On Sun, Feb 18, Even wrote:
Not a Flame, I still use SuSE on several machines and I probably will for a long time, and it is only because I like it, I bother to write this message.
It have been an interesting time installing and configuring suse linuxPPC. There have been more problems than I expected. I have been using several Linux versions (X86) over several years, so I feel quite confident in that environment, but PPC have several differences (and I don't want to mess it up) or it could be that I am just making the difference bigger, this is my first Mac notebook so I am a little fresh.
1 after installing anything with Yast I loose my eth0 depmod does not change anything ldconfig does not fix it insmod -f complains about not finding the directory Yast2 is complaining about Error 255 modprobe tells me that I "can't locate module bmac.o The last times it have fixed itself when I run Yast2, but this time Error 255
The driver is compiled into the kernel, at least in the 2.2 series. So yast or the other tools can not help much. Make sure you boot the vmlinux from the k_pmac.rpm.
2 The Monitor problem The standard Apple Hardware is quite standard they don¹t change video cards that often (or any other hardware) I can see that there is problems in the X86 world, but on Mac? I know that the information Apple is willing to share is a joke, but any distribution should be able to make some standard scripts (choose your model)
xsfb should handle that for XFree86 3, it simply uses the active kernel framebuffer resolution. sax2 is supposed for XFree86 4. But the available drivers are broken enough that there is no way to configure it in a safe way. Version 4.0.2 is a bit better, the framebuffer drivers in the current kernels are also better. sax2 is now much more usable in 7.1-ppc. The only thing that doesnt work right now with XFree86 4 is platinumfb in the 7200. Addon cards like voodoo and permedia etc is a different story.
3 Support I did send an email to SuSE regarding the installation problems I have on my G4. The answer did not help me, and I waited several days. According to another "unnamed" mailing list, my specific problem was quite common for G4 and there was a "fix". I have to admit that I have not tried it so this could be premature. But just having knowledge about the fact that a problem exists, and not informing the customer is not right. If SuSE would have told me (I did not find it on the site) that there is a problem with the video card in G4 could have saved hours in searching for the problem, I could have started at once, in the right direction.
bad.
4 Support #2
This mailing list, the number of messages is not very high, but the response is phenomenal, the best I have ever seen. And the help is the same. I am in awe to the people at SuSE that runs it. It reminds me of the early news groups.
good ;)
One of my greatest concerns is that Linux have a reputation for being very stable. PPC is stable but some of the major software is not, (it seems like sax2 ) is unable to save the info to XF86Config, eth0 is dropping out, it is probably an easy fix for it (I have not looked at the web site yet) but I would imagine that this would be somewhat intimidating for a Mac user (no offence) so a section in the manual describing how to edit the XF86Conf with emacs would have been great. It would also have been great to have a page about what to do after upgrading, how to get the modules to load...
The sax2 bugs are mostly solved, but this setup tool still depends on the Xserver functionality. Why is there a "86" in the name? I'm not sure whats up with that ethernet dropouts, please verify it with the 2.2.18 kernel. Its possible that you have a "bad" combination of cable/hub/network-chip. I have a beige G3 here and a PowerBook G3 and both can not see each other when I connect them to the same hub, even in MacOS. Gruss Olaf -- $ man clone BUGS Main feature not yet implemented...