Mac PowerBook G4

Sat Oct 4 04:11:23 UTC 2014

Below is my yaboot.conf file which contains the parameters and my comments. Most of my problems have to do with the fact that I have a Radeon card:

0000:00:10.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV350/M10 [Mobility Radeon 9600 PRO Turbo]

bill at powerbook:~$ cat /etc/yaboot.conf
## yaboot.conf generated by the Ubuntu installer
##
## run: "man yaboot.conf" for details. Do not make changes until you have!!
## see also: /usr/share/doc/yaboot/examples for example configurations.
##
## For a dual-boot menu, add one or more of:
## bsd=/dev/hdaX, macos=/dev/hdaY, macosx=/dev/hdaZ

boot="/dev/disk/by-id/ata-FUJITSU_MHT2080AT_NN4CT4718GM5-part2"
device=/pci at f4000000/ata-6 at d/@0
partition=3
root="UUID=1a7f3c8f-1907-4349-81c9-538cef6fbd16"
timeout=50
install=/usr/lib/yaboot/yaboot
magicboot=/usr/lib/yaboot/ofboot
enablecdboot

# radeonfb is the old driver. It works but it cannot do hardware 
# accelleration. It must be turned off if the new radeon driver is to be
# turned on. The latest versions of the new radeon driver require that KMS
# is turned on with radeon.modeset=1. This causes crashes/hangs unless
# AGP mode is turned down or off. I'm turning it off with radeon.agpmode=-1,
# even though my card is mode 4.
#
# Setting radeon.agpmode=-1 is a necessary workaround according to the
# Ubuntu PPC FAQ and the Fedora 16 PPC page.
#
# Sometimes you get a blank screen but it is just because the brightness
# got set to zero. Turn up the brightness (screen backlight) to fix it: Fn-F?.
#
# This also requires 16-bit color. OpenGL fails in 32/24-bit color. See the 
# /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.
image=/boot/vmlinux
	label=testing
	read-only
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="quiet splash video=radeonfb:off video=radeon:1280x854-32 at 60 radeon.modeset=1 radeon.agpmode=-1"

# This is the default config for Lubuntu, which works, but without hardware
# accelleration. It uses the old radeonfb kernel driver.
image=/boot/vmlinux
	label=Linux
	read-only
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="quiet splash video=radeonfb:1280x854-32 at 60 nomodeset"

image=/boot/vmlinux.old
	label=old
	read-only
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img.old
	append="quiet splash video=radeonfb:1280x854-32 at 60 nomodeset"

# I thought this setup failed, but it might have worked. It resulted in a
# blank screen, but that may have been because the brightness automatically
# got set to zero. This happens in my above working configuration too.
image=/boot/vmlinux
	label=failed
	read-only
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="quiet splash radeon.modeset=1 video=offb:off video=radeonfb:off video=1280x854-32 at 60 radeon.agpmode=-1"

bill at powerbook:~$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "radeon"
    Option      "AccelMethod"   "EXA"
    Option      "AccelDFS"      "off"

# Reducing AGPMode helps stop hangs/crashes. My card is a 4 but 1 works better.
    Option      "AGPMode"       "1"
    Option      "AGPFastWrite"  "1"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"

    # With this I'm attempting to avoid glxinfo from failing to load r300.
    DefaultDepth 16

    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     16
    EndSubSection
EndSection

--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 10/3/14, Al Dunsmuir <al.dunsmuir at sympatico.ca> wrote:

 Subject: Re: Mac PowerBook G4
 To: "Bill Chatfield" <bill_chatfield at yahoo.com>
 Cc: "Dan Horák" <dan at danny.cz>, ppc at lists.fedoraproject.org
 Date: Friday, October 3, 2014, 7:12 PM

 On Friday, October 3,
 2014, 1:51:37 PM, Bill Chatfield wrote:
 >
 Thanks for the info Dan and Al.

 > Right, I'm interested in ppc32 from a
 hobbyist perspective. Red
 > Hat/CentOS
 would be for production. The difference between running
 > MacOS X and Linux on this machine is like
 night and day, with Linux
 > being the
 "day". I think the effort to make things work on
 older
 > hardware forces one to think more
 about efficiency versus waste,
 > which is
 a good thing to consider.

 Aside  from  my  G5s,  I have a number of
 G4 and G3 Macs (plus two IBM
 7046-B50 
 CHRP  32-bit machines currently running AIX 5.1). I've
 got a
 number  of different video cards for
 the PowerMacs, as that (older ATI
 on Intel)
 is what drew me into the Macs in the first place.

 The  only  one  that 
 has  cost  that  much is the G5 Quad, but that's
 because  I've  added a 4TB drive and am
 maxing out the RAM (16 GB when
 I'm done)
 so it will be a useful Koji builder for ppc64 and ppc32.

 > I have a Fedora 17 PPC
 install disk. And now I know, by
 >
 experimenting with Lubuntu PPC, which kernel parameters are
 required
 > to get X to start up on my
 machine, so I can probably start with
 >
 Fedora 17. But, it looks like I'll need to upgrade
 through to F20.

 It 
 would  be  helpful  should  you  find  a spare moment
 if you could
 briefly post your notes (or
 useful URLs) with those kernel parameters.

 Al

 _______________________________________________
 ppc mailing list
 ppc at lists.fedoraproject.org
 https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/ppc