Question about installing Gentoo on a G3 500mhz iBook 10.3

Hydraulix · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 447

I'm debating on installing Gentoo on my iBook. I just wanted to know how much of a problem it is going to be installing it and can I use all the packages that come with the x86 Gentoo versions? Or is there some kinda PPC version of packages?

Thanks in advance.

m0pr0be · Guru Joined: 29 Aug 2002 Posts: 308

it depends on your gentoo experience. the basic installation works fine for ppc archs. for the extra features like laptop sleep you will need some more time fiddling around, maybe.
the most important packages in the portage tree will work. there are a few packages that are x86 only. like x86 binary packages. or packages which rely heavily on x86 specific code.

boojummy · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 2:35 pm Post subject:

You should check out the Gentoo package database: http://packages.gentoo.org/ and you can see exactly what you'll get for each arch in Gentoo. Most ebuilds available for x86 work fine for ppc, but there are the occasional nonfunctional ones (like Rosegarden

).

I'd say that in my experience, Gentoo on ppc is great! Not the easiest thing to install, in general, (pcc has some interesting differences from x86), but it's a great way to learn about your machine, not to mention a great way to actually do what you want with your own hardware

ozonator · Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 4:21 pm Post subject:

In my experience, too, Gentoo on ppc is fantastic. Everything on my iBook (rev. 2.2, 800 MHz) is supported, even the software modem and sleep (with stable ppc-sources).

With respect to packages, the 'unmasking' of packages tends to take a bit longer in ppc than in x86, but on the other hand, I generally have no problem emerging masked versions when I want something to be more up to date, or something that just hasn't been tested enough to be marked stable on ppc (i.e., more than on x86, masked on ppc often seems to indicate a lack of sufficient testing, rather than it truly being unstable). There are a few binary-only packages (acroread, macromedia flash and such) that tend to be x86-only, but those have been the only things I've run into that are truly blocked on ppc. I've never tried Rosegarden; could it be that it uses x86-specific instructions, e.g., requires MMX? I ran into that with xzgv, but the MMX-specific option could be turned off by editing one line of the makefile. I guess I beg your pardon (can't... stop... the... pun...), no one promised you a Rosegarden. :wink:

Sorry, sorry, honestly couldn't help it.

There are some ppc-specific kernel options (mainly drivers, but also things like apm emulation for laptops), and it's worth the time to read the help text and see which ones are appropriate. Also, there are some ppc-specific packages that are handy on a laptop: pmud, pbbuttonsd, gtkpbbuttons, etc. I think many of these are mentioned in the ppc install guide, and the ppc faq.

One more comment. I had some trouble recently with using more aggressive $CFLAGS on ppc (gtk2 apps stopped working), so I'd recommend sticking to the $CFLAGS recommended in the default /etc/make.conf -- they're well-tested -- or something similarly conservative. The $CFLAGS that work best for me (i.e., no problems at all) are "-Os -pipe -mcpu=750 -fomit-frame-pointer -s".

Best of luck! As I said, Gentoo is great on my iBook, and I hope it's as much fun, and as useful for you.

edub · n00b Joined: 01 Jul 2002 Posts: 17

hi there - I have your model of ibook, and have installed gentoo on it several times in various configurations. In general the install is not too bad, though depending on what kernel you're using, getting DRI to work with the ATI M3 on the ibook2 can be a pain - the 2.6 test kernels have managed this much much better for me than any of the 2.4 kernels. With DRI enabled, the ibook2 feels so much snappier than with os x. sound is good with 2.4 but my experience has been that with 2.6 test kernels it is choppy. The only other gotchas are just the mac-fdisk/partition layout differences from x86, which caused me some grief, but are managable once you understand what the install requires, and the power management stuff.

There are alot of packages that are masked for ppc that are usable for x86 - which can be disheartening if you count on a particular package and are not willing to use an unstable version. However, as the other posters point out, most of the big packages are there.

I agree with the boojummy that installing ppc gentoo was a great way to learn about my machine. I have ditched mac oses entirely, and run a gentoo only ibook2 - which gives you some idea of what a good fit gentoo is for my ibook hardware!

Hydraulix · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 447

Thanks all

Yeah all I want to do is have Gentoo on my iBook and also have OS X. Is there a page where I can find out how much space Gentoo needs for the install? I was thinking of giving 9GB to OS X and 9GB to Gentoo. See I was using Fink for a while but there's a lack of packages and KDE runs slow as hell on my iBook. Again thanks for your help. I've installed Linux many many times on the x86 platform but never on a PPC machine.

O also how's Mac on Linux (MOL)? I've seen it on many machines and I just wanted to know how fast does it run and is there a way to run it fullscreen?

ozonator · Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 3:44 pm Post subject:

Hydraulix · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 447

Thanks a lot:)

It seems that the version of Gentoo I have has the 2.4 kernel that's not working on my system. I really just want the 2.6 kernel version. Where can I download that at?

m0pr0be · Guru Joined: 29 Aug 2002 Posts: 308

Hydraulix · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 447

miazmaticdotcom · n00b Joined: 31 Jan 2004 Posts: 5

I was also looking into putting Linux on my iBook, and instead of starting a new thread, I figured I would put my questions in here:

I can't reach a decision between Gentoo, Debian, or YDL. I'm relatively new to Linux and am partial to Debian because it has apt-get, and I've had good experiences with it on my x86 desktop box. I've also heard that Yellow Dog comes with excellent hardware supports right out of the box. Thoughts on this?

Also, in terms of file systems, I want to keep all my music on my OS X partition. Which format should I use for OS X so that I can see my music under Linux? (UFS is ok because I don't plan to boot OS 9)

Thanks in advance.
_________________
AMD Duron 1.6Ghz/256MB PC2100 running Debian

iBook 500Mhz Dual USB/384MB that's trying to run Gentoo 1.4 (notice "trying")

Pylon · Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2004 2:01 am Post subject:

Hydraulix · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 447

Hmm I did everything you said and it's still not working. I keep getting this error when I run glxinfo.....

jonson · n00b Joined: 29 Dec 2003 Posts: 14 Location: vancouver

hey, i'll throw in my 2 cents. i just booted back into gentoo after about a month of panther (just too busy with school to be messing around with gentoo) and wow, all i can say is it's much more responsive than panther. so yes, put gentoo on

as for DRI, i tried everything to get it going without much luck... i finally got it going by throwing in this into the device section:

Hydraulix · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 447

Still a no go

Am I doing something wrong? Here's my XF86Config-4 config.

jonson · n00b Joined: 29 Dec 2003 Posts: 14 Location: vancouver

hmm, dunno if i can help then

if it helps here's my XF86Config-4:

http://www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~k5u3/XF86Config-4

good luck!

Hydraulix · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 447