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Jordan XP

macrumors member
Jul 5, 2019
87
6
Oh sorry. That's what I get for commenting after a 12 hour work day and glossing over that thread.

$
For anyone interested in using Linux on earlier (Old World) PowerPC Macs:
Yaboot is not for Old World ROM Macs.

If your Mac has an Old World ROM, then you must use BootX or Quik.

The easiest way to identify is that all New World ROM Macs have a USB port. No Old World ones do.
$

Please add the text above (from the opening $ sign to the closed $ sign, excluding those $ signs) to the main WikiPost.
 

z970

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 2, 2017
3,589
4,541
$
For anyone interested in using Linux on earlier (Old World) PowerPC Macs:
Yaboot is not for Old World ROM Macs.

If your Mac has an Old World ROM, then you must use BootX or Quik.

The easiest way to identify is that all New World ROM Macs have a USB port. No Old World ones do.
$

Please add the text above (from the opening $ sign to the closed $ sign, excluding those $ signs) to the main WikiPost.

There's already a linked guide for running Linux on Old World Macs (that explains all of this), at the start of the installation guide. Otherwise, the user is expected to walk in already knowing what Mac they have.

It's a Wiki. It's free to edit by anyone, so you should be able to add it yourself.

Just please ask yourself first if it will be a valuable addition that hasn't already been covered in some form before... The last thing we need is bloat.

Does anyone know when or if Firefox Quantum will work on PPC linux.

Quantum is already available from the Debian 10 and Debian Sid repositories, both the regular edition and ESR. It's not a bad browser to use when you're in a pinch.

Now, whether it works 100% at all times is a different story...
 

z970

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 2, 2017
3,589
4,541
teaser.png

8.31.19
 
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bunnspecial

macrumors G3
May 3, 2014
8,352
6,495
Kentucky
If your Mac has an Old World ROM, then you must use BootX or Quik.

The easiest way to identify is that all New World ROM Macs have a USB port. No Old World ones do.
$

What about computers that have USB ports and are SORT OF NWR, but don't always act like it?(G3 B&W, iMac G3 Bondi, Lombard PowerBook).
 

swamprock

macrumors 65816
Aug 2, 2015
1,261
1,837
Michigan
Yeah, I've found it to be extremely buggy.

The PPC port of the Rust compiler is broken, hence a buggy FF Quantum.
[doublepost=1566584156][/doublepost]
What about computers that have USB ports and are SORT OF NWR, but don't always act like it?(G3 B&W, iMac G3 Bondi, Lombard PowerBook).

Back in the MintPPC days, I built a self-booting install CD for the distro for oldworld machines. You had to drag the initrd and kernel off the CD into Linux Kernels on the OS 9 partition to get it to run, and point BootX in OS 9 (or whatever classic version of MacOS that was installed) to the kernel and RAM disk. Every time there was a kernel update, you had to repeat the process (I used FTP, copying the updated kernels from /boot to my server, then downloading them in OS 9). Fun stuff.
 
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0403979

Cancelled
Jun 11, 2018
1,402
1,735
I installed Ubuntu 16.04 on my iMac G4. But, I can't get it to boot correctly. When I try to boot it from yaboot, it just boots to a splash screen animation with multiple colours which slowly turns to black. Sometimes part of this screen is also partially covered from the bottom up with black. Any ideas?
 

wicknix

macrumors 68030
Jun 4, 2017
2,621
5,306
Wisconsin, USA
@0403979 : Try booting from yaboot with these: Linux nosplash radeon.modeset=1 radeon.agpmode=-1 video=offb:eek:ff
If that works, (this worked on my macmini-g4) once booted, sudo nano /etc/yaboot.conf and add those to the "append" line (replacing the original line). Then run sudo ybin -v and reboot. Those settings will be saved and will stick for future boots.

Cheers

EDIT: Here's a screenshot for better reference
yaboot-conf.png
 
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Appleuser201

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2018
401
221
There's already a linked guide for running Linux on Old World Macs (that explains all of this), at the start of the installation guide. Otherwise, the user is expected to walk in already knowing what Mac they have.

It's a Wiki. It's free to edit by anyone, so you should be able to add it yourself.

Just please ask yourself first if it will be a valuable addition that hasn't already been covered in some form before... The last thing we need is bloat.



Quantum is already available from the Debian 10 and Debian Sid repositories, both the regular edition and ESR. It's not a bad browser to use when you're in a pinch.

Now, whether it works 100% at all times is a different story...
Im bad at PPC linux.. whats the system requirements for Debian 10 PPC?
 

sparty411

macrumors 6502a
Nov 13, 2018
553
501
Im bad at PPC linux.. whats the system requirements for Debian 10 PPC?
Any G3 or better should be capable of “running” Debian. Whether or not it will run well is an entirely different subject. IMHO, anything slower than a 500 MHz G3 would probably be painfully slow.
 

wicknix

macrumors 68030
Jun 4, 2017
2,621
5,306
Wisconsin, USA
Unless you go old school. Console only (no gui) will run quick. There are many console apps that replicate many popular gui apps. You can still have a graphical browser with links2 in framebuffer, watch mplayer videos (and youtube via mps-youtube) also in framebuffer. There are many console file managers, music players, e-mail clients, games etc. If you know your way around console, it can can be quite pleasant.

Cheers
 
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DearthnVader

Suspended
Dec 17, 2015
2,207
6,391
Red Springs, NC
Debian 10 on my iMac 1Ghz with Geforce4 ( NV18 ) fails to properly load X, I get screen corruption.

Haven't narrowed it down to Xorg or nouveau yet, working on it, anyone able to get that setup working with Debian 10?

I did get Debian 10 working on my 12" iBook G4 ( With R9550 graphics ). It runs really well, and Palemoon works better than I had expected. I even tested Wayland, but was unable to get Xwayland to launch anyting( something about crashing too fast in the terminal output????? ).
 

Appleuser201

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2018
401
221
Debian 10 on my iMac 1Ghz with Geforce4 ( NV18 ) fails to properly load X, I get screen corruption.

Haven't narrowed it down to Xorg or nouveau yet, working on it, anyone able to get that setup working with Debian 10?

I did get Debian 10 working on my 12" iBook G4 ( With R9550 graphics ). It runs really well, and Palemoon works better than I had expected. I even tested Wayland, but was unable to get Xwayland to launch anyting( something about crashing too fast in the terminal output????? ).
How does the FireFox quantum work on it though? Ive heard other users say its quite buggy due too Rust.
 

DearthnVader

Suspended
Dec 17, 2015
2,207
6,391
Red Springs, NC
How does the FireFox quantum work on it though? Ive heard other users say its quite buggy due too Rust.
No FireFox on the 32bit PPC is installed by defualt, it seems to be in the APT repository but apt can't reslove the missing packages it needs to install.

This is true of a lot of packages on Debian 10 both ppc and ppc64, a lot of stuff isn't ported over yet.

Hopefully this issue will resolve itself in time, but we really need a lot more users installing and giving feedback.
 

Appleuser201

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2018
401
221
No FireFox on the 32bit PPC is installed by defualt, it seems to be in the APT repository but apt can't reslove the missing packages it needs to install.

This is true of a lot of packages on Debian 10 both ppc and ppc64, a lot of stuff isn't ported over yet.

Hopefully this issue will resolve itself in time, but we really need a lot more users installing and giving feedback.
What browsers work on it right away after installation?
 
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