G5 Nightmare!

[qednet]

Ok so someone should mod the Gentoo ppc manual to note that JFS is not supported by yaboot. I'm sure I'm not the first to be caught out by that sucker.

Second, getting a new kernel to boot is such a pain in the arse. So far I have built the default kernel, a modded version of a previous successful build and my own instinctive selection and they all crash after the initial white screen (returning from eeprom or similar). One suggestion seems to be the nuveau module is the culprit but what else are we supposed to use with our nvidia ppc's?

This isn't specific to gentoo, I've had the same issue with a debian install but I've wasted a week trying difference kernels. Maybe it's the 64bit arch but I've never had these problems installing linux on the ppc before.

It seems unfortunate since the G5's are a dime a dozen these days but they still have a great build quality.

[qednet]

So just to add to my carbon footprint I have cracked a kernel config that does boot successfully, based on the G5 default included in the gentoo source package. Here's that bit of the process

code//
cd /usr/src/linux-3.12.35-gentoo
make g5_defconfig

(then)

make && make modules_install
//code

HOWEVER! This kernel behaves very strangely. The default has NO support for JFS, which I am still using after I repartitioned my drive to include a ext2 /boot partition, so I had to load the config and add JFS support.

2nd foible is there is no network??? My thoughts were the Sun GEM module was loaded or built in (they are) but it just doesn't seem to talk to it. I'm chasing that, but it seems the default G5 config leaves a bit to be desired, still at least it boots

[qednet]

OK, its officially a pain in the arse now. I've tracked down the ethernet problem to a misnamed interface, possibly by udev. My eth0 has become enP1p3s15f0 - try saying that after a few beers!

[qednet]

And the fix for the ethernet is here

http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Udev/upgrade#Fixing_network_interfaces

Clunky, but it works. Greater minds might get to the bottom of it.

Still worried about the kernel, it hangs for about 20 seconds and then again for about a minute. I'll post dmesg when I get a browser working

That was 12 hours I will never get back....A debian install would have taken 30 minutes

[Atha]

I’m sorry to read that.
I had used Gnetoo on my G5 for about a year or two, but that has been at least 5 years ago. Many things have changed since then and I’m not sure if the manuals and guides have been updated to all of the changes yet.

In my opinion it helps quite a lot to know how it works on a very well supported architecture, like x86 or amd64, because there are a lot of recent features that work similarly on ppc and ppc64.

Did you try GRUB also?
I always wanted to substitude yaboot with GRUB once it was finished, but I abandoned my G5 just before that. GRUB version 2 should have a PPC support.

Also, my G5s have Radeon cards, so I don’t know about the nouveau graphics glitches. But since then KMS was introduced and maybe radeon has issues now too on ppc/ppc64.

Anyways, your post made me consider installing Gentoo on my G5 once again.
Or should I try Debian instead? Hmmm…
*still thinking about it*