Gentoo on the iBook G4 (XFree)

[Rakor]

Hi, are there any experiences about Gentoo on the iBook G4 ?

I've bought one and want to use Gentoo Linux on it. I'm using Gentoo on my PC and I love ist

But now I've heard that there are big problems on the iBook. THe Radeon 9200 would not work under Linux etc.
Can you help me? Is it possible to get an Gnome-Desktop with 3D-Acc. to work with the iBook (min. 16Mio. colors)?

Thanx!!

[Elsipkitch9809]

I'm already in the shoes of an ibook G4 owner, so I hope so Seriously, I've heard that it is possible from a few sources, from the webpage it looks like the 9200 is supported. I've been trying different things, and I'm starting to get somewhere (8 bit depth supported), but I'm not even sure I know how to get the right radeon drivers (kernel, xfree-drm, ati, I dont know).
Then again, I had continual problems finding out how to get it bootable, until I found out I was doing something pretty stupid and now it boots fine
Anyway, if anyone has some clear proof of the mobility radeon 9200 working in ppc linux, please respond

Thanks

[jcmorris]

I believe that support is in the latest DRI CVS, so make sure you emerge xfree, unmerge xfree-drm, and read the following doc:

http://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/DRIcompile.html

This explains how to download the CVS, compile it, and install it with your existing X installation. The CVS sources also included newer kernel modules, so make sure you do unmerge xfree-drm. Good luck guys, and I hope to soon join you guys with an iBook of my own Let me know if you got it working.

jcm
_________________
Desktop:
Athlon64 3000+ (Socket 939 Venice)
Asus A8N-SLI
1GB Dual-Channel DDR 3200
NVidia Geforce 6800 256MB

Laptop:
IBM R40
Pentium M 1.4 GHz
256 MB RAM

[mean]

Hello, i did a quick try with the G4 ibook but got stuck at ethernet driver module from the nostage install CD.
Which one did you use ?
Thanks.

[Elsipkitch9809]

Um, I didn't specify any modules at all, sorry, just "dhcpcd eth0".

That doesn't work for you? You are using the bugfix-openpic iso right? That's what I used anyway, since I heard that the new firmware on the ibook wouldn't let any other iso boot.

What error message did you get?

[mean]

I dont't have dhcp, so i did a ifconfig and only lo came out
(no eth0)

[mean]

I used the nostage iso
I will retry with the fixed full iso

[mean]

Since you did it
Did you resize the macOSx partition or erase all and repartition the whole stuff ?
(i'd like to keep my osx partition if possible)

[Elsipkitch9809]

Initially when you get your mac it will have the full harddrive as mac os x. You will have to back up any data not on the restore cds and repartition that drive (so far as I know its very hard to partition a drive without losing data). I split mine down the middle 18.5 gigs for linux and mac os x (although once I figure out the entirety of ibook g4 linux, mac os x's might shrink).

[mean]

I took the openpic iso, and now have eth0 working
Thanks a lot

[mean]

I tried with Xfree 4.2.99-14 and X starts but has sync problem on screen
(i.e. lots of unstable lines)

[mean]

The good part is that it seems to detect a working xv
for video rendering
(unlike darwin x11 that has no xv)

[Elsipkitch9809]

You got X working on the ibook G4? Could I possibly get a look at your config file? I'm still having problems getting it to do anything but use 8 bit depth on framebuffer...

Thanks a lot

[naumann]

I am also trying to get X working on ibook G4 and am very interested in any success that you (mean) have had. At this point I followed the suggestions in the gentoo ppc faq and also only have 8bit working.

[mean]

It is not a 100% success story
I have dancing lines at the right hand of the screen (like the 25% right)

I used Xfree4.3.99-15 (latest snapshot) that has support for the 9200

[mean]

With kernel 2.6.0-r4 + xfree 4.3.99-15
the screen flickers a bit before entering X then -> ok
running 24 bits
Recompiling KDE this night to have a decent wm

woot woot

[Elsipkitch9809]

Whoohoo! I'm going to download the new kernel right now so I can compile it tonight at home? Did you use xfree-drm? I tried just the new xfree beta and I got this very funky X that I had to restart my machine to stop...

Great news though! Maybe get some screenshots when it works?

[mean]

Got kde working (takes age to compile, probably running at lower speed)
The 2.6 config is a bit funky (had to hard include some stuff and disable others)
So it may be sub-optimal but it works
running KDE 24 bits

The short story is that i needed 2.6 to have stable LCD screen
I will post my config file and some screenshot tonight

[mean]

And no, i did not take xfree-drm
Plain xfree

[Elsipkitch9809]

Hi,

Yeah, if you could include a compiling 2.6 config file that would be great, because I couldn't get it to actually finish compiling. Also, if its not too much to ask, could you post your xfree config file too please? Sorry for the requests, I'm not sure what options this laptop has to have to work correctly. Thanks a lot!

[mean]

I cannot upload file to my webserver ATM so i attached it to a post on
another forum
I hope i did not break any rule by doing it
http://forum.media-video.com/index.php?showtopic=12045

[mean]

One last thing, i think it is running at low speed by default
(bogomips really low, even if that does not mean a lot)

[mean]

Weird things.
It was working fine, but now it refuses to conclude kernel booting and is stuck at "using PS2 driver for all mice" or something like that.

[Elsipkitch9809]

AFAIK, the ibook will never be able to use PS/2 or AT hardware Anyway, using your config i got everything working, and I did get that error, but then I went back and took out everything that is pretty irrelevant to ppc, and everything still works fine Well, I have to ask you, before you actually do startx for the first time, is your console flickering? I get that for some reason, but as soon as I go into x, it stops, and when you quit x, everything is fine. Dunno what's going on, but X works! Now I just need a net connection to download stuff to compile (but I can do so at school, so its not all bad).
And hey, I even get about 700 fps in glxgears--not great, but not bad considering its not fully supported yet
I see that xfree 4.4 is supposed to be final in december (if everything goes right I guess), I hope 2.6 comes out of beta sometime soon too, but it isnt that bad for the time being. BTW, thanks a lot for the help on this!

[naumann]

Thank you mean for the configurations files. It helped a lot when compiling the 2.6 kernel.

Here are my experiences following your suggestions. When I upgrded Xfree, I was also able to get 24 bit color working, with lots of unstable lines and not able to exit back to console. Gnome was working fine.

I upgraded my kernel today to the 2.6 beta, compiled twice making mistakes, and then followed your config file and was able to boot fine.

Upon booting, display has lots of unstable lines (and occasionally dies at PS2 mouse). I used Xeasyconf, chose the ati driver option and 24 bit color. Usually startx opens and everything looks great. I opened mozilla, and display is amazing! I do not have access to any console windows, but if I exit X, display returns to console and unstable lines are gone.

Problems: 1)sometimes when I startx, I get display with unstable lines. When this happens, I exit back to console (still unstable lines), type startx again and everything is fine. 2)gnome is not working

Also I tried glxgears, and got 3,479 frames in 5.001 seconds.

Hope that sharing this info helps in some small way.

P.S. - should sleep work? or is it more like 12" powerbook sleep that I understand is not supported? Sound and dimmer seem to be working well with pbbuttonsd.