Setting up a PowerPC Mac in 2020

[theANY]

I always was fascinated by every device Apple produced. Especially the devices produced in the mid 2000’s I do like. The design of the aluminium PowerBook G4 inspired every following MacBook (Pro) and was really state-of-the-art. Okay, they have some issues: the G4 PPC CPUs are well-known for overheating (it sounds already in idle like a starting plane) and caused damaged GPUs. The aluminum body was very delicate for bumps and scratches. And the upgrade possibilities were limited due to some limitations (as always at Apple devices).

So, last year I bought two PowerBook G4’s, buildt 2005, 12 inch, both had several issues. One had (and has) a broken graphics chip, the other one had several scratches, no AirPort and only the Combo Drive. So I thought “Why don’t make one out of two” and I began to tear down both PBs. Luckily the working one had also the 1,5 GHz G4. So now I had a fully working, good looking PowerBook G4 from 2005 with 1,5 GHz, 1.25GB RAM, a SuperDrive and AirPort Extreme card. As I buildt the working PowerBook up I put on new heat sink pads etc. so I can prevent everything from overheating. Now I have a fully good working PBG4 maxed out with everything possible, and several spare parts.

Next step was about the OS. I had really no experience with Apple Macs and so I needed to take a closer look at the whole thing. I already knew that the possibilities were limited, but Apple did everything to prevent us to easily use other systems than OS X. There was a project of Apple itself to develop a stable running Linux, but it was layed down very fast. Some nice Devs decided to look at the more common Linux builds and port them to work on Apple PPCs. But I also wanted to experience the original OS Apple intended for that device. I began with installing OS X 10.4 from the delivered discs. Everything worked out of the box, no things like nasty missing drivers etc. as I knew from Windows or Linux. Just some little things like updates and some programs like Office 2006 and the PowerBook was quite useable. But that wasn’t the real deal. Safari and iTunes were very outdated and only a few programs run on 10.4. So I looked in the WWW (using the PBG4) what OS X is the official maximum and saw it is 10.5.8. I wanted to burn an installer disc with 10.5 but had no DVD DL for it. I said to myself “how do you do it usually on PCs?” I got an idea: why don’t just use a USB drive? And here comes the hard part.

The PowerBook doesn’t support booting from USB from the original bootloader. But I found another way: the OpenFirmware. For the people who doesn’t know what that is: the OpenFirmware controls in the beginning the access to every device and initializes them, a bit like the BIOS on PCs. I found some interesting information on this site: https://web.archive.org/web/20191011132733/https://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/arch_boot.html
Disclaimer: neither I nor this site can be made reasonable for damages caused by modifications you made on the OpenFirmware. You can brick your device with several commands (because you can delete whole device trees and make your machine unbootable). But in general (when you don’t mess around with the antries and don’t write or delete anything) you don’t damage anything by using the OpenFirmware. Important info: some OldWorld-Macs have an uncomplete version of the OpenFirmware and may produce some errors (which won’t hurt the device or brick it). Now let’s continue with the boot procedure. At first we need to boot into the OpenFirmware. That can be done by the following key combination: hold ALT+option+O+F and then press the power button. You will hear the typical chime and you will see after some seconds a completely white screen with some text, this is the OpenFirmware.

Now I will explain the boot procedure for OS X from Disc and from USB. Notice: not every USB drive will work. You will may need several tries to find a working drive. So at first put in a disc or a USB drive formatted in HFS+, HFS, UFS or ext2 with a OS X installer on it. Additionally you can boot over network via TFTP. So when you use a disc it is pretty simple. Use the following command to boot from disc: [boot cd:,\\:tbxi] Even burned OS X discs will work! If you want to boot from an USB drive it is a little bit more complex, but not too heavy. At first insert an USB Stick and start up the Mac as written above. Then type into the command line [dev / ls] and press enter. It will show up every device entry and will ask to continue the output. Press space and let show every entry until you see something similar to USB@1 or USB@1b. Under one of these entries you must see something like disk@1. If you don’t see this entry try again with another port and/or another USB drive. When you finally see an entry like shown above note down the USB one and the disk one. For this example I will use USB@1b and disk@1. Next step is to create an alias which makes the access easier. To do that type in [devalias ud /pci@f2000000/usb@1b/disk@1] and press enter. To check the success type in [dir ud:, \] and press enter. Now you should see the file entries of the root of your USB drive. If you don’t see that check every step until now and also check the file system of the USB drive. Remember: only HFS+, HFS, UFS or ext2 are supported, no FAT etc… Now let’s boot the OSX installer. This can be done by typing in the following and press enter: [boot ud:,\System\Library\CoreServices\BootX] Now it should boot the installer and you can proceed with the installation process.

Even though not many people now that but there are Linux distributions running on those PPC Macs, like Debian or even Ubuntu. For this example I will use Lubuntu 16.04 LTS. It gets updates from time to time and is quite stable. I don’t exactly know why but to boot this on the go you need to have this burned to a CD/DVD, it won’t boot from USB, just says “no boot image found”. So we need to boot from the disc you just burned with the following command: [boot cd:,\install\yaboot] Now it should boot into Lubuntu and run from USB, but not that fast. And it also is read-only. But you easily can install it to the HDD by using the Installer icon placed on the desktop. Notice: you CAN dual boot it with OSX, but for this OSX needs installed first. When you proceed to install Lubuntu to your Mac it will recognize the already installed OSX and ask you if you want to dual boot both. Choose your favorite option and proceed with the installation. After the installation the Mac will reboot and you will see something new: a new bootloader, really basic.

It asks you to press a button to choose which OS you want to boot, L for Linux, X for OSX and C for CD/DVD. If you choose OSX as your option you will see the already known grey Apple Logo on white background and everything will boot as known before. If you choose to boot Linux press after that enter once and something will happen: while booting you will see some commands from the OpenFirmware running some commands to initialize some devices like the GPU. Then Lubuntu will boot. Hint for those who use iBook G4s and PowerBook G4s: WiFi won’t run out of the box. To get this running, connect via LAN (or if you use the integrated modem first set it up, in some countries still usual to use) to the WWW, open a terminal and type in: [sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer] After that reboot the Mac and then WiFi should work. Some general tips: Check for updates after installation and check again from time to time. For G5 Macs there are even newer versions of Ubuntu and its derivates in 64 bit for PPC. But because I poorly don’t have a G5 I cannot test it. I hope this little post will help you in using your old PowerPC Mac some more time. Just to let you notice: there is at the moment a project getting the 10.6 Snow Leopard Beta running on those old Macs, stay tuned in ->this<- forum for further information! And here is a guide on setting up programs etc.: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/for-new-users-the-starter-thread.2059173/


At the end of this little tutorial I would really appreciate if you would participate on the little poll I created. Thanks!

Some more information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_gaming : About Gaming on Linux, might be useful.
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2027970 : Some Games for Linux PPC.
https://minetest.net : Minecraft-style game, runs on PPC
https://pling.com : Themes, Wallpaper, Iconpacks etc. for Gnome, GTK and other desktop environments.
https://packages.ubuntu.com : find matching program packages for Ubuntu, can filter for PPC packages.

Sources:
http://genericnerd.blogspot.co…-into-sluggish-ibook.html
http://ben-collins.blogspot.co…ok-g4-from-usb-stick.html
https://www.jeremymorgan.com/t…l-linux-ppc-powerbook-g4/
https://thahipster.de/linux-fu…inux-auf-powerbook-g4-12/

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1071901

 

[iModFrenzy]

Looks great! Only two things, I’d make this a wiki so others can adjust it in time. And maybe format the text a bit? Walls of texts can be difficult to read

 

[theANY]

Good idea, I needa work a bit with this forum so I get every function I can use. And I already thought about the text format. Thanks for your opinion?

 

[MacMaverick855]

You mention burning L 16.04 LTS to a DVD and it sounds like flashing it to a USB as well and having them both in the machine when booting up. You make it sound as if the PPC won’t boot off of the USB UNLESS the dvd is also in the DVD Drive. The only reason I bring this up is because I actually had this happen on a G4 trying to load 12.04 Remix. It wouldn’t boot the usb unless the DVD was in the drive. I want to load 16.04 on my G5 but haven’t had any luck but I also haven’t tried the DVD/USB combo on it. I’ll let you know.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

It is better not to rely on usb path in OF but to realias cd to usb device. Quite easy & don't break anything. But MAY not work (as with Gentoo on my Quad). Look for my posts, there have to be some commands for this.

 

[DearthnVader]

Disclaimer: neither I nor this site can be made reasonable for damages caused by modifications you made on the OpenFirmware. You can brick your device with several commands (because you can delete whole device trees and make your machine unbootable).

You can't brick your PowerMac's or iMac's, Powerbooks/iBooks by tinkering with Open Firmware, there is always a way to restore the defaults, that is why they are there.

For desktops, just hold the power button, and keep holding......You'll hear the programers tone, keep holding, you'll hear a boot chime, then the system will enter Open Firmware with the defaults loaded. Now just reset the nvram.

For Portables, hold Power and Apple Key, keep holding, you'll here the programers tone, keep holding, you'll hear a boot chime, keep holding, the system will enter Open Firmware and you can reset the nvram.

 

[Project Alice]

You can't brick your PowerMac's or iMac's, Powerbooks/iBooks by tinkering with Open Firmware, there is always a way to restore the defaults, that is why they are there.

For desktops, just hold the power button, and keep holding......You'll hear the programers tone, keep holding, you'll hear a boot chime, then the system will enter Open Firmware with the defaults loaded. Now just reset the nvram.

For Portables, hold Power and Apple Key, keep holding, you'll here the programers tone, keep holding, you'll hear a boot chime, keep holding, the system will enter Open Firmware and you can reset the nvram.

Not true.
But only the one command. Also you're in that thread so you already knew that.

 

[DearthnVader]

Not true.
But only the one command. Also you're in that thread so you already knew that.

Your Mac can always load the defaults, thus boot back to OF for you to reset whatever you think you bricked, that is why the defaults are there.

The Power+Applekey trick took me days to figure out, Apple never documented in public, likely so you'd think you'd bricked your logicbaord, and they could say they "replaced" it, when in fact, all they did was reset the defaults.

Now Old World Mac's may need some other trick to load the defaults, so be careful, because I don't have any at this time to rescue anyone.

Technically speaking, while in programers mode, you can destroy the 1MB bootrom of a New World machine, but you are going to have to know exactly what you are doing to brick it, so all bets are off, but that's the only true way to brick a New World Mac by monkeying around with Open Firmware.

****I haven't tasted this on every OF+PPC Mac under the sun, so some may have yet other undocumented ways of loading the defaults so you can reset the system, so test it first to be sure it works with something else that won't prevent you from booting, I.E. Don't change the load-base or Little-Endian modes, or strip the device tree with an NVRAMRC script, until you know how to boot your machine to the defaults.****

 

[Project Alice]

Your Mac can always load the defaults, thus boot back to OF for you to reset whatever you think you bricked, that is why the defaults are there.

The Power+Applekey trick took me days to figure out, Apple never documented in public, likely so you'd think you'd bricked your logicbaord, and they could say they "replaced" it, when in fact, all they did was reset the defaults.

Now Old World Mac's may need some other trick to load the defaults, so be careful, because I don't have any at this time to rescue anyone.

Technically speaking, while in programers mode, you can destroy the 1MB bootrom of a New World machine, but you are going to have to know exactly what you are doing to brick it, so all bets are off, but that's the only true way to brick a New World Mac by monkeying around with Open Firmware.

****I haven't tasted this on every OF+PPC Mac under the sun, so some may have yet other undocumented ways of loading the defaults so you can reset the system, so test it first to be sure it works with something else that won't prevent you from booting, I.E. Don't change the load-base or Little-Endian modes, or strip the device tree with an NVRAMRC script, until you know how to boot your machine to the defaults.****

I was trying to dig and see if anyone had a way of fixing this particular bricking.

The only reason I wonder if it would work or not, is because no one has tested to our knowledge if this would work to un-brick it if endianess had been reversed. I had assumed the only way to unbrick it from that particular command would be to flash a new rom on it somehow, possibly by using an eeprom flasher. The other thread implies that if the CPU is now unable to understand the openfirmware due to an endianess mismatch, there would no way to load the defaults.
You obviously understand this way more than me (and tbh I didn't see your username at first and thought it was someone else since you changed your picture) so I'm genuinely curious about this.
PPC Mac's only have one "bios chip" so where do the defaults get stored in an event like this? With the endianess flopped would it even be able to read the defaults to load?

 

[DearthnVader]

I was trying to dig and see if anyone had a way of fixing this particular bricking.

The only reason I wonder if it would work or not, is because no one has tested to our knowledge if this would work to un-brick it if endianess had been reversed. I had assumed the only way to unbrick it from that particular command would be to flash a new rom on it somehow, possibly by using an eeprom flasher. The other thread implies that if the CPU is now unable to understand the openfirmware due to an endianess mismatch, there would no way to load the defaults.
You obviously understand this way more than me (and tbh I didn't see your username at first and thought it was someone else since you changed your picture) so I'm genuinely curious about this.
PPC Mac's only have one "bios chip" so where do the defaults get stored in an event like this? With the endianess flopped would it even be able to read the defaults to load?

The defaults are likely hard coded into the BOOTROM/Open Firmware.

I did test it, setting little-endian to true, and as we suspect, we can't boot, because we have no little endian to boot from, and even less documentation on how to do that if the machine can't load open firmware, because it's only compiled for those of us that like our endian BIG!

I like big endian and I can not lie...........

As I said, holding the power button and the Applekey long enough on a 2005 iBook G4 loaded the defaults and I reset the NVRAM, and life goes on, no brick.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

As I said, holding the power button and the Applekey long enough on a 2005 iBook G4 loaded the defaults and I reset the NVRAM, and life goes on, no brick.

Something really useful. Can you pls explain it in a bit more details? (I always like such kind of things, when you can literally resurrect some good hardware from "the other side" ).

 

[Project Alice]

The defaults are likely hard coded into the BOOTROM/Open Firmware.

I did test it, setting little-endian to true, and as we suspect, we can't boot, because we have no little endian to boot from, and even less documentation on how to do that if the machine can't load open firmware, because it's only compiled for those of us that like our endian BIG!

I like big endian and I can not lie...........

As I said, holding the power button and the Applekey long enough on a 2005 iBook G4 loaded the defaults and I reset the NVRAM, and life goes on, no brick.

That is definitely good to know!

 

[MacMaverick855]

I always was fascinated by every device Apple produced. Especially the devices produced in the mid 2000’s I do like. The design of the aluminium PowerBook G4 inspired every following MacBook (Pro) and was really state-of-the-art. Okay, they have some issues: the G4 PPC CPUs are well-known for overheating (it sounds already in idle like a starting plane) and caused damaged GPUs. The aluminum body was very delicate for bumps and scratches. And the upgrade possibilities were limited due to some limitations (as always at Apple devices).

So, last year I bought two PowerBook G4’s, buildt 2005, 12 inch, both had several issues. One had (and has) a broken graphics chip, the other one had several scratches, no AirPort and only the Combo Drive. So I thought “Why don’t make one out of two” and I began to tear down both PBs. Luckily the working one had also the 1,5 GHz G4. So now I had a fully working, good looking PowerBook G4 from 2005 with 1,5 GHz, 1.25GB RAM, a SuperDrive and AirPort Extreme card. As I buildt the working PowerBook up I put on new heat sink pads etc. so I can prevent everything from overheating. Now I have a fully good working PBG4 maxed out with everything possible, and several spare parts.
View attachment 925693
Next step was about the OS. I had really no experience with Apple Macs and so I needed to take a closer look at the whole thing. I already knew that the possibilities were limited, but Apple did everything to prevent us to easily use other systems than OS X. There was a project of Apple itself to develop a stable running Linux, but it was layed down very fast. Some nice Devs decided to look at the more common Linux builds and port them to work on Apple PPCs. But I also wanted to experience the original OS Apple intended for that device. I began with installing OS X 10.4 from the delivered discs. Everything worked out of the box, no things like nasty missing drivers etc. as I knew from Windows or Linux. Just some little things like updates and some programs like Office 2006 and the PowerBook was quite useable. But that wasn’t the real deal. Safari and iTunes were very outdated and only a few programs run on 10.4. So I looked in the WWW (using the PBG4) what OS X is the official maximum and saw it is 10.5.8. I wanted to burn an installer disc with 10.5 but had no DVD DL for it. I said to myself “how do you do it usually on PCs?” I got an idea: why don’t just use a USB drive? And here comes the hard part.

The PowerBook doesn’t support booting from USB from the original bootloader. But I found another way: the OpenFirmware. For the people who doesn’t know what that is: the OpenFirmware controls in the beginning the access to every device and initializes them, a bit like the BIOS on PCs. I found some interesting information on this site: https://web.archive.org/web/20191011132733/https://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/arch_boot.html
Disclaimer: neither I nor this site can be made reasonable for damages caused by modifications you made on the OpenFirmware. You can brick your device with several commands (because you can delete whole device trees and make your machine unbootable). But in general (when you don’t mess around with the antries and don’t write or delete anything) you don’t damage anything by using the OpenFirmware. Important info: some OldWorld-Macs have an uncomplete version of the OpenFirmware and may produce some errors (which won’t hurt the device or brick it). Now let’s continue with the boot procedure. At first we need to boot into the OpenFirmware. That can be done by the following key combination: hold ALT+option+O+F and then press the power button. You will hear the typical chime and you will see after some seconds a completely white screen with some text, this is the OpenFirmware.
View attachment 925692
Now I will explain the boot procedure for OS X from Disc and from USB. Notice: not every USB drive will work. You will may need several tries to find a working drive. So at first put in a disc or a USB drive formatted in HFS+, HFS, UFS or ext2 with a OS X installer on it. Additionally you can boot over network via TFTP. So when you use a disc it is pretty simple. Use the following command to boot from disc: [boot cd:,\\:tbxi] Even burned OS X discs will work! If you want to boot from an USB drive it is a little bit more complex, but not too heavy. At first insert an USB Stick and start up the Mac as written above. Then type into the command line [dev / ls] and press enter. It will show up every device entry and will ask to continue the output. Press space and let show every entry until you see something similar to USB@1 or USB@1b. Under one of these entries you must see something like disk@1. If you don’t see this entry try again with another port and/or another USB drive. When you finally see an entry like shown above note down the USB one and the disk one. For this example I will use USB@1b and disk@1. Next step is to create an alias which makes the access easier. To do that type in [devalias ud /pci@f2000000/usb@1b/disk@1] and press enter. To check the success type in [dir ud:, \] and press enter. Now you should see the file entries of the root of your USB drive. If you don’t see that check every step until now and also check the file system of the USB drive. Remember: only HFS+, HFS, UFS or ext2 are supported, no FAT etc… Now let’s boot the OSX installer. This can be done by typing in the following and press enter: [boot ud:,\System\Library\CoreServices\BootX] Now it should boot the installer and you can proceed with the installation process.

Even though not many people now that but there are Linux distributions running on those PPC Macs, like Debian or even Ubuntu. For this example I will use Lubuntu 16.04 LTS. It gets updates from time to time and is quite stable. I don’t exactly know why but to boot this on the go you need to have this burned to a CD/DVD, it won’t boot from USB, just says “no boot image found”. So we need to boot from the disc you just burned with the following command: [boot cd:,\install\yaboot] Now it should boot into Lubuntu and run from USB, but not that fast. And it also is read-only. But you easily can install it to the HDD by using the Installer icon placed on the desktop. Notice: you CAN dual boot it with OSX, but for this OSX needs installed first. When you proceed to install Lubuntu to your Mac it will recognize the already installed OSX and ask you if you want to dual boot both. Choose your favorite option and proceed with the installation. After the installation the Mac will reboot and you will see something new: a new bootloader, really basic.
View attachment 925691
It asks you to press a button to choose which OS you want to boot, L for Linux, X for OSX and C for CD/DVD. If you choose OSX as your option you will see the already known grey Apple Logo on white background and everything will boot as known before. If you choose to boot Linux press after that enter once and something will happen: while booting you will see some commands from the OpenFirmware running some commands to initialize some devices like the GPU. Then Lubuntu will boot. Hint for those who use iBook G4s and PowerBook G4s: WiFi won’t run out of the box. To get this running, connect via LAN (or if you use the integrated modem first set it up, in some countries still usual to use) to the WWW, open a terminal and type in: [sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer] After that reboot the Mac and then WiFi should work. Some general tips: Check for updates after installation and check again from time to time. For G5 Macs there are even newer versions of Ubuntu and its derivates in 64 bit for PPC. But because I poorly don’t have a G5 I cannot test it. I hope this little post will help you in using your old PowerPC Mac some more time. Just to let you notice: there is at the moment a project getting the 10.6 Snow Leopard Beta running on those old Macs, stay tuned in ->this<- forum for further information! And here is a guide on setting up programs etc.: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/for-new-users-the-starter-thread.2059173/
View attachment 925694

At the end of this little tutorial I would really appreciate if you would participate on the little poll I created. Thanks!

Some more information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_gaming : About Gaming on Linux, might be useful.
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2027970 : Some Games for Linux PPC.
https://minetest.net : Minecraft-style game, runs on PPC
https://pling.com : Themes, Wallpaper, Iconpacks etc. for Gnome, GTK and other desktop environments.
https://packages.ubuntu.com : find matching program packages for Ubuntu, can filter for PPC packages.

Sources:
http://genericnerd.blogspot.co…-into-sluggish-ibook.html
http://ben-collins.blogspot.co…ok-g4-from-usb-stick.html
https://www.jeremymorgan.com/t…l-linux-ppc-powerbook-g4/
https://thahipster.de/linux-fu…inux-auf-powerbook-g4-12/

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1071901

There is a lot of discussion on these boards about Laptops. I have, or am attempting to have a G5 and 2 G4s running what ever Linux distro they are capable of running. So far, MacBuntu 12.04 is either running or installing on one G4 and the G5. My biggest issue is with the Airport Card in the G5, There is one in a G4 running Lubuntu 16.04 but it's never worked in OSX Tiger or Leopard, so that's for another day. The G5 Airport card has never worked in any of the distros I've loaded on it and I want to get it working. It did work in OSX.

I've looked at numerous sites and see the term "non-free firmware" but can never seem to find what I need for a BCM4306 Rev 03 Broadcom/airport card. Any help getting this working would be appreciated.

 

[MacMaverick855]

Wireless Card Issue: Broadcom bcm4320 or bcm4306 Rev 03/ Airport Card in Mac G5
I finally got MacBuntu 12.04 to SEE my wireless card and even installed drivers via "firmware-b43-install". The command dmesg gave the following information:
[10988.243688] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 508.1084 (2009-01-14 01:32:01)
[10988.303791] b43-pci-bridge 0001:02:01.0: Warning: IOMMU window too big for device mask
[10988.303798] b43-pci-bridge 0001:02:01.0: mask: 0x3fffffff, table end: 0x80000000
[10988.303805] b43-phy0 ERROR: The machine/kernel does not support the required 30-bit DMA mask
[10989.427598] b43-phy0 ERROR: Microcode not responding
[10989.427608] b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware for this driver version. Please carefully read all instructions on this website.

Can't get to the website, and I could have sworn the driver I installed was appropriate for my wireless card.
What can I do to get my card to work?
Mav

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

Try to seek for this:

b43-fwcutter​

 

[MacMaverick855]

Wireless Device not Ready

$ lspci -vnn | grep Network
0001:02:01.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4320] (rev 03)

firmware-b43-install (latest version installed)
b43 fw-cutter-install (latest version installed)

$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

$ sudo lspci -vvnn | grep -A 9 Network
[sudo] password for:
0001:02:01.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4320] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Apple Inc. AirPort Extreme [106b:004e]
Control: I/O- Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 16
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 57
Region 0: Memory at 80104000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=8K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=375mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold+)
Status: D0 NoSoftRst- PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=2 PME-

So Linux knows I have a wireless card but for whatever reason the drivers aren't loaded or the card can't see them.

Not sure why.
MacMav

 

[Strategia]

According to Debian's bcm43xx page, BCM4306 (revision 03) is supported by firmware-b43-installer. BCM4306 (revision 02) is supported by firmware-b43legacy-installer. Those should exist in Ubuntu distros as well.

 

[MacMaverick855]

Yup, I made sure to pick the 4306 rev 3 installer, no joy. And I agree they should already be in the distros but I have had no luck ever getting this card to work. I’ve loaded a lot of distros on this Mac G5. I have experience loading linux on Dell wireless Laptops and the WiFi worked immediately. I’m sure it’s a Mac/Apple thing, just can’t seem to push it through.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

Check existence of /usr/bin/b43-fwcutter.

 

[MacMaverick855]

No such file or directory when looking for /usr/bin/b43-fwcutter.

According to lspci -nnk, the card is using "Kernel driver in use is b43-pci-bridge". When I look in /lib/firmware, only b43, and b43legacy show up as drivers for the wireless card, nmcli -p nm shows that the Network Manager is running, connected, the wifi hardware is enabled, along with the wifi and the wifi hardware however it shows WWAN as disabled. There are no blocks in rfkill.

where could I go to blacklist b43-pci-bridge and force the card to use the b43 driver which is what I understand to be the correct driver for this card (BCM 4306, 14e4:4320, (rev 03)

@wicknix , @z970

 

[wicknix]

Try editing the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file and add a line that says "blacklist <module-name>". If you don't know it's name look through the output of lsmod.

Cheers

 

[MacMaverick855]

Try editing the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file and add a line that says "blacklist <module-name>". If you don't know it's name look through the output of lsmod.

Cheers

Using a clean and updated Macbuntu Remix install on a Mac ppc64 G5 desktop (cheese grater) with an Apple Extreme wifi card, BCM 4306, 14e4:4320, (rev 03), the etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file shows the following:

# replaced by b43 and ssb
blacklist bcm43xx

lsmod shows the following items related to b43 and/or ssb

Module Size Used by
b43 481784 0
mac80211 710482 1 b43
cfg80211 283777 2 b43,mac80211
bcma 43864 1 b43
ssb 84268 1 b43

No where is there a mention of b43-pci-bridge as a kernel driver, module driver, nothing. So blacklisting b43-pci-bridge doesn't appear it will have an affect on getting the card to work. Based on what's shown above, would I blacklist b43,and ssb and un-blacklist bcm43xx? Sounds risky.

I have gone to /etc/modprobe.d and will look at some of the other .conf files to see if there might be some answers there.

Thanks for the starting place to trouble shooting this situation!
MacMav855