Newbie with Power Mac G5.

[Brian Durant]

On 21. jan 2006, at 20.29, Brian D. Carlstrom wrote:

>
> Brian Durant writes:
>> I am new to the list and to Linux. I am trying to find a distro that
>> my G5 doesn't have a revving fan problem with. Here is info on my
>> hardware:
>
> I started out with YDL 4.0 on my PowerMac G5 Dual Processor 2.0GHz
> machine and there were no problems with the fans.
>
> Later I got some 2.5GHz models and 4.0 and 4.0.1 and the fans were
> blaring because of a simple check needed for PowerMac7,2 versus
> PowerMac7,3. I swtiched to FC4 at this point and that fixed my fan
> problems...sort of. At this point I have some 2.7GHz machines that are
> prematurely panicing about overheating, There is a fix for this in
> 2.6.15 for which there is a FC4 updates testing kernel. However, as I
> just reported to the fedora-test-list, for some reason the driver
> doesn't seem to be initialized I'm back to full blaring fans on those
> machines for a while.
>
> One problem I had with FC4 is that I couldn't get it to clean  
> install on
> the new machines because of a disk druid problem or something like  
> that.
> So I actually installed YDL all the way through the first reboot,  
> then I
> turned around and installed FC4. if I tried to reboot just after the
> partion part and not after actual package installation it didn't  
> work, I
> think it wasn't flushing the right stuff to disk until the end. I just
> did minimial packge installs to get through it quick.
>
> Now, you have a different model that I have not tried. searching  
> through
> my collection of recent FC4 updates and updates-testing kernels  
> (which I
> happen to have around because of my own 2.7 GHz problem  
> investigation) I
> see that the new windfarm driver is specifically for the PowerMac9,1:
>
> mchammer:~/kernel $ grep 9,1 */*/drivers/macintosh/*.*
> 1823/linux-2.6.15/drivers/macintosh/windfarm_pm91.c: * PowerMac9,1
> 1823/linux-2.6.15/drivers/macintosh/windfarm_pm91.c:    if  
> (machine_is_compatible("PowerMac9,1"))
> 1823/linux-2.6.15/drivers/macintosh/ 
> windfarm_pm91.c:MODULE_DESCRIPTION("Thermal control logic for  
> PowerMac9,1");
> 1823/linux-2.6.15/drivers/macintosh/windfarm_smu_sensors.c:     /*  
> Try to use quadratic transforms on PowerMac8,1 and 9,1 for now,
> 1823/linux-2.6.15/drivers/macintosh/ 
> windfarm_smu_sensors.c:          machine_is_compatible 
> ("PowerMac9,1")) &&
>
> However, this is the same updates-testing kernel that didn't work for
> me, even though it has the patched therm_pm72.c driver I needed for my
> PowerMac7,2 and PowerMac7,3 machines. But it seems like trying FC4 and
> then doing a "yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update kernel*"  
> might get
> you somewhere close.
>
> Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh at kernel.crashing.org> is the author for  
> most
> of the thermal support for the PowerMacs. I never see him on the  
> fedora
> lists. He can be found on linuxppc64-dev and also on debian-powerpc
>
> On my web page (http://carlstrom.com/winunix.html) I have links to the
> various linux/ppc mailing lists such as linuxppc64-dev, fedora-ppc,
> debian-powerpc, and yellowdog-devel if you want to look around the
> archives for PowerMac9,1 stories.
>
> As far as YDL goes, there is a 4.1 release now available for $$$ and
> perhaps the ISO's will be out soon. there was a 4.0.91 beta that  
> people
> seemed happy with as far as PowerMac support went. For me, the package
> selection of FC4 is so much better than YDL that I don't want to go  
> back.
>
> Good luck,
>
> -bri
>
>
>>
>> Hardware Overview:
>>
>>    Machine Name:	Power Mac G5
>>    Machine Model:	PowerMac9,1
>>    CPU Type:	PowerPC G5  (3.0)
>>    Number Of CPUs:	1
>>    CPU Speed:	1.8 GHz
>>    L2 Cache (per CPU):	512 KB
>>    Memory:	1 GB
>>    Bus Speed:	600 MHz
>>    Boot ROM Version:	5.2.2f2
>>
>> I have tried YDL 4.0.1, but at least during the prep stage, after
>> boot and before the actual install took place, I experienced the
>> problem. This, plus the fact that I couldn't figure out which of my 2
>> internal SATA drives YDL would be installed on. made me bail.

Wow, this is the first really informative response that I have gotten  
as per this issue on any PPC Linux list!!!! Please tell me, if I try  
to install Fedora Core 4 and do manual partitioning for "sdb" SATA  
internal drive #2 on my G5 can I decide which drive to install Fedora  
on? I just want to make sure that I don't have to bail because I  
think Fedora is going to erase and install on my OS X install drive  
"sda".

>> I am in
>> the process of downloading the Fedora Core 4 PPC CD's, so I was
>> wondering if anyone on the list has experienced these problems.

Cheers,

Brian