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.
Working With PowerBooks
Video Drivers on 12" PowerBooks
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
Alternatively, I uploaded the driver package here:
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!!
Settings on All PowerBooks
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.
Next, I tend to change the keyboard layout to 'USA (Macintosh)' so the hotkeys will work.
Audio Settings
If, on a machine, you're not getting audio, it may be because the wrong extension is in use. Check /etc/modules to see which one is set to load. There are two used on PPC Macs:
snd-powermac
And this one:
snd-aoa
It's my understanding that snd-aoa can get blacklisted by accident so you will want to additionally check /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.local.conf to make sure that entries for snd-aoa-* are not in there. If they are, remove them and reboot.
Prettying Things Up
If one were to ask me whether I thought this was an essential step, I'd ask if they were joking and instruct them to continue through this step.
I'd start by moving the taskbar to the top of the screen and remove the redundant power button. (They can add it later so just remove it now!)
After that, I install Midori and remove Firefox. Firefox is very bloaty and we don't want to devote all of our system resources to it. Midori, a webkit based browser, is light and nimble. Now, for smaller screen devices, such as the 12" PowerBook, I set the useragent in Midori to iPhone (Preferences/Network/identify as/iPhone), so pages will automatically load optimized for smaller screens.
Then I also change the background to something a little more beautiful, like this:
G5 PowerMacs (Towers)
So pretty much all of the G5 towers have no problem running straight Ubuntu 12.04 with the Unity2D interface. I still install Midori and remove Firefox and I also check for audio issues but have yet to run into any.
iMac G5s
Haven't tried these yet but I'm sure we'll be troubleshooting these much the same way we do with the PowerBooks given the nature of the hardware.