Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
{UPDATED} DEBIAN/UBUNTU on Powerbook G4 12" Nvidia FX5200
- Thread starter Lastic
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
A short summary of today's installs :
Debian Jessie 8.5.0 on Powerbook G4 12" 1,5 Ghz, 1.25 GB RAM , SSD
This one has the older kernel and nouveau so no mesa 3D acceleration.
Here I was able to use the brilliant work of Tito910 who supplied a nouveau.ko ( #19 ) that makes screen backlight control
possible and even with the F1 , F2 keys , he has supplied his patches to the bug lists
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31122 , let's hope it gets incorporated.
I'm planning to do a Lubuntu 16.04 LTS install on all 3 machines tomorrow to make one final comparison and edit my first post but for the moment the leanest solution ticking off all my criteria is Debian Testing .
Tito910 , as suspected the nouveau.ko only worked under Debian Testing, if you would have the time to elaborate on how the less Linux experience people can patch nouveau under the various OS'ses mentioned ? Thanks upfront for your work and time.
Debian Jessie 8.5.0 on Powerbook G4 12" 1,5 Ghz, 1.25 GB RAM , SSD
This one has the older kernel and nouveau so no mesa 3D acceleration.
- Youtube HTML playback under Firefox just doesn't load
- Youtube HTML 360p playback under Xombrero/Midori also goes to 90% CPU so my previous assumption that mesa was the CPU culprit isn't viable, HTML playback just uses a lot of CPU
- MPV plays X265 and X264 480p video files with no stuttering even on fullscreen, CPU usage varies between 65-90 %
- There is no touchpad settings, and the touchpad works but is super sensitive , right-click works
Here I was able to use the brilliant work of Tito910 who supplied a nouveau.ko ( #19 ) that makes screen backlight control
possible and even with the F1 , F2 keys , he has supplied his patches to the bug lists
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31122 , let's hope it gets incorporated.
- Same conclusions as above
- Same conclusions as above except that the touchpad is a bit slower but more usable and has a seperate settings panel
I'm planning to do a Lubuntu 16.04 LTS install on all 3 machines tomorrow to make one final comparison and edit my first post but for the moment the leanest solution ticking off all my criteria is Debian Testing .
Tito910 , as suspected the nouveau.ko only worked under Debian Testing, if you would have the time to elaborate on how the less Linux experience people can patch nouveau under the various OS'ses mentioned ? Thanks upfront for your work and time.
Well basically you need to download the linux kernel source, apply the two patches, then recompile the nouveau module and install it.
run these all as root.
download the two patch files attached to this post
use the "patch" command to apply the two files -- patch (target file) (patch file)
press enter at all the prompts, doesn't matter
ubuntu users may need to do this as well
reboot and cross your fingers.
run these all as root.
download the two patch files attached to this post
Code:
apt-get install linux-source build-essential libssl-dev
cd /usr/src/linux-source-(version)/
tar -xjf (linux-source compressed file)
cd linux-source-(version)/drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau
Code:
cd /usr/src/linux-source-(version)/linux-source-(version)
make oldconfig
Code:
make prepare
make scripts
cp /usr/src/linux-headers-(version)-powerpc/Module.symvers .
cp /usr/src/linux-headers-(version)-powerpc/arch/powerpc/lib/crtsavres.o arch/powerpc/lib/
make SUBDIRS=drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau modules
cp /lib/modules/(kernel version)-powerpc/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau.ko ~/nouveau.ko.backup
cp drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau.ko /lib/modules/(kernel version)-powerpc/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau.ko
depmod
Code:
update-initramfs -u
Last edited:
Thanks for your excellent guide, just found one cp statement where the directory was wrong as I've indicated.
I've succesfully compiled nouveau.ko on Ubuntu Mate 16.04.1 LTS using your instructions and it works perfectly.
I will edit my first post and add both nouveau.ko files for Debian Testing and Ubuntu Matte 16.0.4.1 in attachment so other people don't have to compile them if they feel as it being too much of a hassle.
Reinstalled Debian Testing on the IDE SSD + Newertech Battery equipped PB 12" G4 1,5Ghz .
I succesfully compiled nouveau.ko using Tito910's patches and I tested Hibernate and it works perfect.
( I've attached it to the first post so you don't need to compile it )
Xombrero however no longer works , must be something in the order I did my install ?
Some screenshots , 35 HOURS battery life , yeah baby
Running Debian Jessie i386 via Qemu 2.6.0 with 512mb allocated , Firefox ESR (45.0.2)
![Screenshot at 2016-08-11 21-53-35.png]( "Screenshot at 2016-08-11 21-53-35.png")
Same screenshot after hibernation , still running on battery with more realistic battery remaining times
![Screenshot at 2016-08-11 21-59-58.png]( "Screenshot at 2016-08-11 21-59-58.png")
I succesfully compiled nouveau.ko using Tito910's patches and I tested Hibernate and it works perfect.
( I've attached it to the first post so you don't need to compile it )
Xombrero however no longer works , must be something in the order I did my install ?
Some screenshots , 35 HOURS battery life , yeah baby
Running Debian Jessie i386 via Qemu 2.6.0 with 512mb allocated , Firefox ESR (45.0.2)
Same screenshot after hibernation , still running on battery with more realistic battery remaining times
Reinstalled Debian Testing on the IDE SSD + Newertech Battery equipped PB 12" G4 1,5Ghz .
I succesfully compiled nouveau.ko using Tito910's patches and I tested Hibernate and it works perfect.
( I've attached it to the first post so you don't need to compile it )
Xombrero however no longer works , must be something in the order I did my install ?
Some screenshots , 35 HOURS battery life , yeah baby
Running Debian Jessie i386 via Qemu 2.6.0 with 512mb allocated , Firefox ESR (45.0.2)
View attachment 644519
Same screenshot after hibernation , still running on battery with more realistic battery remaining times
View attachment 644520
This is great! Good work on getting it to run so well. Do you know if QupZilla works on your tweaked system? It's my preferred lightweight browser.
I've just installed Qupzilla again on my currently heavily tweaked Debian Testing install but Youtube HTML5 playback doesn't give me audio and video plays but no fluent.
I'm guesing i'm missing gstreamer-plugins or my installs of installs of previous browsers screwed things up.
For ex. Midori worked up to now until I installed Qupzilla , now it won't start anymore.
I'm guessing there is a conflict in the webkit or qt or plugin libraries .
Currently I was still trying to get the touchpad to work like on Ubuntu Mate 16.04.1 and to get suspend to work.
Debian Testing has suspend and hibernate , hibernate works perfectly, suspend I got to work but it won't wake up
so I might have to tweak swap space, Light Locker but I'm going to start from a clean slate and reinstall Debian Testing on this one this weekend.
In the meantime I can check the other machines who still got Debian Testing and Ubuntu Mate
I'm guesing i'm missing gstreamer-plugins or my installs of installs of previous browsers screwed things up.
For ex. Midori worked up to now until I installed Qupzilla , now it won't start anymore.
I'm guessing there is a conflict in the webkit or qt or plugin libraries .
Currently I was still trying to get the touchpad to work like on Ubuntu Mate 16.04.1 and to get suspend to work.
Debian Testing has suspend and hibernate , hibernate works perfectly, suspend I got to work but it won't wake up
so I might have to tweak swap space, Light Locker but I'm going to start from a clean slate and reinstall Debian Testing on this one this weekend.
In the meantime I can check the other machines who still got Debian Testing and Ubuntu Mate
I've just installed Qupzilla again on my currently heavily tweaked Debian Testing install but Youtube HTML5 playback doesn't give me audio and video plays but no fluent.
I'm guesing i'm missing gstreamer-plugins or my installs of installs of previous browsers screwed things up.
For ex. Midori worked up to now until I installed Qupzilla , now it won't start anymore.
I'm guessing there is a conflict in the webkit or qt or plugin libraries .
Currently I was still trying to get the touchpad to work like on Ubuntu Mate 16.04.1 and to get suspend to work.
Debian Testing has suspend and hibernate , hibernate works perfectly, suspend I got to work but it won't wake up
so I might have to tweak swap space, Light Locker but I'm going to start from a clean slate and reinstall Debian Testing on this one this weekend.
In the meantime I can check the other machines who still got Debian Testing and Ubuntu Mate
That's too bad, but at least there's quite a bit of progress and much potential with the new kernel. Hopefully by the time it's ready for prime time it'll have a bit better support with less bugs.
Can anyone help me with booting my 12 inch PB from USB?
My 17" boots fine form USB, using the following from OpenFirmware:
However, my 12 inch PB just refuses to boot, it boots to the 'no entry' logo.
I've tried different variations, such as:
Which either result in the 'no entry' logo or a Can't open device or file message.
The specific device is a PowerBook 6,4, and according to OF it has BootROM version 4.8.3f1. Not sure if there is an update?
My 17" boots fine form USB, using the following from OpenFirmware:
Code:
boot ud:,\\:tbxiHowever, my 12 inch PB just refuses to boot, it boots to the 'no entry' logo.
I've tried different variations, such as:
Code:
boot usb1/disk@1:,\\:tbxi
boot /pci@f2000000/usb1b,1/disk@1:,\\:tbxi
etc...Which either result in the 'no entry' logo or a Can't open device or file message.
The specific device is a PowerBook 6,4, and according to OF it has BootROM version 4.8.3f1. Not sure if there is an update?
To my knowledge you cannot boot from an USB device from a 12" Powerbook but maybe certain BootROM versions allow it ? I'm on a Powerbook 6,8 so there might be a difference in models also ?
[doublepost=1471461131][/doublepost]
I've expanded my swap area from 3 GB to 7 up to 10 GB on 2 models because I read that this might be the cause of suspend not working but no luck , installed pm-utils , tried pm-suspend ,nothing happens.
If I suspend using the Power Down menu, it just freezes, might have to look at kernel configs.
Anybody else got a clue ? Hibernate works flawlessly.
Back on topic, I reinstalled Debian Testing, Desktop Environment, Mate, SSH Server, Standard system utilities and only
Qupzilla will start but again no audio , only HTML5 video , Xombrero and Midori just crash with a segmentation fault.
On the 1,33Ghz model, I must have installed Debian Testing console only and then installed Xorg, Mate , Xombrero afterwards ( not during the install ) because on that model Xombrero still works but no Youtube audio , aargh ... but Midori crashes and Qupzilla can't install from the regular sources.
Think I'm going to focus on Ubuntu Mate for now. But first reinstalled OS X Leopard on one machine to finally check TFF Beta.
And another feedback post.
This morning I took my Powerbook G4 , 12" 1,5Ghz , HDD with me on my daily train commute .
I started Ubuntu Mate 16.04.1 , had to increase brightness to approx 1/3 , ran MPV to play an 480p X264 MP4 episode from an USB 3.0 stick ( well 2.0 since the port is 2.0 ) in Windowed about 1/4 size of the screen whilst running top in a another Terminal window.
CPU usage runs to 46-51% , everytime I switched to another tab in Terminal or back to the MPV window, fans kicked in but then calmed down almost immediately, video and audio playback were smooth.
RAM used approx 200 Mb.
Then I booted OS X Leopard and did the same thing with Coreplayer , CPU usage is approx the same,I do get glitches
when there is fast action or titles fading in and out during the video , fans never kick in , RAM usage also around 200 Mb,
same brightness, Power scheme to Better Battery life .
This evening I will do the same in OS X Leopard with MPV (which I compiled using macports ) and post the results.
This morning I took my Powerbook G4 , 12" 1,5Ghz , HDD with me on my daily train commute .
I started Ubuntu Mate 16.04.1 , had to increase brightness to approx 1/3 , ran MPV to play an 480p X264 MP4 episode from an USB 3.0 stick ( well 2.0 since the port is 2.0 ) in Windowed about 1/4 size of the screen whilst running top in a another Terminal window.
CPU usage runs to 46-51% , everytime I switched to another tab in Terminal or back to the MPV window, fans kicked in but then calmed down almost immediately, video and audio playback were smooth.
RAM used approx 200 Mb.
Then I booted OS X Leopard and did the same thing with Coreplayer , CPU usage is approx the same,I do get glitches
when there is fast action or titles fading in and out during the video , fans never kick in , RAM usage also around 200 Mb,
same brightness, Power scheme to Better Battery life .
This evening I will do the same in OS X Leopard with MPV (which I compiled using macports ) and post the results.
Was the Ubuntu test similarly CPU clocked down?
Looking forward to seeing how MPV shapes up.
I've just brought my old Asus eee pc 900 Netbook back to life - 1.6 Atom running MicroXP, 360P video runs at 18% and 720P at 35% with Mplayer.
Good point, CPU Freq in Ubuntu was on "Ondemand", not sure how "Better Battery Life" in OS X translates to the CPU Freq options , Governance, Ondemand, Performance, Powersave ?
To be fair , I'll compare again with the Powerbook on the Charger and the battery fully charged, CPU Freq on Performance and OS X Better Perfomance.
Actually thought I had MPV installed under OS X via macports but turned out to be mplayer which didn't work at all, have to check my last OS X backup again , spent a bit too much time in Linux
[doublepost=1471676387][/doublepost]
If you want to try it out, I would suggest Ubuntu Mate 16.04.1 with the compiled nouveau kernel module.
Touchpad is usable but I still have to look to finetune it with pbbuttons, has all the software and runs fine almost out of the eurm disk/iso with the few config changes in the 1st post .
Huh, my Powerbook G4 15" (Powerbook5,4) has this same issue. When I boot it into OpenFirmware, it doesn't detect any USB flash drive at all, and I've tried all those same things. I've even tried a flash drive with a little activity light on it; it didn't even turn on
. The only workaround I have is just burning discs, but that's rather wasteful, especially without the rewritable kinds.You could try netboot. Although it might be easier to just burn cds than taking the time to set it upHuh, my Powerbook G4 15" (Powerbook5,4) has this same issue. When I boot it into OpenFirmware, it doesn't detect any USB flash drive at all, and I've tried all those same things. I've even tried a flash drive with a little activity light on it; it didn't even turn on
Did you add i2c-dev to your /etc/modules ? Also you might check CPU Freq if it's on Ondemand or Governance , I've found both these options give you a good mix on performance vs fan throttle. Did you install Ubuntu Mate ?
Yes, and I've been wrestling with the desktop. It seems very demanding, so I tried XFCE, but it doesn't boot to a desktop anymore. Welp. I'll mess with the CPU stuff. I added i2c-dev to /etc/modules. I had most stuff working, albiet very slowly.
I have the same model with same amount of RAM. It runs the Lubuntu 16.04 live disk fine and is very snappy - maybe because it's working from a RAM disk?
The fans do rev up at every given chance though. I'm tempted to do the install but I have a bad sector on the drive (currently isolated with some OSX trickery) so don't want to risk it.
Ok, I'll try Lubuntu, because mate is SLOW. Just doing anything is a pain. I have no idea how people are even browsing the web with it.
It seemed so easy on my PB I've just tried it on my Quad. Firefox refused to play HTML5 video in Youtube but using Greasemonkey/Viewtube plugin - 360P, 720P & 1080P playback is perfect - 2K works but drops frames.
Tried Gnome player playing a 720P h264 file over a full screen 1080P mkv at the same time - CPU just under 37% - the urge to switch now might be too tempting!