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Operating Systems for PowerPC Macs
- Thread starter AmazingHenry
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I was going to test this out, but there appears to be no distributions supporting PPC. The nightly builds have a darwin-PPC build but its from 2014, and its hosted within OS X.
There's the sam440 build that is up to date; but I have a feeling openfirmware won't know what to do with it, like trying to boot WinNT PPC... I mean I could try but I'd rather not waste a CD haha
There's the sam440 build that is up to date; but I have a feeling openfirmware won't know what to do with it, like trying to boot WinNT PPC... I mean I could try but I'd rather not waste a CD haha
Ahh.. sorry for the false expectation then .
Re-checked the site this morning. there is also :
"linux-ppc-system
The hosted version for Linux/PowerPC. This archive contains all core AROS system files, compiled from the Git repository."
from 2013 here in the Snapshots ABIv1:
AROS Research Operating System
www.aros.org
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Googled for it, and yeah, sadly: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/windows-nt-4-0-ppc-on-a-mac-anyone.1835421/
There is an interesting series of posts about Windows on PowerPC by the way: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180806-00/?p=99425
Useful for Mac users too IMO.
It would be curious to compile something for PPC on it. Beyond that, I don’t see any utility in Windows, be it an ancient one or modern.
AROS on PPC? Had it running (under Linux) on my EFIKA before MorphOS became available here.
No real difference to running it on x86 of similar spec.
No real difference to running it on x86 of similar spec.
I have an 867Mhz Mac G4 (QuickSilver) with a 20GB hard drive and 1 GB RAM that I am trying to load Slackintosh onto. It's version 12.0. I have used mac-fdisk and even fdisk to format the HD as described in the documentation that came with the iso. However, when I get to setup, I get a message stating there is no drive formatted for Linux. According to the results entering "p" in mac-fdisk, I have my APM partition, my boot partition and my "/" partition (17GB) and a 2GB swap. This is the only hard drive in the machine right now. They show that the are Linux partitions. What do I need to do to get the install disk to recognize the Hard drive so I can install the OS?
I’ll take a picture of the output but I’m pretty sure the HD is formatted correctly. There are 4 partitions, the first being the Apple Partition Map, which I think is required for it to work on a Mac. The second is an 800k newworld boot partition, the third is a 17 GB “/“ partition labeled Linux Partition and the last partition is a 2 GB swap partition labeled Linux swap. Based on the instructions for Mac-disk, this should be recognized by the installer. Thanks for trying to help.
I read some articles indicating there may be something I need to do to have the partitions appear under the /mnt directory but I’m not sure I understand what that intales. OR if it would even help.
That would mean you have to manually mount the
/ partition so it can be accessed by the installer under the /mnt directory. Assuming your root partition is /dev/hda3 (check in mac-fdisk), try mount /dev/hda3 /mnt and re-run the installer.If the mount command fails because the partition is unformatted, try formatting it:
mkfs.ext4 /dev/hda3 and re-run the mount command followed by the installer.
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Here is a photo of Mac-fdisk small p for my partitioned hard drive. You will also see trying to format the drive using mkfs.ext4 was basically an unrecognized command. I did try to mount the HD and was met with the statement, specify file type.
Ah. It looks like you sub-partitioned a partition, not the drive. What does
p after mac-fdisk /dev/hdb say?
You are correct. I was wondering why my partitions were labeled that way, I went back and reinitialized the drive and repartitioned it. I had partitioned /dev/hdb3, not /dev/hdb. However, after doing that, the mount command and the mkfs responded as shown above. I will revisit it today.
First try simply re-running the installer now that you have a correct partition table. Maybe it detects the Linux partition(s) now.
If it still doesn't detect any Linux partitions, try formatting your root partition with
mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/hdb3 (assuming it's /dev/hdb3).mkfs.ext4, if it exists (apparently it doesn't in Slackintosh/Slackware...), is just a shortcut to mke2fs -t ext4 anyway.After formatting, try mounting the partition (
mount /dev/hdb3 /mnt) and re-running the installer.
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That was the problem! After partitioning the WHOLE disk, I went into setup and BOOM, I'm walking through the install process as we speak.!! You've been a ton of help and I thank you. I can only hope now, that once the install is complete, Slackingtosh doesn't have any issues with the nvidia GPU. We'll see!!
MacMaverick855
MacMaverick855
So, Amethyst1, Install went smoothly, rebooted, had a garbled screen and remembered that the install boot command for the DVD had "video=ofonly" as part of the instruction so I rebooted again with "linux video=ofonly" and was able to read the screen. Logged in with root & password and entered "startx" after a few seconds a message showed that:
using config file /etc/X11/xorg.conf (which I understand)
VESA(0): Cannot read V_BIOS (5) (I thought this was a Windows PC thing)
Screen(s) found, but none have usable configuration
Waiting for Xserver
Xserver giving up
xinit: unable to connect to X server
These are typical responses on this machine with the Nvidia GeForce4 MX GPU.
I reviewed /etc/X11/xorg.conf and only found the VESA gpu driver. The Apple Cinema Display is capable of 1680x1050, no refresh rate, millions of colors. It is also capable of running the many resolutions found in the xconf.org file.
1) even though the VESA info on the DVD stated it can drive almost all GPUs, it's not driving this one
2) Since the xorg.conf file doesn't show 1680x1050, I'm guessing I should edit the file and add this resolution in the appropriate Displays area of the file.
3)finally, I'm also wondering how I would "install" an nvidia or nouveau driver since it doesn't have one, or if there might be a boot command I could enter to get the display to work (e.g.; nouveau.modeset=0, video=offb
ff etc)
So, that's the latest, the nvidia gpu strikes again in preventing me from being able to run a Linux distro on this machine. But I'm not giving up!!!
Thoughts?
MacMav
using config file /etc/X11/xorg.conf (which I understand)
VESA(0): Cannot read V_BIOS (5) (I thought this was a Windows PC thing)
Screen(s) found, but none have usable configuration
Waiting for Xserver
Xserver giving up
xinit: unable to connect to X server
These are typical responses on this machine with the Nvidia GeForce4 MX GPU.
I reviewed /etc/X11/xorg.conf and only found the VESA gpu driver. The Apple Cinema Display is capable of 1680x1050, no refresh rate, millions of colors. It is also capable of running the many resolutions found in the xconf.org file.
1) even though the VESA info on the DVD stated it can drive almost all GPUs, it's not driving this one
2) Since the xorg.conf file doesn't show 1680x1050, I'm guessing I should edit the file and add this resolution in the appropriate Displays area of the file.
3)finally, I'm also wondering how I would "install" an nvidia or nouveau driver since it doesn't have one, or if there might be a boot command I could enter to get the display to work (e.g.; nouveau.modeset=0, video=offb
ff etc)So, that's the latest, the nvidia gpu strikes again in preventing me from being able to run a Linux distro on this machine. But I'm not giving up!!!
Thoughts?
MacMav
I'll share my experience with Gentoo here 2 things
First - most important you must copy the kernels to an UFS filesystem so they can be booted by yaboot - I did this by creating an intermidiate fat partition (using iPartition) copy from Gentoo to there then from there to my boot mac os install (from macos) and point yaboot conf to this drive/partition/kernel.
If anyone knows a better way - please share because I can't run os x with my HD 5450 (which runs with gl acceleration on gentoo with linux firmware) and on single user mode the fans blast me away from the computer.
And btw if you stuck at boot: (in yaboot) - enter halt to return into openfirmware.
Second - mildly important - for some reason the fans didn't kick in initially but after some emerges they started blasting 100% on all the time - turns out you need:
echo "i2c-powermac" > /etc/modules-load.d/fan.conf
And rebooting and checking for windfarm in dmesg - if it's saying it's pulling from different sources it should be fine.
First - most important you must copy the kernels to an UFS filesystem so they can be booted by yaboot - I did this by creating an intermidiate fat partition (using iPartition) copy from Gentoo to there then from there to my boot mac os install (from macos) and point yaboot conf to this drive/partition/kernel.
If anyone knows a better way - please share because I can't run os x with my HD 5450 (which runs with gl acceleration on gentoo with linux firmware) and on single user mode the fans blast me away from the computer.
And btw if you stuck at boot: (in yaboot) - enter halt to return into openfirmware.
Second - mildly important - for some reason the fans didn't kick in initially but after some emerges they started blasting 100% on all the time - turns out you need:
echo "i2c-powermac" > /etc/modules-load.d/fan.conf
And rebooting and checking for windfarm in dmesg - if it's saying it's pulling from different sources it should be fine.
UPDATE!!!So, Amethyst1, Install went smoothly, rebooted, had a garbled screen and remembered that the install boot command for the DVD had "video=ofonly" as part of the instruction so I rebooted again with "linux video=ofonly" and was able to read the screen. Logged in with root & password and entered "startx" after a few seconds a message showed that:
using config file /etc/X11/xorg.conf (which I understand)
VESA(0): Cannot read V_BIOS (5) (I thought this was a Windows PC thing)
Screen(s) found, but none have usable configuration
Waiting for Xserver
Xserver giving up
xinit: unable to connect to X server
These are typical responses on this machine with the Nvidia GeForce4 MX GPU.
I reviewed /etc/X11/xorg.conf and only found the VESA gpu driver. The Apple Cinema Display is capable of 1680x1050, no refresh rate, millions of colors. It is also capable of running the many resolutions found in the xconf.org file.
1) even though the VESA info on the DVD stated it can drive almost all GPUs, it's not driving this one
2) Since the xorg.conf file doesn't show 1680x1050, I'm guessing I should edit the file and add this resolution in the appropriate Displays area of the file.
3)finally, I'm also wondering how I would "install" an nvidia or nouveau driver since it doesn't have one, or if there might be a boot command I could enter to get the display to work (e.g.; nouveau.modeset=0, video=offb
So, that's the latest, the nvidia gpu strikes again in preventing me from being able to run a Linux distro on this machine. But I'm not giving up!!!
Thoughts?
MacMav
In my past dealings with this particular G4 (867Mhz, 1GB RAM, Nvidia Geforce4 MX GPU) I learned about a neat little command line instruction for X server, xorg.conf issues. As ROOT (my favorite POI character), enter the command
computer@root# X -configure
This creates a new xorg.conf file based on it's review of your particular computer. There are instructions on how to do this at askubuntu.com
I followed the instructions and because it found the "nv" driver for my GPU all I had to do was then run "startx" and BOOM! A graphical user interface!!! It's beautiful!
I am working through network setup and other things but I am looking forward to getting it up and running.
I can't thank Amethyst1 and others enough for finally getting this G4 running with a decent Linux distro.
Sincerely,
MacMaverick855
So, something went wrong. I’ve lost the ability to boot Slackintosh from the hard drive. The yaboot prompt doesn’t appear. I tried holding down “option/alt”key to bring up the startup hard disk selection screen but the drive doesn’t appear. Can I use open firmware to startup in Slackintosh? If so , how?
Yes you can.
Follow the instructions on the page 14 for MorphOS Dual Boot Guide where they document how to identify the Operating Systems that you have installed in your Mac HDD. Obviously since it was made for MorphOS you need to know how to boot different types of OS, so there's a good reference here in the forum that our friend @z970 created some time Open Firmware Wiki where you will see that each type of System has an different way of booting.
I'm sure that putting this 2 guides together you will boot your computer if that is your problem.
So, since Slackintosh install eventually went pretty well on my quicksilver G4, I thought I’d load it on a spare HD on my Mirror Door G4. The MDG4 wouldn’t read the install disk, it could see it but tripped out when trying to boot. So I decided to install the spare HD into the QSG4 and install it from that G4’s DVD and then remove the new Slackintosh HD from the QS G4 and put it into the MD G4.
No joy.
I need to research how I might use Open Firmware to direct the MDG4 to boot the Slackintosh drive. I tried holding down the Option key, and the drive was there to select from but once I selected it, hit Enter, the G4 returned to the disk select screen with a somewhat garbled, but recognizable screen.
What simple change was made between the Mirror Door G4 and the Quicksilver G4 that makes it possible to boot Slackintosh on one but not the other? (Somewhat rhetorical)
MacMav
I just found out about this CRUX port for New World Macs and I'm pretty excited, gonna replace Void with it probably. It's up to date with x86, too, and is sort of a semi-source, semi-rolling version of Slackware for people familiar with that but unfamiliar with CRUX (like I was until like 15 minutes ago). Which, speaking of, there's BonSlack for ppc/ppc64/ppc64le as well for something stable. 14.2 (for low memory, e.g. 64MB systems) is still supported by Patrick Volkerding for now, and while BonSlack is an unofficial port, it still means upstream patches and all that.
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