MintPPC project

[saxfun]

Debian SID is very fast with lxde! But I have some serious problem with the apt management.
it's due some defective packages, maybe cause I'm trying to install mpv or vlc etc., which are all relying on smblibs and samba. the last error message is always "python-talloc" is not available so I cannot install smblibs or samba . . . I will post the messages later on.
I'm not new to linux/debian but Debian on ppc32 is another story . . .
a) trackpad cursor - I did resolve this with: http://ppcluddite.blogspot.com/2012/03/installing-debian-linux-on-ppc-part-iv.html

b) frequency scaling - on VoidLinux it was easy with the bash commands. You have to set the governor to "conservative", the PowerBook will run @833mhz or 1,67Ghz. The command on Debian is the same, but I cannot make it permanent.

c) right click - as an old Mac user it is FRUSTRATING to need about 1-2 hours to solve the right click problem: in lxde you do not have the option to right click nor to use two finders on the trackpad. I searched for al long time to make the right click possible.

So, very fast and neat but nearly unusable when you are a linux noob. impossible to solve for a "normal" user.

 

[sparty411]

@wicknix i discovered the root of the problem with broken compositing on the Radeon 9200. Compositing requires support for OpenGL 2.0, and I think these chips top out at 1.3. Support for OpenGL 2.0 was introduced with the Radeon 9550 and GeForce FX 5xxx series, which would explain why machines featuring these chipsets have no problem with it. I have no explanation for 64 bit being buggy on my end, though 😔

 

[wicknix]

@sparty411 Ahhh, you mentioned 64bit. I run 32bit ubuntu rootfs's with a 64bit kernel on my g5's. I've had nothing but bad luck with any pure 64bit install. Probably the reason why fienix is designed that way also, as the 32bit packages/rootfs are darn near rock solid. It's also why I'm sticking with Ubuntu 16 until 2021. Hopefully by then debian ppc will be more polished. If not I'll switch to fienix.

Cheers

Cheers

 

[sparty411]

@sparty411 Ahhh, you mentioned 64bit. I run 32bit ubuntu rootfs's with a 64bit kernel on my g5's

How did you go about doing that?

I don't know if I'd hold my breath for Debian, though.. It seems to me that Adrian just builds the packages, and isn't too concerned about actual usability. Maybe I'm wrong, idk.. The lack of official up to date documentation, community interaction, etc, is telling. On the bright side, The guys responsible for the Void Linux PPC32, and PPC64 port seem to be really committed to making it as functional as possible. It's still kinda buggy at the moment, but I think it has a lot of promise.

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

I know. I have to work on it, thanks.
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For those interested. Yaboot for ppc64 cannot handle ext4 as some libraries are missing. I am willing to patch yaboot1.3.17 for ppc64 to have support for ext4. People can then just do wahtever they please in the partition stage.

#825110 - /pci@f400000/ata-6@d/@0:3,/boot/vmlinux: Unknown or corrupt - Debian Bug report logs

bugs.debian.org

The patching is more difficult than I thought. Some package which I need can't be built....It strands here...Will have to use ext2 as /boot...
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Debian SID is very fast with lxde! But I have some serious problem with the apt management.
it's due some defective packages, maybe cause I'm trying to install mpv or vlc etc., which are all relying on smblibs and samba. the last error message is always "python-talloc" is not available so I cannot install smblibs or samba . . . I will post the messages later on.
I'm not new to linux/debian but Debian on ppc32 is another story . . .
a) trackpad cursor - I did resolve this with: http://ppcluddite.blogspot.com/2012/03/installing-debian-linux-on-ppc-part-iv.html

b) frequency scaling - on VoidLinux it was easy with the bash commands. You have to set the governor to "conservative", the PowerBook will run @833mhz or 1,67Ghz. The command on Debian is the same, but I cannot make it permanent.

c) right click - as an old Mac user it is FRUSTRATING to need about 1-2 hours to solve the right click problem: in lxde you do not have the option to right click nor to use two finders on the trackpad. I searched for al long time to make the right click possible.

So, very fast and neat but nearly unusable when you are a linux noob. impossible to solve for a "normal" user.

I have seen this problem wit apt as well...I will report it in de Debian powerpc mailing list.

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

Debian SID is very fast with lxde! But I have some serious problem with the apt management.
it's due some defective packages, maybe cause I'm trying to install mpv or vlc etc., which are all relying on smblibs and samba. the last error message is always "python-talloc" is not available so I cannot install smblibs or samba . . . I will post the messages later on.
I'm not new to linux/debian but Debian on ppc32 is another story . . .
a) trackpad cursor - I did resolve this with: http://ppcluddite.blogspot.com/2012/03/installing-debian-linux-on-ppc-part-iv.html

b) frequency scaling - on VoidLinux it was easy with the bash commands. You have to set the governor to "conservative", the PowerBook will run @833mhz or 1,67Ghz. The command on Debian is the same, but I cannot make it permanent.

c) right click - as an old Mac user it is FRUSTRATING to need about 1-2 hours to solve the right click problem: in lxde you do not have the option to right click nor to use two finders on the trackpad. I searched for al long time to make the right click possible.

So, very fast and neat but nearly unusable when you are a linux noob. impossible to solve for a "normal" user.

This python-talloc thing I also encountered. That is why people cannot get the ¨printserver¨ task installed in debian-installer. It looks like debian-ports is not very actively looked after. This problem is there for weeks already.
I am not familiar with setting up a touchpad, as I don´t have one. Is this of any help ? Take into account that nowadays in Linux, libinput is used, not synaptics.

libinput - ArchWiki

You might also want to try installing xfce4-settings. Start it up from the shell:
xfce4-settings-manager

Maybe also useful:

Activate tap to click on touchpad?

I am using Debian 8.6 LXDE on a Powerbook G4 15" 1.67GHz and would like to enable tap to click on the touchpad. It is already double scrolling but tap to click would help to save the ageing mouse b...

unix.stackexchange.com

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

I did...
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Anyone here ever tried pbuilder on G5 ? Strangely it doesn't work it complains about a missing debian-ports-archive keyring but I have it installed....

Got pbuilder working now finally. It's time to start building ppc64 packages, yeah!

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

@Jeroen Diederen or any other ppc64 testers. 64-bit ArcticFox direct link:

https://repo.powerprogress.org/debian/pool/main/a/arcticfox/arcticfox_27.9.18_ppc64.deb

Do you know where I can find a 64-bits version of spidermail ?

 

[sparty411]

@Jeroen Diederen I'm having trouble finding a list of packages I need to install for the Linux Mint theme. Can you tell me what they are please?

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

mint-artwork mint-artwork-lxde mint-common \
mint-lxde-default-settings mint-x-icons mint-y-icons mintinstall mint-themes \
mint-backgrounds-tina mintsystem

 

[sparty411]

mint-artwork mint-artwork-lxde mint-common \
mint-lxde-default-settings mint-x-icons mint-y-icons mintinstall mint-themes \
mint-backgrounds-tina mintsystem

Thanks! It looks great Do you know whether or not it is possible to change the OS image in Neofetch to be that of Mint?

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

Creating a 64-bits MintPPC installation iso now...
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Thanks! It looks great Do you know whether or not it is possible to change the OS image in Neofetch to be that of Mint?

I don´t know that. Do you want me to check that out ?
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Thanks! It looks great Do you know whether or not it is possible to change the OS image in Neofetch to be that of Mint?

Did you install MintPPC manually ?
BTW if you create a new user and you login with that new user name, it looks even better.

 

[Amethyst1]

Thanks! It looks great Do you know whether or not it is possible to change the OS image in Neofetch to be that of Mint?

You should be able to force it by running

neofetch --ascii_distro LinuxMint

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

Fully rename my own GNU/Linux distribution

I am developing a Debian GNU/Linux-based operating system/distribution. It's for visually impaired people. I took the "standard" Debian Live CD and built my distribution from a bare metal command l...

unix.stackexchange.com

replace Debian with Linux Mint everywhere

 

[wicknix]

Do you know where I can find a 64-bits version of spidermail ?

Nobody has built it for 64-bit AFAIK. All my machines run 32-bit userlands so i can only build 32-bit binaries (which targets a bigger user base anyway). If you want to take a stab at it you can get the source for spiderweb & spidermail here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1fLTjxJ31XujcRf7YQ8Qol1eAj5tSXkD5 and you'll also need UXP4PPC32 (it'll still build for 64bit) here: https://github.com/wicknix/UXP4PPC32/

Download UXP4PPC32, extract it and rename the extracted folder to "mozilla". Extract the spider-source, delete the "mozilla" folder from that, and swap in the renamed uxp4ppc32 mozilla folder. That will be the back end that these apps build upon. Read the build-notes.rtf in the mozilla folder (it has info to work around minor endianess issues). Drop your desired .mozconfig in the spider-source folder. Build from the spider-source folder, not the mozilla folder.

I'm attaching a mozconfig you can use. Just comment out the host/target lines and remove -m32 and it should be ok for 64bit. You'll need 2.5-8 hours to build depending on machine used, and at least 4gb of ram, or on low end machines 1gb ram with at least 5gb of swap.

Cheers

 

[sparty411]

All my machines run 32-bit userlands

Would you mind telling me how you went about doing that? 64 bit userspace is too buggy on AGP based systems to be usable.

 

[wicknix]

@sparty411 lubuntu 16.04 ppc is 32bit. The only thing it adjusts during livecd / install is auto detects what kernel you need, and uses / installs the appropriate one.

Cheers

 

[sparty411]

@sparty411 lubuntu 16.04 ppc is 32bit. The only thing it adjusts during livecd / install is auto detects what kernel you need, and uses / installs the appropriate one.

Cheers

Well ****. I don’t understand why my Lubuntu is so buggy on my G5.. I applied your yaboot.conf settings for my Radeon 9600, and i still get cursor stuttering, freezing, etc.. blah

 

[wicknix]

Odd. Other than a generic recycled dell keyboard and mouse that i use, nothing should be different. Both G5's (radeon 9600 & nvidia 5200) are upgraded to 4gb ram (a-tech brand). The dual cpu one still runs on the original 80gb HD. Not sure what to tell ya. Bad ram? Dirty agp slot?

Cheers

 

[Dronecatcher]

Oops..wrong thread. Deleted.

 

[sparty411]

Creating a 64-bits MintPPC installation iso now...
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I don´t know that. Do you want me to check that out ?
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Did you install MintPPC manually ?
BTW if you create a new user and you login with that new user name, it looks even better.

I did install it manually.

 

[sparty411]

Odd. Other than a generic recycled dell keyboard and mouse that i use, nothing should be different. Both G5's (radeon 9600 & nvidia 5200) are upgraded to 4gb ram (a-tech brand). The dual cpu one still runs on the original 80gb HD. Not sure what to tell ya. Bad ram? Dirty agp slot?

Cheers

My setup is nearly identical to yours. Old Dell Mouse / Keyboard, Radeon 9600, etc.. I'll try different RAM tomorrow.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Can this be run as a Live CD?

 

[MoerBoer]

Creating a 64-bits MintPPC installation iso now...

Can't wait to test! Well done!

 

[Jeroen Diederen]

I first want to test myself. It failed already in installing the base system. Not my fault, packages in Debian-ports are sometimes broken. I will let you know.

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2019/10/msg00000.htmlo

What I already experienced on my iMac G5 with nvidia geforce 5200 card is an unstable X. I observe screen tearing.

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Can this be run as a Live CD?

I don’t know how to do that. I tried it but it didn’t work.