Void Linux for PowerPC

[MacMaverick855]

I have Sorbet Leopard installed on a separate HD and it runs flawlessly and looks fabulous. I've had other OS X versions on the HD I'm now using for linux and they worked as well. My biggest problem has been this G5's inability to boot from a USB drive. The only way I was able to (attempt) an install of Adelie was by dding the latest Adelie distro to a powered usb hub/drive and inserting a CD of Adelie. I would "option" into the CD, boot the CD because the usb didn't appear in S/U disk list, and after a few minutes the LIVE session would boot from the USB. I know it sounds weird but "it's only weird if it doesn't work". I had to do the same thing with Void.

Anyway, I've just used your Debian 10 Remix ISO and am at the point where I've updated all the soource lists, rebooted and have install a ton of files. The linux nonfree firmware thing didn't work, butI suddenly got a screen asking what Display manager I wanted (lightdm or lxdm) I chose lightdm, got an error 'while loading shared libraries libcrypt.so1 and sub process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error. The prompt is now:

root@debiang5:/home/macmav#

I'm going to reboot to see if anything took.

(I've seen so many instructions about booting usbs with "ud" from the dev alias, but this G5 doesn't present a ud anywhere hence my frustration at being able to install Debian/Ubuntu/Void/Fienix/OpenBSD. That and the Radeon 9600 GPU)

Anyway, hope this at least this next maneuver gets me to a graphical log in screen!!!

So much fun putting this thing through it's paces.

MacMav

Update: Well, I did something wrong, neither root nor my username, when entered at the tty login, work. I'm told the login is incorrect, and I am never given an opportunity to enter a password. Wow, just wow.

 

[MacMaverick855]

Hmm. Ok. Silly question.... Does os x work on said machine? Intermittent working boots of a live disk make me think there is a hardware issue. Maybe bad ram, bad gfx card, cold solder joints for ram and or agp port. There really is no other reason that at least 1 of the distros doesnt work. That gfx card is very well supported on ppc linux. I have one and its always worked with Debian/Ubuntu/Void/Fienix/OpenBSD.

I have Sorbet Leopard on a separate hard drive on this machine and it’s beautiful. It’s very snappy. I had other distros and OS X versions on this machine, MacBuntu, tried 16.04 but no go. Adelie booted to a purple desktop but worked, follow up installs failed in my attempt to get better color. The live version looked and operated just fine. Void tried to install, I actually got a login screen but it wouldn’t respond to the keyboard. The mouse moved round but couldn’t select anything. My attempt at Debian flamed because I think the sources/repos are too old or the key I have is wrong, pick something, the install results were miserable.

What’s weird is I have two G4s (Quicksilver and MDD) and they both have linux distros installed and they went rather well. In fact the MDD has OS9, Tiger, Sorbet, Ubuntu 16.04 MATE and Lubuntu Remix 16.04 installed.

If I could figure out why this G5 refuses to boot a powered or unpowered usb drive and fix whatever it is that keeps it from doing so, I’d have more opportunities to try things like Feinix, Adelien and Void with more success than I’ve had. If there is anything “failing” on this G5 I’d say it might be the DVD/CD RW SuperDrive. It read some DVDs and all CDs so, any distro that fits on a 700MB CD would be fair game.

I’ve stopped messing about tonight, but I am going to try to install Macbuntu Remix 12.04 tomorrow and call it done. I really wanted to get as late of a distro on the G5 because, well, it could (should) run Feinix, Adelie and Void. I just haven’t had any of the installs work.

Have a great night!!
MacMaverick855

 

[MacMaverick855]

I worked in the nuclear industry for 25 years, double redundancy is burned into my psychie. Sorry for the double post.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

You're really stubborn guy, this is good . Are you absolutely sure your hardware is OK? M.b. try to run Apple hardware test for several times?

 

[MacMaverick855]

You're really stubborn guy, this is good . Are you absolutely sure your hardware is OK? M.b. try to run Apple hardware test for several times?

Why yes, yes I am!. @wicknix So, I decided to give Void another shot. This time I went with the network base system install. xbps-install is a new software package system to learn, so far, I've started loading kde5 (plasma). It looks like it's installing...and it's done. 445 packages installed. So what next? My first guess is to just reboot and hope everything works but I've come across all sorts of discussions about modesetting and Xorg. Checking the /etc directory I see NO X11. Guess I'll try to install it. HA! found it, well anyway, I'm installing xorg, not X11, not Xorg, but xorg. Wow.

My biggest concern, and I have many, is that the keyboard and mouse won't work, should I boot into an actual login screen...that works.

Other than my being stubborn, I'll take recommendations on what might need to be done next. xorg installed 86 packages

Well, here we go!!!!
PS: https://forums.macrumors.com/members/tratkazir_the_1st.1206361/, I tried to find a way to do a hardware test, sadly, I was never able to find a .dmg for a PowerPC 7,3 G5 and this computer has been messed with so much there is no hstorical data on it, nor do I have the disks that came with it. Oh well

MacMav

Update: IT WORKED!!!!!! It booted into a text base screen (tty1), I logged in as root with my established root password , entered sddm at the prompt and BOOM! sddm, with my user name showing , entered my password and ...forgive me but OMG!!! To to run amok in Void setting up all sorts of cool stuff, thank you for all of your help, or at a minimum, encouragement!!!!!

So happy!
MacMaverick855

 

[wicknix]

Congrats. Better hurry and install the packages you want. The void ppc repo could get taken offline any day now. Even the old ppc maintainer doesnt know the exact date as its not his server. Otherwise it really is a nice OS. Install octo-xbps for a gui package installer. Makes finding stuff much easier.

 

[MacMaverick855]

Congrats. Better hurry and install the packages you want. The void ppc repo could get taken offline any day now. Even the old ppc maintainer doesnt know the exact date as its not his server. Otherwise it really is a nice OS. Install octo-xbps for a gui package installer. Makes finding stuff much easier.

Thanks, I read repos were "going away" so yes, I will hurry.

Can't get the G5/Void to see any attached usb drives, sound is still an issue too but I read your earlier post about qasmixer. Work in progress.
octo, not octo-xbps were found in the repo pool, maybe the pool has been drained already (lol)
MM855

 

[wicknix]

Try octoxbps (without the -). I can never remember some of the naming schemes.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

@MacMaverick855
About hardware test - I suppose you need this:
"Apple Hardware Test ( Power Mac) 2.5.2
Apple Hardware Test v 2.5.2PowerMac G5,Power Mac G5 (June 2004 Series),
Power Mac G5 (Late '2004), Power Mac G5 (Early 2005) and Power Mac G5
(Late 2005) 2005-10-19 Diagnostics Power Mac G5 018-2216-A 16.5 MB"

 

[dextructor]

his time I went with the network base system install. xbps-install is a new software package system to learn, so far, I've started loading kde5 (plasma). It looks like it's installing...and it's done. 445 packages installed. So what next? My first guess is to just reboot and hope everything works but...

Congrats on successfully installing Void, but my problem with your post's it's that it looks that you don't take your time to read the docs. (I know that Void don´t have the best wiki/guides available)

Other distros can enable the appropriate services after installing but Void isn´t one of them. So you need to pay attention to that.

Regarding dependencies, if isn´t explicitly hard-depended xbps won´t install for you. An example it's the mpv, many distros shipped youtube-dl (the former and original one), but since isn´t really the core of the program it's up to the user to install or choose of many forks. The same thing applies to dictionaries and other things.

If you install the meta-package it will bring only the bare minimum and you have to install the other components of your choice.

Starting with a hue Desktop Environment like KDE isn´t the best idea because it's more complex, but if you manage to do it, that's great.

Auto-mount USB relies on a service (that I can't remember).

 

[MacMaverick855]

@dextructor , @wicknix , You are correct to a point. I made a bad assumption that Void would be like other (Ubuntu,Lubuntu, not Debian, not Adelie) distros when it came to installing and using. My failures at Adelie did come in very handy when it came to installing Void. I did some (installation guideline, internet, forum) research to get answers to many of my questions. For example, I installed udisk2, using xbps and I now have access to attched usb and DVD/CD drives.

I have sound figured out and have made necessary modifications to /var/services to get the system to run the things I need. I'm stlll researching to see what I may be missing that would help speed up the desktop response.

I haven't worked on wifi yet, that's a low priority, neat to try, thing. I would love to figure out how to drive my Apple Studio Display along with my DVI connected monitor. My "shotgun approach" of just plugging it in had expected results, so I'm sure there is more research needed.

I became very frustrated with the level of "assumed knowledge" needed to navigate the Adelie Instructions, so much so, I drafted my own instructions based on my experiences. Sadly, I was never able to get it to work, so I thought I'd give Void a shot. So far so good. The Void guides are very detailed and have been helpful in getting me through this.

I have enjoyed searching for and installing software I want. For instance, I just realized I don't have a screen saver. Should be fun looking to see what's out there. You'd be surprised at how many music players are out there. Maybe you wouldn't!

Finally, I've go Netsurf, and firefox-esr installed. I'm going to look at Arctic Fox to see If I can get @wicknix 's version installed.

Still learning, but it's been a blast (and probably a little annoying to a few IRC chat sites and forums), but come on, you guys love it!!!!

Thanks a bunch!!!
MacMaverick855

 

[dextructor]

have made necessary modifications to /var/services to get the system to run the things I need.

Usually I'm against modifying the files inside the services because:
A) Can cause serious troubles.
B) Whenever the service it's updated you NEED to modify again.

I discovered this the hard way because on my Thinkpads (T400 and T430) I need thinkfan to properly control the temperatures (thanks to IBM/Lenovo trying to make those devices as silent despite they are hot as hell). And modify the service I did, and worked until the next update and I tried a different approach instead of modifying the service, other files. Other than this specific scenario I never needed to modify any service, just enable.

Usually you need to keep an eye on the "etc/sv" folder and if the service must be enabled just do an smlink to " ¨
"var/service", and forget about it.

I haven't worked on wifi yet, that's a low priority

On all my "wifi capable" PPC hardware (iMac G5 ISight, PowerBook G4 DSLD) I did installed without problems the driver following the official docummentation. Just identify what are the model according to the instructions and be happy.

I'm going to look at Arctic Fox

Almost any browser official wasn´t good, or have too many bugs/crashes. So the package+instructions from wicknix was a gift. More browsers that I can use. And he ported an updated version of Palemoon as well, but this requires manual installation.

On my custom Void install (Openbox + Polybar) I don´t have yet any screensaver and other things because I don´t need at the moment. I researched and installed what I really need for my daily needs while using my devices. But that's up to you what are your "minimum requirements". When testing my T430 and my PowerBook on an external monitor they worked fine, and with the maximum resolution/refresh rate.

If I needed to change I would use some terminal command that I can´t remember.

The variety of software available on Void (that works) it's what make me stay with the distro.

but come on, you guys love it!!!!

I really love when I finally can use my devices, and specially after properly documenting it, because I don´t know when I gonna need to fix or install again (and help anyone)

 

[MacMaverick855]

@wicknix I installed the Void64 browser package from you Random Mac Stuff web site. So far, Arctic Fox isn't launching but I'm in the process of testing them all so I will revisit it later. This post was made on the G5, running Void and Firefox (but I forget which one).

Big ticket items to work on: Dual Monitor ops, where one monitor is an Apple Studio Display, the other is attached to the DVI port, a good music app, and figuring out how (if at all) I can speed up the responce of the Desktop Environment. I'm currently running KDE-Plasma, and I'm beginning to think it may be too heavy for this machine: Radeon 9600, 4 GB RAM, 2.0 GHz processor.

Pretty excited about the next steps,
MacMaverick855

 

[wicknix]

You may need to install libatomic if AF and IW don't launch.

 

[MacMaverick855]

You may need to install libatomic if AF and IW don't launch.

That did it, thanks!!! And it rocks!!!!

 

[MacMaverick855]

So my experiments with Void continue. Still a little disappointed in the screen response, it's a lot slower than I expected. The mouse continues to only work on the first click, after that I use the arrow keys to navigate the drop down menus, and sometimes even the file windows themselves. Xorg.0.log identifies the Logitech track ball mouse correctly so I'm not sure what the issue is.

The real "issue" is with adding a second (albeit an) Apple Studio Display to the configuration. Against my better judgement, and frustration, I hot plugged the ASD monitor into the GPU. This is what happened:
1) The Apple Monitor remained black but the power light would indicate processor activity similar to the light on the front of the G5.
2) The Display control panel in the Void/KDE Settings/Preferences area showed both monitors connected and correctly identified both of them. I could even arrange the monitors such that when I moved the cursor from the working monitor (DVI port) it would disappear to the blank screen of the Apple Monitor. In other words it knew it was there.
3) I started to tinker with Xorg.conf. There isn't one so I had to generate one using

Xorg :1 -configure

This created a file /root/xorg.conf.new

Oddly this file doesn't look any different whether both monitors are connected or not. Out of curiosity, I decided to run the same command on a (Dell Inspirion) running Ubuntu MATE that has an HDMI TV connected along with the lap top screen, both operating in expanded, not mirror mode. And, except for the video driver (intel) the files for the G5 and the Dell were exactly the same!!!! No indication that there is a second monitor connected. I was hoping to see an Xorg.conf file that would lend a hint on how I might set a working xorg.conf up on the G5. My attempts failed miserably, resulting in the G5 booting to a text screen where I could review the Xorg.0.log file. It would show the issues it was having with my xorg.conf file but I haven't quite figured out what I'm doing wrong and the other system I am running with two monitors doesn't offer any suggestions.

I have a G4 that drives a VGA and DVI (non Apple) set of monitors. It's has two different distros of Linux on two separate hard drives. They are older distros of the Ubuntu 16.04 vintage and may offer some clues.

What I haven't figured out is how monitor operation is done without xorg.conf. I've read enough to understand an xorg.conf file shouldn't be needed to drive two monitors with the latest versions of Xorg, but it seems that is the only option I have.

The card drives both monitors in OS X Sorbet so I know it works. Also, If I try to boot the Void system with both monitors attached, the boot up verbage starts on the Apple monitor, I select the boot Kernel and then the output switches to the DVI monitor but it is extremely garbled.

So, I've got more work and research to do. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

MacMaverick855











0

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

What I haven't figured out is how monitor operation is done without xorg.conf.

You can examine Xorg.0.log more carefully, there have to be some strings about config files loaded. Don't remember exact paths but there are some pieces in /usr/share/X11 or some else places.

 

[wicknix]

The mouse continues to only work on the first click,

There is a long standing bug with recent versions of QT (the toolkit that KDE and other software uses) that hasn't been resolved yet on PPC. Best advise... Don't use KDE or LXQT. Install XFCE or Mate and don't use QT based apps like VLC, anything built for KDE, Midori, Otter-browser, etc. The mouse/menu problem wont be an issue then. Also turn off any compositors like marco/compton/picom etc (usually found in settings / tweaks) to speed up window drawing / dragging. Lord knows why all these DE's enable them by default is beyond me. This includes Mate / XFCE / KDE and probably a few more.

 

[dextructor]

Any suggestions would be welcomed.

I don't know how much and what resources you had about it, but in my case I found useful the wikis of Arch and Gentoo (Multi Monitor, Xorg/Multiple monitors, xrandr Arch, xrandr Gentoo). Since my VGA adapter for the iMac G5 didn't arrive yet I could only test on my PowerBook G4 DSLD and my T430(T400 as well). And extending the iMac G5 should be a challenge because Apple has somewhat questionable decisions that don't let the user extend without some kind of " hacking" but it's not limited to only iMac's... So let's continue

I've read many posts that covers a good chuck of different eras about xorg.conf when learning about installation. What I could understand it's that isn't completely unnecessarily today, but more in the beginning it was required/mandatory because things didn't work without. And the more recent scenarios the minimal configuration it's usually the better since all the rest it's detected/optimized and you only break if wrong attributes are placed.

Both PowerBook and T430 when connected they mirrored the display on the DVI (or VGA for T430) without needing any command, but in case of not being detected just a reboot was necessary. Just check if your second monitor it's detected by the "xrandr --listmonitors" command. Here's the example output.

Monitors: 2
 0: +*LVDS1 1920/310x1080/170+0+0  LVDS1
 1: +VGA1 1920/510x1080/290+0+0  VGA1

Then you can change the configurations with the xrandr following the wikis without much problem.

Since some Apple hardware isn't always 100% complaint with industry standards some quirks can happen like the case of Radeon X1300 -19XX and I wouldn't be surprised of other cases since we depend of the community to properly report bugs etc.

a good music app

Right now on my machines I use mpd+ncmpcpp but I can't recommend it to everyone because I have an huge library well organized and my music it's on my NAS (you can use on your local HDD as well). But if you wanna something more simple I didn't have much trouble with qmmp and you have other options as well.

I can speed up the responce of the Desktop Environment. I'm currently running KDE-Plasma, and I'm beginning to think it may be too heavy for this machine:

This it's a question that I find myself thinking if worth the trouble of having a "modern D.E.". So reading older posts on the forum of users using IceWM and other alternatives I began some research to compare alternatives (this it's old but somewhat relevant) and like anything else it's a bit of a tradeoff between " functionality and resources for performance". LXDE I like it for the simplicity and speed but it wasn't much customizable for my needs (right now I could customize more then when I started).

But since an pre-built ISO of LXDE don't exist for PPC (and other platforms after 2021-02-18) I decided in 2020 to try install myself. So the official documentation it's really good and cover most things that you need, but there's another non-official that I had in my bookmarks. In that time I liked to use SLiM because started quick enough and it was pretty with good support for themes.

So after installing the internet-based system, rebooting, installing the xf86 drivers and minimal services (elogind dbus polkit NetworkManager) and enabling it (sudo ln -srf /etc/sv/{dbus,polkitd,elogind,NetworkManager} /var/service) you can install the really, really minimal LXDE setup without audio

sudo xbps-install xorg-minimal xorg-fonts xorg-input-drivers setxkbmap lxde slim

configure SLiM with and enable it

echo "exec startlxde" >> ~/.xinitrc
sudo ln -s /etc/sv/slim /var/service

After that just install what you need. At that time I installed the LXDE ISO on my X86 machines and try to see what packages where installed ( xbps-query -m) and that was the list

alsa-plugins-pulseaudio-1.2.2_1
base-system-0.113_2
cryptsetup-2.3.3_3
dejavu-fonts-ttf-2.37_1
firefox-esr-68.11.0_1
font-misc-misc-1.1.2_6
gparted-1.1.0_1
grub-i386-efi-2.04_3
grub-x86_64-efi-2.04_3
gvfs-afc-1.44.1_1
gvfs-mtp-1.44.1_1
gvfs-smb-1.44.1_1
lvm2-2.02.187_1
lxde-0.5.0_15
lxdm-0.5.3_4
mdadm-4.1_2
nano-5.2_1
setxkbmap-1.3.2_1
terminus-font-4.48_2
udisks2-2.9.0_1
xauth-1.1_1
xorg-input-drivers-7.6_4
xorg-minimal-1.2_2
xorg-video-drivers-7.6_22

With exception of gparted and nano I believe that I didn't install nothing more than the base ISO. So after that you can see the difference and install what's missing.

Right now on my setup I'm using SX instead of SLiM because it's even faster and it serve it's purposed that it's "startx".

Lord knows why all these DE's enable them by default is beyond me. This includes Mate / XFCE / KDE and probably a few more.

I don't like myself the idea of compositors as well, but I remember when OSX introduced it's own compositor it was revolutionary in terms of speed and system responsiveness. On the Linux side the story isn't that bright, and somewhat controversy the need for compositing. On all my systems I try to not install because I enable on the xorg.conf (Option "TearFree" "on" and equivalents) and it ameliorate at some point, but even on my T430 when rolling large HTML and documents I have some minimal tearing. With mpv some videos I can see in rare occasions.

I didn't tweaked so much X11 compositors and had mixed results, but with the recent Wayland and Gnome on my weakest X86 machine the built-in compositor was really smooth, but I need more time to test even further.

 

[MacMaverick855]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I’ve browsed through them quickly but will give them a closer look soon. I messed around with adding .conf files in Xorg.conf.d for monitors, screens etc but never found a combination that works. I understand that the screen(s), monitor(s) etc need to be tied together but I haven’t found the right entries or combinations yet.

MM855

@dextructor @wicknix

 

[MacMaverick855]

@dextructor , Your references on monitor setups and xrandr were insightful. I tried several of the actions presented but no joy. The biggest problem I have is I can’t restart the computer with both monitors connected and have a useable GUI. So I start up with one monitor connected, then “hot plug” the Apple display. This is the only way xrandr commands will show both monitors as connected but the commands discussed in the references you provided don’t work. But xrandr doesn’t throw any errors because it thinks it has worked. It “thinks” there is a picture on the second monitor. The display control panels show two monitors, it appears everything thinks there are two monitors, but there is no picture. My next step will be to see if Xorg.0.log.old, will show what happened when I started up with both monitors connected. Hopefully it will lend a clue.

Thanks for the helpful information.

MacMav855

 

[MacMaverick855]

When booting up Void Xfce Xorg.0.log states there is no Layout Section,using first screen section, No Screen Section, using default screen, then Monitor, default monitor, no monitor specified for screen "Default Screen". This is with only one monitor attached at startup. Research into this lead me to references stating I should create monitor.conf files for both monitors to place in xorg.conf.d. Xorg.0.log states that the /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d file is used to establish the systems set up

Here's a question, which xorg.conf.d should contain the gpu.conf files? I have a /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d that's empty, and a usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d that contains the gpu.confs ,and others. I seem to remember now that the reference material said the monitor.conf files should go in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d directory, even though Xorg.0.log shows it's using /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d.

This would not be a big deal if I only wanted to boot Void. I'd stick with one monitor and move on, but this G5 is set up to dual boot OSX Sorbet AND Void. Sorbet can and does use both monitors, Void doesn't currently, aand I don't want to mess around with unplugging and replugging the Apple Monitor when switching between operating systems.

So, my pursuit of Void dual monitor ops continues.

Update: 1st, I removed KDE/Plasma(X11) and Wayland, only MATE and XFCE are left. MATE has the best performance so far. XFCE still has lagging window/desktop/mouse response.

Restarted with Apple Monitor disconnected so I could read the Xorg.0.log.old log. It showed both Monitors connected, both monitors were correctly identified as to make model and where they were connected. It shows the Apple monitor as a VGA, which I'm not sure I fully understand, I don't "think" it matters. The information also duplicates what I see in the "Displays" panel in both MATE and XFCE. Everything points to I should be seeing an extended desktop, including the fact that I can drag the mouse cursor off the screen to where the Apple Monitor is and it disappears, it does not show up on the Apple screen but it acts as if it's there.

This makes no sense to me.
MacMav855

 

[MacMaverick855]

On a whim, I decided to boot a live cd of Lubuntu 12.04 with both monitors connected. It started up using both monitors with the splash screen on the Apple monitor. The desktop then opened on the DVI monitor and the apple monitor went black. I looked at the displays setting and it showed both monitors and both were on. The xrandr app however didn’t provide the ability to arrange the monitors. I tried to load arandr but the repositories are too old and basically inaccessible so I couldn’t find or install the app.

I did go to Xorg.0.log and found an interesting piece of info: it showed both monitors as DVI (as opposed to the Apple being VGA in Void) Granted Void and Lubuntu are somewhat different OSs I found this interesting.

The other interesting thing was that the Lubuntu desktop was just as clean and sharp with both monitors connected vs the Void desktop being muddy with both monitors connected at startup.

More research to follow, I’ve just scratched the surface of the references @dextructor gave me.

MM855

 

[MacMaverick855]

I broke it. I knew my messing about in .conf files and other areas would eventually come back to bite me. I thought I had documented ALL of my changes but I must have missed one, or two, or... So, I am going to start over. Things I won't do:
Load Plasma, KDE. Only load MATE and XFCE. Pay close attention to what I load for sound, drivers etc.

Wish me luck and thanks for all your past help, it will come in handy as I reinstall Void.

MM855

 

[MacMaverick855]

Void is reinstalled on the Mac G5 ppc64 tower, Radeon 9600XT GPU, 4 GB RAM. Running XFCE and MATE. Still trying to get the Apple Studio Monitor and DVI monitor to show a desktop simultaneously. I’ve looked at more Xorg.0.log files than I care to admit. I have modified and added several .conf files in xorg.conf.d and the logs show that they are recognized and actually being used. The DVI monitor is referred to as DVI-0 and the Apple Monitor is VGA-0 per xrandr and the Displays Setting. Here are some noted behaviors:

1) Starting up with both monitors connected, the process begins on the Apple Monitor. The Grub boot screen appears, very clearly and I hit enter to boot into Void. A few text lines appear on the Apple Monitor and then the DVI monitor flashes to a white screen and then turns black and takes over displaying the boot text, the Apple Monitor goes dark but the power light flashes in unison with the power light of the G5. The boot text is very scrambled, barely readable. The lightdm loggin background appears but that’s all. Somehow the system has established the Apple Monitor as the primary screen and the DVI is the secondary extended portion of the desktop. I know this because, I can enter my password blindly and it will boot to the desktop. All of the menus and icons and taskbars are (apparently) on the Apple Monitor desktop and hence, I can’t open anything like a terminal or the Displays panel. Going to tty2 and logging in as root, I try to run xrandr -q to see what the system thinks the display configuration is. All I get is “Can’t open displays”. So I shut down, unplug the Apple Monitor and reboot to review Xorg.0.log.old as that is where the previous startup log resides. No issues, errors or warnings. Xorg seems to know what monitor is which, what the preferred modes are and their orientation, even though the observed behavior is backwards and muddled.

2) Starting up with only the DVI monitor and then “hot-plugging” the Apple Monitor results in no desktop on the Apple Monitor, but the DVI monitor is unaffected. The mouse pointer will travel to the Apple Monitor based on the arrangement established in the Displays Setting, it’s just not visible. The Displays settings recognizes that an Apple Monitor is plugged in and is called VGA-0, and arranged to the right of the DVI monitor. I can run xrandr -q or —listmonitors in the MATE-Terminal and there are no surprises, the monitors are recognized and labeled correctly as to which one is plugged in where and what they are.

3) Starting up as in #2 above, I open the Displays Settings and switch from extended desktop to “mirror images”. I make sure the “identify displays” is selected and then something really strange happens: the desktop disappears from the DVI monitor and displays what is likely supposed to be on the Apple Monitor, the extended desktop. The desktop icons, taskbars etc disappear and a label that’s identifying the monitors shows that the display on the DVI monitor is the Apple Studio Monitor, VGA-0. The Apple Monitor remains dark. After a few moments, the display returns to normal as I am unable to respond to the message/request of “do I want to keep this setting?” It times out and returns the desktop to the DVI monitor.

None of this makes sense. Based on Xorg.0.log, there should be a picture/desktop displaying on the Apple Monitor. Based on the Displays Setting, there should be a picture on the Apple Monitor. But there’s not. The desktop is there you just can’t see it.

Even though Tiger and Sorbet easily use the two monitors, it seems that when Linux Void (or any other distro I’ve tried) that the card is under-powered, like there isn’t enough on board RAM or the 9600XT (even though the driver is listed) can’t process the video information supplied.

It should be noted I’ve NEVER been able to boot into Void with JUST the Apple Monitor. I’ve tried all of the known (by me) boot modifiers for the radeon card and have never gotten to a desktop, or to access a tty.

I’ll say it again: I can’t believe I’m the only person in “Linux-Land” that has ever tried to drive an Apple Monitor and another monitor to extend a desktop. If they are out there, I’d love to tap their knowledge.

Gonna keep at it,

MacMaverick855