minimalist kernel configs imac g4

[cartman4000]

Hiya
I have tried compiling multiple kernel configs, and none of them work. I refuse to give up and use genkernel.
It always gets up to the same part in the boot process, openrc (in green writing) then mounting the partitions and bangthe screen is black.
Does anybody have an imac g4 with gentoo running with xorg?

If so could you please post the config up here.
If not could anyone tell me what i have done wrong?

I have an nVidia GeForce 4 MX with 32 MB of DDR SDRAM (15"). nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra with 64 MB of DDR SDRAM
256 MB of PC2700 (333 MHz) DDR SDRAM, and a 1.25GHz powerpc.

Thank you

[cartman4000]

I also have append"video=ofonly"
in yaboot.conf

[limn]

How did you come by these configs you have tried?

I have worked on a minimalist config for a G3 by starting with "make defconfig" and then removing unused modules and settings. Once there was a kernel change that caused me to start over again.

Looking at your yaboot.conf, I wonder if you want hdX specifiers

[b0nafide]

It just so happens I just finished dealing with this problem. The nouveau module turns the screen black because it doesn't play well with the open firmware framebuffer. Don't worry, just make sure you have ssh access and finish X that way. Once X loads with the nouveau driver you're good to go. There is probably a modesetting problem here somewhere but I don't mind a few seconds of black screen. If you need to see every step of the boot process as it happens, blacklist nouveau and work with the open firmware framebuffer instead. Cheers

[b0nafide]

also pics

[b0nafide]

finally, on the crappy old A1065 iMac G4 I had the time to experiment with "video=nouveau" with or without the "nomodeset" option and it works as expected as long as you don't mind a horrible low-color palette in X.

A compromise is to use the "video=ofonly" option and only load the nouveau module just before X instead of allowing udev to load it. Something like:

[b0nafide]

Well, here's a 3.10.25 SMP kernel for the A1065 iMac G4

Networking is ok. Video looks ok. Sound, specifically snd-aoa is ok after a minor battle with pulseaudio (it doesn't have to be a system-wide instance for my purposes). Various usb devices are ok as well as ieee1394.

Open firmware and yaboot are not in agreement in some way about booting from usb or firewire just yet (although mkofboot -v completes without error with what appears to be the correct open firmware paths and with the rootdelay=10 parameter), so my root file system is still attached to a legacy IDE controller which is not really ideal, but a root file system on firewire400, usb2 or nfs should certainly be possible (edit: maybe I'll try grub2)!

This is not the most minimal configuration possible of course but I aimed to support all the hardware on a A1065 G4. The usual disclaimer: if it breaks, sorry about that, but I'm just a monkey on a kernel-source-tree. Maybe there are subtle variations in the A1065 that could cause problems. In other words, perhaps I've enabled "CONFIG_BREAK_YOUR_PARTICULAR_COMPUTER=y" by accident. I'm learning as I do this and I hope I might help other hobbyists, who will probably just proceed with the usual caution and use genkernel

pastebin goodness

[b0nafide]

After some knashing of teeth I have discovered that the kernel config I posted will be frustrating to users interested in qemu-kvm. KVM will be unset until SMP is disabled. Thought I would mention it just in case.