Linux PPC Testing

This is now a real thing.

Okay so to prevent Macland from falling off the map, and to further justify the fun we have over there, I have reopened the possibility of Linux on the PowerPC Macintosh. This should at least buy us some time.

So for starters, how do we get it going?

Right now, I'm using builds of Ubuntu 12.04 on all PPC based Macs just as I have been pushing for 12.04 on all of the Intels. The interface is much nicer than 10.04's horrendous top and bottom bars (YUCK!).

Out of box, almost everything is golden! For PowerMac G5s, I'm using the straight Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity2D and for the PowerBook G4s, I'm using Lubuntu 12.04 with it's lighter weight interface.

PowerMacs just work. It's the PowerBooks which can yield some complications. More specifically, the 12" PowerBooks with their Nvidia FX5200 Go gpus are poorly supported by the Nouveau driver set that ships with 12.04. It causes a well known slowdown in performance on lower end models and seems to also have virtual screen sizing issues. Most people have solved this by increasing the vertical size of the screen in the Xorg.conf or by switching resolutions with XrandR but that doesn't help the choppy performance on lower end machines. Instead, the solution to that is to compile the nv driver for these machines. It was a piece of cake but a little hacky.

Following some advice I added to my /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ natty universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty universe

Then I updated and grabbed the tools I'd need to compile the driver:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential fakeroot dpkg-dev

So then, just for funsies sake, I made a directory in my home dir to dump all of the items into:

mkdir nv-build
cd nv-build 

So then it was time to grab the source:

apt-get source xserver-xorg-video-nv

And then I began to build it:

cd xserver-xorg-video-nv-2.1.17                        
sudo apt-get build-dep xserver-xorg-video-nv
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b

It all seemed to go perfectly from there and whipped the package together surprisingly fast to I went ahead and gave it a try:

cd ..
sudo dpkg -i ./*.deb

I removed those entries I made in the sources.list and I was almost good to go! So to avoid any complications, I did two more things; for starters, I removed the nouveau driver:

sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

And then I blacklisted nouveau kernel entries from modprobe by making /etc/modprobe.conf and adding this line to it:

blacklist nouveau

Saved that and rebooted into my fancy new and much faster nv setup!!

Now it was on to some general changes I do for all PowerBooks. When Ubuntu is installing, it will check what device it's installing to and, if all goes well, it will install mouseemu to all the user to right click in some way. The poopy default button to right click is F12, which is stupid. Luckily, it is very easy to change. You need to edit /etc/default/mouseemu and uncomment the line that says:

RIGHT_CLICK="-right 29 272"

This will enable you to "ctrl-click" which is the default right click in Mac OSX (plus it's way more convenient).

Now, to get the battery indicator working, you need to add a line to /etc/modules that says:

pmu_battery

After those two edits, you should reboot and enjoy your new, working PowerBook!