do it all, but this still does the trick.
Cheers
Thank you for the advice! The two step approach works fine for no more than I need. If I get tired of doing it in two steps, I’ll just write a little script to handle it. I know this is a little dumb, but I didn’t realize lame could be used on its own. Thank you!
So something strange happened today....
I fired up my powerbook g4 running 12.04 remix and was tinkering around when the update notifier kicked in. 12.04 EOL'd in 2017 and i had already run all the post install updates months ago. So i closed out of that and ran sudo apt-get update in the terminal so i could see these updates. Low and behond... there were a bunch of new security updates AND a new 3.2 kernel dated April 5 2021!
matt@powerbook:~$ uname -a
Linux powerbook 3.2.0-150-powerpc-smp #197-Ubuntu SMP Mon Apr 5 22:25:58 UTC 2021 ppc ppc ppc GNU/Linux
What is going on? Did my remix get ubuntu to notice their 12.04 repos where getting a lot of use in the last year? Did one of ubuntu's ppc maintainers just kick out some updates for fun? I guess we'll never know, but hey, i'm not complaining!
So anyway, if you are using 12.04 yet, install these bonus updates.
Cheers
I fired up my powerbook g4 running 12.04 remix and was tinkering around when the update notifier kicked in. 12.04 EOL'd in 2017 and i had already run all the post install updates months ago. So i closed out of that and ran sudo apt-get update in the terminal so i could see these updates. Low and behond... there were a bunch of new security updates AND a new 3.2 kernel dated April 5 2021!
matt@powerbook:~$ uname -a
Linux powerbook 3.2.0-150-powerpc-smp #197-Ubuntu SMP Mon Apr 5 22:25:58 UTC 2021 ppc ppc ppc GNU/Linux
What is going on? Did my remix get ubuntu to notice their 12.04 repos where getting a lot of use in the last year? Did one of ubuntu's ppc maintainers just kick out some updates for fun? I guess we'll never know, but hey, i'm not complaining!
So anyway, if you are using 12.04 yet, install these bonus updates.
Cheers
Speaking of end of life, considering that 16.04 has also hit its own, are there any real advantages using it over 12.04 at this point?So something strange happened today....
I fired up my powerbook g4 running 12.04 remix and was tinkering around when the update notifier kicked in. 12.04 EOL'd in 2017 and i had already run all the post install updates months ago. So i closed out of that and ran sudo apt-get update in the terminal so i could see these updates. Low and behond... there were a bunch of new security updates AND a new 3.2 kernel dated April 5 2021!
matt@powerbook:~$ uname -a
Linux powerbook 3.2.0-150-powerpc-smp #197-Ubuntu SMP Mon Apr 5 22:25:58 UTC 2021 ppc ppc ppc GNU/Linux
What is going on? Did my remix get ubuntu to notice their 12.04 repos where getting a lot of use in the last year? Did one of ubuntu's ppc maintainers just kick out some updates for fun? I guess we'll never know, but hey, i'm not complaining!
So anyway, if you are using 12.04 yet, install these bonus updates.
Cheers
Other than some newer software versions, no, not really. I mean open office on 12.04 is 3.x vs on 16.04 its 6.2. Otherwise the browsers are the same and 12 can do everything 16 can do (and is generally faster). I don't use 16.04 at all. It's on a drive for testing stuff, otherwise the PB and G5's run 12 remix.
Cheers
Cheers
You know, I had a feeling this was the case. Digging around, it was pretty obvious that Ubuntu had given up most support for the 32-bit PowerPC version long before it was actually EOL, but now we can actually compare the two on pretty much equal footing. Considering that it sounds like the older kernel has better support for the hardware, and the older version has a smaller footprint, and we can use the same browsers, it's really hard to make the case for 16.04 now, but I wanted to hear it from you all the same.
I noticed that the other day as well, but I put those packages on hold in apt, because I'm using the 4.19.113 kernel that you package with MacBuntu on my G5. Do you think it would be better to swap back to the 3.x kernel and install those updates?So something strange happened today....
I fired up my powerbook g4 running 12.04 remix and was tinkering around when the update notifier kicked in. 12.04 EOL'd in 2017 and i had already run all the post install updates months ago. So i closed out of that and ran sudo apt-get update in the terminal so i could see these updates. Low and behond... there were a bunch of new security updates AND a new 3.2 kernel dated April 5 2021!
matt@powerbook:~$ uname -a
Linux powerbook 3.2.0-150-powerpc-smp #197-Ubuntu SMP Mon Apr 5 22:25:58 UTC 2021 ppc ppc ppc GNU/Linux
What is going on? Did my remix get ubuntu to notice their 12.04 repos where getting a lot of use in the last year? Did one of ubuntu's ppc maintainers just kick out some updates for fun? I guess we'll never know, but hey, i'm not complaining!
So anyway, if you are using 12.04 yet, install these bonus updates.
Cheers