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Resolved WTD Advice: Unable to boot Lubuntu on G5

Hack5190

Hack5190

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 21, 2015
531
311
(UTC-05:00) Cuba
Today I tried booting Lubuntu on my G5. First up was the PowerPC Desktop version 16.04, next was the current version 16.10, finally version 16.04.1 of Ubuntu Mate. All three (3) versions enter the GUI and at some point after that the DVD stops and the screen image becomes distorted, image here.

Since all three (3) installs exhibit the same problem and it's not listed on the PPC Known Issues - I suspect hardware. Video card perhaps? Currently a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra.

Background: This week my favorite IT channel switched streaming providers and now requires H.264. None of the PPC browsers or video players for the PPC can play the H.264 stream :(. So it's time to either leave Leopard (by switching to Linux) or replace the G5 with a RaspberryPi.
 
Hack5190 said:
Today I tried booting Lubuntu on my G5. First up was the PowerPC Desktop version 16.04, next was the current version 16.10, finally version 16.04.1 of Ubuntu Mate. All three (3) versions enter the GUI and at some point after that the DVD stops and the screen image becomes distorted, image here.

Since all three (3) installs exhibit the same problem and it's not listed on the PPC Known Issues - I suspect hardware. Video card perhaps? Currently a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra.

Background: This week my favorite IT channel switched streaming providers and now requires H.264. None of the PPC browsers or video players for the PPC can play the H.264 stream :(. So it's time to either leave Leopard (by switching to Linux) or replace the G5 with a RaspberryPi.
Click to expand...

a)Yeah, it's your card. But don't be too bummed, cause:

b) Time to jump this ship anyway. Debian is dropping PowerPC, so, bye bye Lubuntu, bye bye Ubuntu MATE, and of course bye bye Debian. Maybe someone will rise and take it from ports and clean it up enough for general release, but I doubt it. That is some major heavy lifting. So pretty soon Linux options for PowerPC will be the great compile in Gentoo, or learning German to get help with OpenSUSe. Or, swim across the Stallman sea and beach your boat in Unixland: the fun and fugliness of Open BSD and FreeBSD. Best browser option in Open BSD? Netsurf. Hmmm, ugly.

c) Just say no to a Raspberry Pi, they are so 2012. Wait a few weeks for the Pinebook! It's ARM, so sorta RISC land, all of 89 bucks (99 if you want a 14 inch screen), a Allwinner quad core, mediocre but usable graphics, and a whole spanking 2 GB of RAM! Micro sd card for 256 GB of storage! I am so excited I pooped a little writing this.

https://www.pine64.org/?page_id=3707
 
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I have a few other types of (G5) video cards laying around. So I may give one a go just to see what happens. After all Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS will be supported for at least 3 years.

Although the PineBook looks like a lot of fun for a very reasonable price, the RaspberryPi is already sitting under the TV / monitor that the G5 is connected to. It's just a matter of burning OpenElec on a SD card ;).

With that said I did provide my information to be notified when the PineBook is ready. After all it can run Ubuntu :D.
 
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Hack5190 said:
I have a few other type of (G5) video cards laying around. So I may give one a go just to see what happens.
After all Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS will be supported fo at least 3 years.

Although the PineBook looks like a lot of fun for a very reasonable price, the RaspberryPi is already sitting under the TV / monitor that the G5 is connected to. It's just a matter of burning OpenElec on a SD card ;).
Click to expand...

Will you though? Jessie is it, no PPC support in Stretch....don't see how any of the PowerPC 'Buntu's will get around not having Stretch as their upstream, even for LTS updates..but maybe there is something I am missing. My mind is simple.

I would just try a bunch of different cards till you find one that plays nice. Who needs 3D acceleration anyway? NVDIA's generally suck with Tux, hence Linus's famous "F#@k you NVIDIA!!!" outburst a few years back.
 
Might be a boot option which is needed because your screen goes into the wrong resolution and or hertz rate.

Fallback to a tty and configure X ?

What channel can't you watch ?

Did you try a recent mplayer on OS X ?

Can't offer much help, on my way to work aka Windowzzz land but will check it this evening when I get home
 
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I'm able to stream it using mplayer on OS X 10.5.8 which I compiled using macports but tigerbrew might be able to supply you also a recent version.

mplayer http://hls.twit.tv/flosoft/smil:twitStreamAll.smil/playlist.m3u8

MPlayer 1.3.0-4.2.1 (C) 2000-2016 MPlayer Team

{UPDATE , I run an older version of Macports , version 2.3.4 because it has an Qemu port that works. On a newer Macports install mplayer has been deprecated by mpv . this mplayer also plays X265 files }

Audio is fluent but offcourse on a 1.5 Ghz Powerbook G4 12" with SSD , the video lags ( SYSTEM TOO SLOW TO PLAY THIS ) but a G5 should be able to play this.

Picture 1.png
 
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Lastic said:
I'm able to stream it using mplayer on OS X 10.5.8 which I compiled using macports but tigerbrew might be able to supply you also a recent version.
Click to expand...

That's great news! mplayer is not one of the apps installed on my G5.

I fired up the G5 & checked tigerbrew, it brews MPlayer-1.2. If v1.2 brews OK, I'll edit the recipe and try to brew v1.3.
 
Hack5190 said:
That's great news! mplayer is not one of the apps installed on my G5.

I fired up the G5 & checked tigerbrew, it brews MPlayer-1.2. If v1.2 brews OK, I'll edit the recipe and try to brew v1.3.
Click to expand...

Keep me posted on the progress with tigerbrew , for me Macports has given me almost everything I needed from Linux, postgres, metasploit,bettercap,nmap,mplayer,qemu, ... Qemu was a big necessity and sadly tigerbrew didn't provide any working version
 
Lastic said:
Keep me posted on the progress with tigerbrew , for me Macports has given me almost everything I needed from Linux, postgres, metasploit,bettercap,nmap,mplayer,qemu, ... Qemu was a big necessity and sadly tigerbrew didn't provide any working version
Click to expand...

sadly (but not surprisingly) tigerbrew failed to build mplayer :(

To the best of my knowledge there isn't a version of macports for the PPC. How are you using it to brew PPC apps? :confused:

For kicks I brewed it on my mid2014 MacBook Pro (16GB ram, 2.5 GHz i7). Using the same command in your message I was greeted with the message:

************************************************
**** Your system is too SLOW to play this! ****
************************************************
 
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Before you give up on tigerbrew, check if it brews mpv or mplayer2 ,these basically replaced mplayer.

Otherwise I use the 2.3.4 version of Macports because it has the working Qemu port , latter versions of Qemu from Macports don't work for me but there is a Macports Leopard 2.3.5 version also.

To resume :

Macports 2.3.4 => Mplayer 1.3.0
Macports 2.3.5 => mpv

https://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/

{UPDATE} Don't mix tigerbrew & Macports , things get messy then , I've done a lot of reinstalls
to a stable base image of my Powerbook and stuck with Macports for Qemu.
 
Didn't catch your "Don't mix" advice until after I installed MacPorts :(.

But I was able to build mplayer v 1.3 with MacPorts and have it stream :D.

FYI: mpv doesn't build on the G5 - it returns
Code: 
--->  Computing dependencies for mpv
Error: Cannot install mpv for the arch(s) 'ppc' because
Error: its dependency rubberband only supports the arch(s) 'i386 x86_64'.
Error: Unable to execute port: architecture mismatch

Thanks for the advice on mplayer and MacPorts, much appreciated!
 
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