Newbie with Fedora Core 4 PPC on Power Mac G5.

[Brian Durant]

On 28. jan 2006, at 19.24, Brian D. Carlstrom wrote:

> Brian Durant writes:
>> 3) The fans on the G5 are revving excessively. I assume this is a
>> problem with the "windfarm" module?
>
> Have you done a "yum update" to get the latest software and rebooted
> with the newly installed kernel? For me the original FC4 did not  
> support
> my PowerMac7,3 but the updated one did. However, I don't think this  
> will
> work in your case, but updating to an updates-testing kernel might,  
> if I
> recall my earlier email, the 2.6.15 kernel available there had the
> PowerMac9,1 code. once you update everything else, you can try a "yum
> --enable-depot=updates-testing kernel*" or something like that to get
> the newer kernel. Be careful not to install a ppc (versus ppc64)  
> kernel
> or you won't be able to boot.

Sorry, I keep changing things around, but I am really getting  
frustrated about not being able to get anything to work with any of  
the distros. They all are acting worse than beta ware on my machine.  
In my opinion, none of them should have been released before the  
issues were sorted out. It doesn't make a good impression for total  
newbies. Fortunately, I have had some experience with Linux, so I  
know sometimes you need patience, but I still try to follow the ath  
of least resistance and deal with the distro that is least bad :-)  
Since my posting,I have gone back to YDL 4.0.1 as it seems to work  
best on my machine of all of the distros I have tried. Even though I  
have a thing for .deb based distros, I am basically a pragmatist at  
heart and  since YDL works best for me, that is where I will  
concentrate my effort on getting things sorted out. Maybe I can be  
convinced to love an .rpm based system as well. Who knows? Time will  
tell. Hopefully since it has Fedora Core as its base, this won't be  
considered off topic for the list. Except for installing Danish  
language support, my YDL install is a default desktop install. Here  
are some pretty fundamental issues that I can't seem to get around:

1) I can start a root session, but YDL doesn't recognize the root  
password when I try to do a command like:

$ su tail -f /var/log/messages [ENTER]

$ sudo tail -f /var/log/messages [ENTER]

$ root tail -f /var/log/messages [ENTER]

(This is when I am in a normal user session)

2) "yum check-update" returns something about some file missing in / 
var/....

>> 1) At the log in, the cursor blinks in the "username" field, but
>> neither my Apple wireless keyboard nor my Apple USB keyboard seem to
>> work. The mouse (Apple Mighty Mouse) seems to freeze also. I end up
>> having to do a hard shutdown by pressing the poser button.
>
> I have only used the regular wired mouse and keyboards. In addition to
> the ones that Apple shipped with the machine, on one machine we have a
> Microsoft wired optical mouse and that works fine. We general use the
> USB connector on the back of the monitor but we have also used the  
> front
> and back USB connectors without problem.
>
>> 2) Yaboot can't boot into OS X.
>
> There has been a new yaboot since the initial release as well,  
> though I
> have no idea if its related to this problem you are having. I've never
> created a dual boot configuration so I'm not helpful there. Also, make
> sure you run /sbin/ybwin whenever you change your /etc/yaboot.conf so
> that it will take effect. Are there settings in yaboot.conf for dual
> boot support?
>
>     $ yum provides /sbin/ybin
>     Searching Packages:
>     Setting up repositories
>     Reading repository metadata in from local files
>
>
>     yaboot.ppc                               1.3.12-9                
> base
>     Matched from:
>     /sbin/ybin
>
>
>     yaboot.ppc                               1.3.12-10               
> updates-released
>     Matched from:
>     /sbin/ybin
>
>
>     yaboot.ppc                               1.3.12-10               
> installed
>     Matched from:
>     /sbin/ybin
>     $
>
> Finally, YDL 4.1 is supposed to be out relatively soon...:)

Yes, I have been thinking about that as well, but to tell you the  
truth, I would like to get a boxed version shipped. I would like to  
have a manual in my hand to refer to when I am puzzling over a  
solution. I like to relax in a sofa and study the matter before I go  
back to my desk :-) I'll have to see if Terrasoft can handle a  
shipment to Denmark. They have a partner in Germany, but as I don't  
read German...

For now, I am going to concentrate on getting 4.0.1 to work and then  
see where I go from there :-)

Cheers,

Brian