August 2001 - openSUSE PPC - openSUSE Mailing Lists

Re: [suse-ppc] suse linux and new power mac G4
by Jean-Francois Donati 07 Aug '01

07 Aug '01

Following the howto written by Dave Ray (penguinppc.org/usr/newg4howto.html) gave me the same results he described. What I did was: use the suse 7.0 CD along with a newer kernel (2.4.2 if I remember correctly) with the following yaboot install parameters: image = vmlinux label = installer initrd = ramdisk.image.gz initrd-size = 64000 root = /dev/ram0 video = ofonly it looks as if using the parameters of the os chooser are not properly transmitted to the open firmware. i had to boot in the open firmware, then to boot on the proper partition (ie boot ultra1:8,\\yaboot) The yast2 installer works ok, apart from the fact that the windows appear as black rectangles with nothing in them. it's only when you click in them that the highlighted text becomes visible. It's inconvenient but it works. Then the installer reboots and the reboot fails. I had to reboot under macos, changed the yaboot parameters to image = vmlinux label = linux root = /dev/hdb6 hda = autotune video = ofonly and reboot again through the open firmware. all the install went fine, even the XF86 version 3 (the one that comes with suse 7.0 by default) worked fine, except that the whole screen appears in psychedelic colors. Konsoles are basically unuable (black text on black background), except if you chose some non standard setup, where you get greenish text on black background. Still, it's hard to work with. I tried to change to a newer configuration of Xfree (4.0.1, ie that also provided with suse 7.0) and messed up my xf86Config file, and could no longer get x to work. But as the ethernet card does not work either (neither does the sound card), i stopped my investigations, hoping that there will be some new suse version integrating all this soon. i didnot test the cd/dvd burner yet... as far as the video card support, going to the xfree86 site, they say that version 4.1 supports the nvidia geforce 2 mx (accelerated), and they have a ppc version. They do not mention that the ppc version does not provide accelerated X for this nvidia card, so I assume that it worked. I tried to install it directly from the xfree86 site, but i could not even get x working: it looks as if the suse version of xfree86 is slightly different than the official version. is this right?? I also tried to install the rpm's from the suse ftp site (ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/X/suse71/4.1.0) but it failed again (version GLIBC2.2 not found). May be it's because I only have suse7.0ppc rather than suse7.1ppc. According to you, there will be no ppc driver for nvidia. It sounds really stupid isn't it?? given the fact that they produced drivers for intel platforms, why not for ppc platforms as well?? Is that what the nvidia guys told you??? Is it definite?? I'm reluctant to go back to an ati rage128 card as they are supposed to be far worse in terms of graphical performance. Any idea of how i could make the ethernet card work?? I thought of buying suse7.1ppc to see if it worked any better. is it supposed to work any better than the 7.0 version for all the above issues (os chooser booting, nvidia accelerated support, ethernet, sound)?? when is the 7.3ppc supposed to come out? should it perform better on this particular hardware?? Thanks again in advance for all the info. cheers, jean-francois.

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unsubscribe suse-ppc
by Francisco Jesus 06 Aug '01

06 Aug '01

unsubscribe suse-ppc

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suse linux and new power mac G4
by Jean-Francois Donati 06 Aug '01

06 Aug '01

Hi, I've just bought a new G4 in the aim of putting linux onto it to turn it into a small workstation. I assumed that it would be very easy, just as it was with SuSe linux 7.0 on my pismo. However, I discovered that there is no linuxppc driver yet available for the nvidia card (Geforce 2) that comes in with this new hardware. I found since then the list of problematic macs on the suse page (which includes the new G4s), but it does not mention when linux should be available for these macs. I've noticed on the nvidia web site that there actually ARE some linux drivers for these cards, but only for the INTEL distributions. I tried to download the sources and compile the driver myself, but it failed (some files seem to be missing). I imagine that most information about the nvidia card is contained in the intel versions of the drivers. Is that right?? In this case, making drivers that work for the new G4s should be fairly easy, and I imagine they will be part of the next Suse PPC distribution (7.3, as i understand). Is this right or am I completely wrong?? Note that in case you need guinea pigs to test new nvidia drivers, I would like to be one of those. Trust me for doing all sorts of nasty tests... THanks a lot for any information you can provide on this subject. Best regards, jean-francois DOnati

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update dependency error
by Joss Winn 06 Aug '01

06 Aug '01

Hi, I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but I just ran the YAST2 online update and installed openssl 0.9.6a-14. The RPM package says it should provide libssl.so.0 and libcrypto.so.0 as well as libssl.so.0.9.6 and libcrypto.so.0.9.6. However, only the 0.9.6 libs were installed and without the plain x.so.0 libraries, there are dependency problems. I fixed them by making symbolic links to the later 0.9.6 versions, but clearly there is a mistake here in the packaging since the description says it provides the old libs but in fact does not. I noticed that both Mutt and Konqueror (web browser mode not file manager) were broken without the old ssl and crypto libs. cheers Joss --

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