Difference between revisions of "TonysMacJournal Mar07"

Latest revision as of 22:45, 23 March 2007

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-==02Mar07==
+#REDIRECT [[User:Tonyr/Journal/Mar07]]
-Where have I been for a week?  Working on Disk Replication, memory testing and disk test/wipe, mainly.  The inflow was relatively low during that time. I did a little with the '''smartmontools''' package, which I think should probably become a standard part of disk testing.  I use it when wiping/testing the hard drives in the Mac Build area.
-Script [[Mac Build Scripts#genMacDisk.sh|genMacDisk.sh]] works, creating a Ubuntu Edgy bootable hard drive that looks pretty much like the one created by the Ubuntu installer.  I don't think it covers all of the PowerMac tower boot-device configurations.  It might bebetter to leave that for a post-creation step.  I'll have to think about that somemore.
-''G4 Powerbook''<br>
-Audio does not seem to be configuring during installation on the G4/700 flat-panel and the G4 Powerbook. [http://music.columbia.edu/pipermail/linux-audio-user/2005-June/023998.html This] forum article suggests a fix.
-The 800MHz G4 Powerbook battery seems to be pretty much shot.  Tests showed battery life to be about 6 minutes.  I asked Dave to leave it plugged in overnight in the Black Hole to see if prolonged charging would have any effect.
-The CD drive may actually be a SuperDrive, or CD-RW.  If it's using SCSI emulation, '''cdrecord --scanbus''' might find it.   I got the model number from '''/proc/ide/hd?''', which could be googled.
-''nVidia''<br>
-[http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=924 Here] is a forum article with a suggestion about installing '''6.10(Edgy)''' on systems with nVidia video controllers.  It is based on booting the LiveCD and changing '''xorg.conf'''.  I'm not sure I ever pursued the LiveCD install far enough to try this.  This is coming up again because Loren is working on the G4/700 Flat Panel machines with '''7.04(Feisty)''', which has problems of its own, and there are a couple of G4 PowerMac Quicksilver 733MHz machines that came in with nVidia contollers. I may have commented earlier that there were no nVidia drivers for PPC.  That would have been a misinterpretation of things I read.  It seems that nVidia (and ATI, too, reportedly) have not released the 3D driver versions for PPC, but the 2D versions work fine.  It's just a matter of convincing a PPC installation to use the driver correctly (hence the link mentioned above).
-==03mar07==
-Many of the later G4 towers have nVidia video controllers.  The expected donation evolution described by RFS (systems coming into FreeGeek will have ever 'increasing' specs) predicts that we will be seeing more of these as time goes by.  Loren and I talked about the variety of G4 tower configurations, and I said I would make a chart of the G4 models that showed specs for the various models.  I'm working on that.  It sure would be nice to solve the nVidia on Dapper/Edgy problem. ([[Mac Models]] page created 05mar07)
-Some G4 towers have a '''DVD-RAM''' drive.  This kind of drive was an early DVD-RW format that apparently did not catch on.  The literature says that it was more popular in camcorders.  You don't hear much about them in the consumer computer market these days.  MacBuild should swap these out for DVD/CD-RW, if possible, or DVD-ROM, and sell them separately in the store.
-I replicated a ppc linux hard drive from a G3 (or G4?) tower drive, and tried it on an iMac.  It didn't work. X failed to start and I couldn't convince it to reconfigure xserver-xorg.  The point of the exercise is to produce a replicated hard drive that 'just works', so I abandoned that attempt.  I installed a new Edgy in the iMac using the alternate CD, and used that drive to capture the linux directory and boot directory, and save them on the hard drive of the replicator machine.  The script '''genMacDisk''' will have to be modified to take into account the different installation directories.  The nVidia solution, if there is one, will probably need to be captured, too.
-How many more, I wonder?
-I had a false epiphany about replication.  Ubuntu has what it terms an '''OEM''' installation on the alternate CD, and I thought this might be exploited to do the replication.  What I discovered is that the '''OEM''' installation does not address the case at hand, and there is relatively little documentation that I can find.  The closest stated application is to replicate identical hard drives for volume system sales.  That does not apply here, since the case is replicating to a different size hard drive.
-==06mar07==
-''nVidia''<br>
-Will wonders never cease!  The Edgy LiveCD actually boots on a G4/733 Quicksilver with an nVidia GeForce2 video card.  A replicated hard drive also boots, but I had to replace '''/etc/X11/xorg.conf''' with a copy from the other G4/733 Quicksilver.  This implies that '''/etc/X11/xorg.conf''' might have to be a selectable config file based on the video card of the target platform  (and specified with a command  line argument or an environmant variable?). There is curious thing that I do not understand, however.  The alternate CLI ttys are not working.  CTL+ALT+F1 should swithj to a cli console.  What actually happens is that the display turns grey-white and doesn't show anything else.  There is no display reaction to keyboard events.  huh?
-Upon reflection, the FreeGeek build standard says that video should support a generic VGA display with 1024x768 resolution.  '''/etc/X11/xorg.conf''' should reflect that.  Any displays bundled with systems should support that.  Displays that do not should be sold separately, or the sytem configuration modified if the display is required for any reason (only one that can be connected, e.g. to a cube, or grant request).  A standard '''/etc/X11/xorg.conf''' should be injected into the linux replication images.
-''Hard drive replication''<br>
-The python version of the replicator is partially tested.  There was a bug in the yaboot config file name during the last test run this afternoon.  I think I repaired, but another test round must needs be done.  The current code is in [[Mac Build Scripts: Python]].
-Matteo suggested that the '''/dev''' and '''/proc''' directories should not be copied with '''rsync''' during the replication.  I inspected the '''/proc''' directory in the host drive linux root directory, and it appears to be empty, so I guess my use of '''rsync''' in this instance is doing the right thing.  The '''/dev''' issue is a
-little more interesting.  I think that so far luck has held, in that the device configuration of various towers is so similar that a generic '''/dev''' directory will cover most cases.  There may be issues with SCSI configured systems.  We shall see.  The only '''imac''' test run didn't work, and I don't know whether it was a script failure or a severe mismatch between imac and tower configurations.  More experimentation needs to be done in that regard.
-''Mac Grant request''<br>
-There was a Grant request today for three Mac systems.  The grant specified that OS 10 should be installed. Freegeek cannot do that.  What can be provided is machines with Ubuntu, or machines on which Mac OS 10 has been shown to work. Elizabeth(?) said that the grant requestor would be contacted for more discussion.
-==07mar07==
-''nVidia''<br>
-Tried to test a 17" Apple Studio Display (ADC) today, on the G4/733 with nVidia video controller.   X never started on it, although there was some small evidence that linux did boot.  I think that the problem is an incorrect '''xorg.conf''', but I couldn't find a combination of things that were correct.  I think primarily the horiz and vertical rates wer never correct.  A good spec is at [http://support.apple.com/specs/displays/Apple_Studio_Display_17_ADC.html http://support.apple.com/specs/displays/Apple_Studio_Display_17_ADC.html], and says horiz: 60-160Hz, vert: 80kHz.  In addition, only the '''nv''' version of the nVidia driver is available for t '''ppc''', not the '''nvidia''' version.  This is what I was referring to earlier in the comment about no nVidia 3D driver for '''ppc'''.  Note that the previously mentioned success with the video was with a 15" flat panel Apple Studio display, and the copied '''xorg.conf''' may have actually been from the successful LiveCD boot.  Also note that reconfiguring Xorg is hard to do since the console terminals (CTL+ALT+F1 et. al.) do not seem to be available when X doesn't start using this 17" ADC monitor.  FWIW, the configuration program for xorg is the X server, '''Xorg -configure''', but it must be run from a non-X console, i.e., Xorg cannot already be running.
-The console terminals do not seem to be available at all with the nVidia card.  They are not there with the Blue VGA studio display.   There may be video boot parameters that can be added to '''yaboot.conf''' or other options in the driver section of '''xorg.conf'''.  More research and experimentation is need here.
-''Hard drive replication''<br>
-Python script debug and successful disk replication.  There are still issues about standard display vs. special display and nVidia contoller vs. ATI controller to resolve.

Difference between revisions of "TonysMacJournal Mar07"

Latest revision as of 22:45, 23 March 2007

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