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swamprock

macrumors 65816
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Aug 2, 2015
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867mhz TiBook tested. Everything installed the same as my iBook (and other installs). No real difference between this install and other working installs that I've done, with the exception of the older trackpad (so, no gestures). Performance seems on par with my 1.33ghz iBook; most likely due to the L3 cache. Full speed 360p video via mpv, with about 60% CPU utilization. The orb next to the power symbol on the dock (which is Plank) is a CPU usage meter widget that changes size and color as more and more CPU is used. In the second screenshot, you can see that it's yellow, and I'm running mpv, hardinfo, xterm, and Midori. Checking the usage before taking the screenshot, we're at about 67% with these items running. Not too shabby for an old TiBook.

Screenshots. I themed this very similar to my iBook...

tibook1.png


tibook2.png
 

swamprock

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Mmmm... Very very very interesting as the Tibook is one of the oldest portable g4 powerpc Macs around. What about gpu? How many fps you get by glxgears?

60 fps. Hardware acceleration works great once firmware-linux-non-free is installed. Agp mode is still unstable, so radeon.agpmode=-1 still has to be appended to keep things from crashing, but there's no longer a need to downgrade mesa.

Nvidia acceleration even works on those Macs that have those GPUs.

The older TiBooks with the 1152x768 resolution will most likely need that resolution appended in yaboot.conf to get a useable display. I remember having issues with Jessie that required the resolution to be configured manually.
 
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pochopsp

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Apr 6, 2016
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Napoli, city of sun and pizza!
I thought it should be at least 700-800 fps to say that gpu hw acceleration is working. I remember that when I got from 40 to 60 fps even basic games like Tetris or others didn't work well ...
 
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heyimquinn

macrumors newbie
Jun 19, 2017
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I thought it should be at least 700-800 fps to say that gpu hw acceleration is working. I remember that when I got from 40 to 60 fps even basic games like Tetris or others didn't work well ...

It usually gets capped at the refresh rate so it's ~60FPS. I doubt the results would be much better with VSync disabled, in my tests an iBook G4 usually didn't reach much more than 60 but my memory might fail me here.
 

swamprock

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Aug 2, 2015
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It usually gets capped at the refresh rate so it's ~60FPS. I doubt the results would be much better with VSync disabled, in my tests an iBook G4 usually didn't reach much more than 60 but my memory might fail me here.

Yeah, I didn't disable vsync.
 

swamprock

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See post #3 for the link to the mini-iso. I didn't connect any of my machines to the internet since none of the repos that the mini-iso sets up even work. Just skip choosing a repo and you'll end up installing a very minimal base system. Reboot, log in as root, then nano /etc/apt/sources.list and reenable the CDROM. Install sudo. Run visudo and add your user name to the list to have full sudo access. Log out of root and log in with your user name. You then have to somehow get the debian-ports-key package to your new install, and use dkpg to install it. I used internet sharing on my MBP and used scp and just copied it over (after downloading it from the ports repo). See post #8. Once the key is installed, you can then add the ports repos, apt update, and start building your system. I've outlined what and how to do all of this in previous posts in this thread. PPCLuddite's Debian install guide is a huge help as well, although there have been some changes, so some of the packages are either not available or have been depreciated (such as alsa-base, which is no longer needed in conjunction with alsa-utils). If you need to have access to network shares, see post #37 and install the package linked there BEFORE installing gvfs and a file/desktop manager.

For wifi, you'll have to install wget and bzip2, then (once again) download and copy over b43-fwcutter and firmware-b43-installer and install them using dkpg. You can always wget the debs from your install if you can find a link to them. This picture shows why you need to grab the older versions of these packages (the Jessie builds work just fine):

b43_dep.png


(I need to add 'tibook' to my new hosts file to fix the error above. Oops.)

As you can see, the package versions are different, so there will be dependancy issues if you try to install the broadcom drivers from unstable.

See post #13 for info on how to enable the non-free archive to install firmware-linux-nonfree. This step is a MUST if you want a usable, non-text DE.

See post #50 for a working PowerPC battery indicator for panels.

You're starting completely from scratch here by using this method (although not as 'from scratch' as Gentoo), so it'll take a lot of patience and trial-and-error. If you can wait, Adrian (who largely maintains this port) is putting together new install CD images in the next couple of weeks.
 
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z970

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Jun 2, 2017
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Can anyone tell me why Plank is such a popular dock choice? Docky, although based on Plank, seems to be much prettier, more customizable, and better tuned. I can't understand why the application gets as little praise as it does.

Much appreciated.
 

swamprock

macrumors 65816
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Aug 2, 2015
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Can anyone tell me why Plank is such a popular dock choice? Docky, although based on Plank, seems to be much prettier, more customizable, and better tuned. I can't understand why the application gets as little praise as it does.

Much appreciated.

No reason here, really. I just tried it once, after suffering through the horror that was Cairo-Dock, and it was simple enough that I kept using it. It was really easy to compile for Jessie as well...
 

z970

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Jun 2, 2017
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No reason here, really. I just tried it once, after suffering through the horror that was Cairo-Dock, and it was simple enough that I kept using it. It was really easy to compile for Jessie as well...

Well, I'd give it some attention. The way the icons sit on Docky look much more natural in comparison to Plank, and it has a feel far closer to the Dock in OS X. Not to mention, you can make it look like Tiger's dock, Leopard's dock, Mountain Lion's dock, and more.

I believe there's a reason it's called "The best dock no money can buy" in GNOME Software.
[doublepost=1534354723][/doublepost]
I only have 4.7 Gb Sony DVDs. It should be a real waste of money for a 389 mb Iso, but it seems to be worth it.

If you're only going to use DVDs, I'd wait until those aforementioned new and improved images are released in the next few weeks.

Then, take the (hopefully worth it) plunge into WastedDiscSpace Land.
 
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Traace

macrumors regular
Jul 21, 2018
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Germany
Seems this PM G4 867 MDD is finally stable. Debian install soon :)

First I tried FSB at 166.66Mhz , but the system always freezed :( Okay down to 5x multiplier = 833Mhz still freeze.

Ended up with keeping FSB at 133.33Mhz, but running multiplier with crazy 8x (stock is 6.5x)
now = 1067Mhz per Core
(Temp idle = 58-60°C | 136.4-140°F) - (Temp load = 60-61.8*C | 140-143.2°F)
My OC Code is
PLL_EXT+PLL[0-3] (CPU)
0=Closed
1=Open
01100
FSB (CPU)
R27=1
R22=0
R26=0

Cooling is done via a rare Verax'd Silence fan kit with airtunnel and heatsink, its not louder than a powerbook.
https://www.math.uzh.ch/doc/cd/ctplusrom03/html/03/09/070/pic01.jpg (not my picture!)
 
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swamprock

macrumors 65816
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Aug 2, 2015
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Very excited about the upcoming ISO. Wondering if suspend / resume and hibernation works on your install?

Hibernation works fine. Suspend is still broken with Radeon cards, most likely due to having to switch off AGP mode (radeon.agpmode=-1) to keep things stable. Not sure about Nvidia chips. My next machine to run tests on is the 1.25ghz iMac G4 with the Nvidia Geforce 5200.
 
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z970

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Jun 2, 2017
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Hibernation works fine. Suspend is still broken with Radeon cards, most likely due to having to switch off AGP mode (radeon.agpmode=-1) to keep things stable. Not sure about Nvidia chips. My next machine to run tests on is the 1.25ghz iMac G4 with the Nvidia Geforce 5200.

I can confirm both are still broken on the G5.

Anybody else want to chime in?
 

swamprock

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 2, 2015
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Michigan
Suspend is broken on machines with Nvidia chips; at least on my iMac G4 1.25ghz. No screenshots for that install, as it was pretty uneventful compared to my other installs. It works fine with the same amount of work I've put into my other installs. Video in browsers still has the blue hue issue. I'm convinced it's a combination gstreamer/big endian issue that a smart programmer could possibly fix, but I can't be sure with the limited knowledge I have. Both Radeon and Nvidia chipsets exhibit the same behaviour, so I'm not convinced it's a mesa problem anymore, but as I said, what do I know?

Gimp is completely borked in sid, but I managed to compile the latest RC from source. It runs fine, if a bit slow, but Gimp was always slow on PowerPC-

gimp1.png


gimp2.png
 
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Traace

macrumors regular
Jul 21, 2018
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I'm having this G4 running with ATi FireGL X3 reflash, its drivers and xorg + openbox and lxde on debian sid. Works :)

Just to test if firefox-esr from debian-ports is able to download a picture. Guess what, crashing with segmentation fault again, same as on G5. Crazy debian ^^
 
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z970

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Jun 2, 2017
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I'm having this G4 running with ATi FireGL X3 reflash, its drivers and xorg + openbox and lxde on debian sid. Works :)

Just to test if firefox-esr from debian-ports is able to download a picture. Guess what, crashing with segmentation fault again, same as on G5. Crazy debian ^^

No, crazy Sid. There's a reason why they call it 'unstable'.

This almost makes Jessie look better.
 
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pochopsp

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Apr 6, 2016
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Napoli, city of sun and pizza!
Yes, you can setup sources.list to use CD/DVD as package sources. Or even USB, Firewire I guess.
That is true but the mini iso we are talking about is 389mb.. so I will have only the base-packages and few others... In order to get a working installation I should connect to a repository, and to do so I need a working internet connection..
 
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Traace

macrumors regular
Jul 21, 2018
151
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Germany
That is true but the mini iso we are talking about is 389mb.. so I will have only the base-packages and few others... In order to get a working installation I should connect to a repository, and to do so I need a working internet connection..

I dont talk about the mini iso, I talk about creating a repository by hand with cherry-picked deb files and burning that to a CD/USB/whatever...
 

LightBulbFun

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Nov 17, 2013
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London UK
I'm having this G4 running with ATi FireGL X3 reflash, its drivers and xorg + openbox and lxde on debian sid. Works :)

Just to test if firefox-esr from debian-ports is able to download a picture. Guess what, crashing with segmentation fault again, same as on G5. Crazy debian ^^

the FireGL X3 works now?!

where there any specific steps you had to do apart from the non free and radeon.agp stuff?

also can you post a glxinfo -B output please? :) (note the capital B)
 
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