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theefer
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Joined: 12 Jul 2003
Posts: 32

PostPosted: Sat Apr 17, 2004 4:12 pm    Post subject: [HOWTO] Install Gentoo on a Powerbook Aluminium G4 1GHz 15in Reply with quote

[HOWTO] Install Gentoo on a Powerbook (Aluminium G4 1GHz 15")
edit: sticky due to obvious reasons
Table of Contents
  • Introduction
  • What version ?
  • Extra links
  • Summary of working/non-working things
  • Booting the LiveCD
  • Loading keyboard mapping
  • Boostrap partition
  • Ethernet network configuration
  • Kernel configuration
  • XFree
  • Sound
  • Configuring the SuperDrive DVD-R/CD-RW
  • Using the DVD burner
  • Activating the mouse button emulation
  • Using the cool Fx keys just like MacOS X does
  • CPU Frequency scaling
  • Delete key
  • Wireless PCMCIA card (prism54)
  • Changes


Introduction

I wrote this humble installation HOWTO after installing Gentoo on my first PPC computer, namely a 15" Aluminium Powerbook G4 1GHz. This was my first install of Gentoo on a non-x86 architecture and although I have managed to have a fairly decent system, I ran into several issues that were not covered in the Installation Handbook (but I might have read some sections a bit quickly). I found most of the answers on this Gentoo PPC Forum or by googling the web, but I thought that some people would like to see a post summarize all theses pieces of information in one place.

If you are these "some people", read on.

Note: if you spot any mistake, or if you have better suggestions or alternatives to what I describe in this document, feel free to tell me and I will gladly add any additional information to this humble HOWTO!


What version ?

I have installed from the 2004.0 Universal PowerPC Installation Disc (LiveCD) that I ordered on the Gentoo Store. A few days after the order, I noticed that the store did not sell the PPC CDs anymore, because of some troubles noticed with them. I didn't run into any myself.

I cannot say whether this guide would work for previous (or future) versions of the LiveCD, you'll have to try for yourself (or grab the 2004.0 ISO). Nor can I say whether it is valid for other versions of the Powerbook (or for the iBook), but I guess you'll be smart enough to extrapolate when needed (e.g. not try to load the radeon module if you have an NVidia graphics card !).


Important remark: you should follow the Gentoo PPC Handbook in any case, and use this HOWTO only when you need some help on specific details. This document is not intended to replace the handbook, but only to complete it on some points.


Extra links

I browsed a lot of differents websites, forums and mailing lists archives. I couldn't list them all here, but the best thing to do is always to ask Google !

Gentoo Linux/PPC Handbook
Gentoo Linux PPC FAQ
PPC Conf DB
Gentoo Forums
Debian PowerPC Mailing-List archives


Summary of working/non-working things

What doesn't work (yet, hopefully) :
  • ATI 9600 hardware acceleration (ATI has not published specs or PPC drivers)
  • TV-out and DVI-out do not work.

What works (pretty much everything except the few things listed above) :
  • Sound (alsa or OSS), with XMMS, mplayer et al.
  • Ethernet Card
  • XFree86 or x.org (reported faster), without hardware acceleration
  • Hotplug USB mouse (and probably other devices as well)
  • Touchpad (including tap if wanted)
  • Keys to control the sound volume and the display and keyboard brightness (plus automatic adjustment depending on ambient light and MacOSX-like adjustment indicator in X)
  • DVD playback and burning, CD-RW burning and reading
  • Keyboard: 2 mouse buttons emulation, AltGR/Meta/Delete emulation, etc
  • Bluetooth works fine: Network via bluetooth (bluez-pan) and sending receiving files (via gnome-bluetooth - is masked, but compiles without any problem)
  • Firewire: works fine with kernel 2.6.1 (not working with kernel 2.6.4), including network via Firewire and connecting (mounting) an iPod (gtkPod is masked, but just compiles fine)
  • Wifi (using a 802.11g PC Card, not the Airport Extreme!) I have an SMC 2835W working with the prism54 driver. Other PCMCIA cards should be supported as well.
  • Power managment (with cpufreqd and pbbuttonsd, cpu frequency scaling)
  • MOL (Mac-on-Linux)
  • Connection with the Sharp Zaurus SL-5000D: the usbnet module works fine as it would on an x86 machine
  • Sleep: suspend-to-ram sleep is supported since 2.6.11 (yet another magic trick by the ever fantastic Benh).
  • Airport Extreme WiFi card (Broadcom chipsets are supported using the bcm43xx driver since late 2005).

Pending :

  • 56k modem (anyone tested it ?)

Observed issues :
  • The screen goes all funny at times, I just have to switch to another virtual console and come back (CTRL-ALT-Fx) and it's back to normal.

Note: Feel free to ask for additional working/non-working devices, I'll add them to the list if I can test them.


Booting the LiveCD

If you just insert the LiveCD and boot your laptop, it will start MacOS X and [n]not[/b]* the LiveCD. To force the LiveCD booting, hold the 'c' key with the CD inserted while booting.

Alternatively, you can hold the Alt key pressed while the laptop is booting. You will then have a graphical menu to choose between the booting media (installed OS, bootable CD, etc). Choose the CD-Rom and click the arrow, it should boot the LiveCD.

Loading keyboard mapping

Just load a standard x86 mapping, not the mac-specific mapping, i.e. look for a mapping in /usr/share/keymaps/i386 and not in /usr/share/keymaps/mac, for example :

Code:
# loadkeys fr_CH-latin1


Now, where is the AltGr key ?

You must add it manually to the keyboard mapping you use. I use the Apple key for that. So first, let's see what keycode it is by running the showkey (sys-apps/kbd) command and pressing the Apple key :

Code:
# showkey
[blah blah]
keycode  28 release  (that was the Enter key, don't bother)
keycode 125 press
keycode 125 release

Ok so our Apple key uses the 125 keycode.

All you have to do now it add "keycode 125 = AltGr" to your mapping file, for example :

Code:
[adapt to your own mapping file]
# cd /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwertz/
# gunzip fr_CH-latin1.map.gz
# echo "keycode 125 = AltGr" >> fr_CH-latin1.map
# gzip fr_CH-latin1.map
# loadkeys fr_CH-latin1

Now you should be able to use the Apple key as the AltGr key.

Note: For some reason (I'm no expert), keycodes seem not to be the same under X, so when you will be looking for the keycodes for your PBButtons configuration, you will have to use the xev utility.

Boostrap partition

After partitionning the harddrive (I kept MacOS X on a 7 GB partition), you must create a bootstrap partition.

After running `mac-fdisk /dev/hda` you can use the 'b' command to create it. Make sure it is the second partition on the disk.

To run yabootconfig, I exited the chroot environment, copied the CD yaboot.conf to the harddisk and used the --chroot /mnt/gentoo option. Then I ran mkofboot -v and it installed everything in the bootstrap partition. Remember that the next time, you'll only need to run ybin -v instead of mkofboot.

Note: I had to manually add the MacOS X line to the yaboot.conf file :

Code:
[/etc/yaboot.conf snippet]
# echo "macosx=/dev/hda4" >> /etc/yaboot.conf


Also note that you should not append "hdc=ide-scsi" to your kernel options, as we will see later on.

Ethernet network configuration


By default, I had no network interface. I had to load the sungem module to activate my ethernet card :

Code:
# modprobe sungem


So when you compile your kernel, remember to compile the sungem module as well !

Code:

Device Drivers
  ---> Networking support
       ---> Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit)
            ---> [*] Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit)
                 <M> Sun GEM support


Then add this to the /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 file and be done with it :

Code:
# echo sungem >> /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6
# modules-update


After that, `ifconfig -a` should show you your eth0 interface and you can bring it up.


Kernel configuration

You could probably manage to prepare a pretty cool .config kernel file, but I'd recommend to use the PPCConfigDB .config file as a basis. It works great, and you can easily add/tweak things from there without breaking everything.

http://ppcconfdb.sourceforge.net/


You can grab configuration file tarballs from the following page :

http://ppcconfdb.sourceforge.net/?id=conf

I downloaded and used the "PowerBook_G4_1250MHz-15.2_Aluminium" tarball as a basis for my kernel and X11 configuration. It worked fine even though I have a 1GHz (SuperDrive) and not a 1250MHz (ComboDrive) Powerbook.

Thanks to the PPCConfDB, they really rock ! :-)


XFree86


You must emerge the cutting-edge xfree-4.3.99.902-r2 version, because the 4.3.0 version is reported not to work correctly on new powerbooks. Also, you must not emerge xfree-drm for it is not supposed to work on new powerbooks (yet, hopefully).

I spent a few hours trying to figure out what to put in the XF86Config file. I also tried the Xeasyconf which marginally worked for me.

Then I decided to try the PPCConfigDB kernel and X11 configuration files : it worked out of the box, like a charm. So unless you are really masochist, I see no reason not to use them.

Sound

You just have to activate the right modules. With a 2.6 kernel, you have better use the ALSA output. This is done by compiling the alsa modules and the snd_powermac module. If you want to use OSS, compile dmasound_pmac instead of snd_powermac, it works too. In both cases, you will also need the i2c-dev module.

It is also recommended to use the snd_mixer_oss for mixing support.

Code:
Device Drivers
  ---> Sound
       ---> <M> Sound card support
            ---> <M> Advanced Linux Sound System Architecture
                 [*] OSS API emulation
                     <M> OSS Mixer API
                 ---> ALSA PowerMac devices
                      <M> PowerMac (...)

  ---> I2C support
       ---> <M> I2C support
            <M>   I2C device interface


Then, simply add the modules to your /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6
file :

Code:
# echo snd_powermac >> /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6
# echo ssnd_mixer_oss >> /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6
# echo i2c-dev >> /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6
# modules-update


Now, the applications ... audio in mplayer works fine as long as you don't use the alsa9 audio output driver. Use the oss driver instead (`mplayer -ao oss`).

XMMS works too but you have to manually change the output plugin to ALSA and change its configuration : set the Buffer time to 3000ms and the Period time to 500ms.

Also, remember that you must be in the audio group to have access to the sound devices (thanks to _savage for the remark).

That should do it !

Thanks to HighOnBonsai and corsair for help on making the ALSA drivers work !

Configuring the SuperDrive DVD-R/CD-RW

With the 2.6 kernel, the ATAPI drives no longer need to be accessed through the usual ide-scsi emulation. Therefore, you don't need to compile that module anymore. Here are the options you must activate in your kernel configuration (but they are probably already selected if you use the configuration file from the PPCConfDB project) :

Code:
Device Drivers
  ---> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
       ---> <M> Include IDE/ATAPI CDROM support


This will compile the ide-cd module.

Then, all you have to do is add this module to your /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 file and run modules-update.

Code:
# echo ide-cd >> /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6
# modules-update


As soon as the module is loaded, you can access your cdrom drive with the /dev/hdc file. Thus, you can add it to your fstab file :

Code:
[/etc/fstab snippet]
/dev/hdc            /mnt/cdrom    iso9960 noauto,ro,user        0 0


This allows you to run

Code:
$ mount /mnt/cdrom


to mount your cdrom drive, even as a simple user.

Now if you want to burn CDs with cdrecord (app-cdr/cdrtool), you must explicitely say that this is an ATAPI drive :

Code:

# cdrecord -scanbus dev=ATAPI
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01a25 (powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jrg Schilling
scsidev: 'ATAPI'
devname: 'ATAPI'
scsibus: -2 target: -2 lun: -2
Warning: Using ATA Packet interface.
Warning: The related libscg interface code is in pre alpha.
Warning: There may be fatal problems.
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
scsibus0:
        0,0,0     0) 'MATSHITA' 'CD-RW  CW-8123  ' 'CA0T' Removable CD-ROM
        0,1,0     1) *
        0,2,0     2) *
        0,3,0     3) *
        0,4,0     4) *
        0,5,0     5) *
        0,6,0     6) *
        0,7,0     7) *
# cdrecord -v speed=10 dev=ATAPI:0,0,0 image.iso


But if you are as lazy as I am, you will want to make this the default value for the dev argument, so we will use the /etc/defaults/cdrecord file :

Code:
# echo 'CDR_DEVICE=ATAPI:0,0,0' > /etc/defaul/cdrecord


Now you can run cdrecord without the dev argument :

Code:
# cdrecord -v speed=10 image.iso


And don't forget to edit your pbbuttons configuration file to be able to use the keyboard eject button :

Code:
[/etc/pbbuttonsd.conf snippet]
dev_CDROM = "/dev/hdc"


Using the DVD burner

The DVD burning (ISO9660) was reported to work by gnomeza. You have to load the ide-cd module and use the DVD-enabled cdrecord executable from XCDRoast, i.e. not the standard cdrecord from the cdrtools package since it is not DVD-enabled.

Thanks to gnomeza for the report !

Activating the mouse button emulation

Maybe you just don't want to always carry that bloody USB mouse around, so you use the touchpad. But hey, there is only one single button !

Fortunately, we can use the /proc/sys interface to tell the kernel to emulate the two other mouse buttons with the Fn key.

Code:
# echo 1 > /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button_emulation


Now you should be able to use Fn+Ctrl as the middle button and Fn+Alt as the right mouse button ! If it does not work, make sure this file exists in the first place (otherwise, there should need some kernel config tweaking) and check the values of the other files in the same directory. On my powerbook, I use :

Code:
$ cat /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button2_keycode
97
$ cat /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button3_keycode
100


Now again, if you like lazy (and cleaner) solutions, you might want to use this runscript to activate this on startup :

Code:

[/etc/init.d/pb-mouse-emulation]
#!/sbin/runscript
# Copyright 2004 Sebastien Cevey <seb@cine7.net>
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# $Header$

start() {
   ebegin "Starting Powerbook mouse button emulation"
   if [ ! -e /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button_emulation ]; then
      eend 1 "Cannot start mouse emulation ; compile the support in the Kernel"
   else
      # Set keycodes to use if present in the conf
      [ -n ${BUTTON2_CODE} ] && \
         echo ${BUTTON2_CODE} > /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button2_keycode
      [ -n ${BUTTON3_CODE} ] && \
         echo ${BUTTON3_CODE} > /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button3_keycode

      # Activate emulation
      echo 1 > /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button_emulation
   fi
   return 0
}
 
stop() {
   ebegin "Stopping Powerbook mouse button emulation"
   echo 0 > /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button_emulation
   return 0
}


Code:

[/etc/conf.d/pb-mouse-emulation]
# Here you can configure which keycode triggers which mouse button
# Use the `showkey` command to see the mappings

# e.g. For the Apple AluBook 15" 1 GHz, the codes are 97 and 100
BUTTON2_CODE=97
BUTTON3_CODE=100


Then simply use rc-update to load the service on boot and you are done:

Code:
# rc-update add pb-mouse-emulation default


Using the cool Fx keys just like MacOS X does

The great app-laptop/pbbuttonsd packages does just that. I recommend emerging the latest unstable version (0.5.9-r1 in my case) because I haven't had any trouble with it (yet) and it seems quite stable.

Here is my configuration file for it. All the keys are set correctly, for instance you can press Fn+F3 and the sound will be muted. For some reason, I managed to map all the keys with the Fn pressed *except* the keys controlling the keyboard backlight brightness (F8, F9, F10). So for these, I just press the Fx key alone instead of Fn+Fx.

Code:

[/etc/pbbuttonsd.conf]
# Konfigdatei fuer PBButtonsd >= Version 0.5
# fuer Liste der Optionen siehe pbbuttonsd.conf man-page
 
# [SYSTEM]
#userallowed        = "paranoid"; user who is allowed to use IPC
autorescan          = no   ; automatic rescan of event devices
CmdTimeout          = 4

# [MODULE POWERSAVE]
onAC_sleep          = no
onAC_dim            = no
onAC_coversleep     = yes
onAC_Tsleep         = 72000
onAC_Tdim           = 1800
onAC_Thdoff         = 0
onBattery_sleep     = yes
onBattery_dim       = yes
onBattery_coversleep= yes
onBattery_Tsleep    = 3000   ; time in 1/10s
onBattery_Tdim      = 600   ; time in 1/10s
onBattery_Thdoff    = 12   ; time in multiple of 5 second intervals
SleepKey            = 116
SleepKeyDelay       = 0      ; values > 0 may be dangerous, if the power key is used to trigger sleep
BWL_first           = 22   ; first battery warnlevel, time in minutes
BWL_second          = 10   ; second battery warnlevel, time in minutes
BWL_last            = 3      ; last battery warnlevel, time in minutes
Script_BatCritical  = "/sbin/shutdown -h now"
#Script_ProfChanged  = "/etc/apm/pwrctl-wrapper %s %s"
Script_HDSetup      = "/sbin/hdparm -p -S %d /dev/hda"
EmergencyAction     = sleep   ; action, if battery is critically low
HeartbeatBeep       = yes   ; beep, if nothing else showed that the computer lives
CPULoad_sleeplock   = yes
CPULoad_min         = 20   ; value in percent
CPULoad_period      = 20   ; time in seconds
NETLoad_sleeplock   = yes
NETLoad_min         = 4096   ; trafic in Bytes/s
NETLoad_period      = 20   ; time in seconds
NETLoad_device      = "eth0"

# [MODULE DISPLAY]
LCD_Brightness      = 6      ; initial LCD brightness level
LCD_FadingSpeed     = 5      ; 0 = no smooth fading
LCD_AutoAdjust      = yes   ; only on Aluminum PowerBooks
LCD_IllumUpKey      = 225
LCD_IllumDownKey    = 224
LCD_Threshold       = 54
LCD_AutoAdjMin_Bat  = 2         ; autoadjust parameter
LCD_AutoAdjMax_Bat  = 7
LCD_AutoAdjMin_AC   = 1
LCD_AutoAdjMax_AC   = 15
#KBD_Brightness     = 0      ; initial keyboard illumination level
KBD_FadingSpeed     = 5      ; 0 = no smooth fading
KBD_AutoAdjust      = yes   ; only on Aluminum PowerBooks
KBD_IllumUpKey      = 68
KBD_IllumDownKey    = 67
KBD_IllumOnKey      = 66
KBD_Threshold       = 18   ; only on Aluminum PowerBooks
dev_FrameBuffer     = "/dev/fb0"
UseFBBlank          = yes
DimFullyDark        = yes

# [MODULE OSSMIXER]
Volume              = 20   ; initial volume level
Speakers_muted      = yes   ; mute after startup?
VolumeUpKey         = 115
VolumeDownKey       = 114
MuteKey             = 113
dev_Mixer           = "/dev/mixer"
MixerInitDelay      = no
MixerChannels       = "volume, speaker"

# [MODULE CDROM]
dev_CDROM           = "/dev/hdc"
EjectCDKey          = 161
EjectCDKeyDelay     = 0

# [MODULE PMAC]
dev_PMU             = "/dev/pmu"
dev_ADB             = "/dev/adb"
TPModeUpKey         = 225 + alt
TPModeDownKey       = 224 + alt
TPMode              = notap
KBDMode             = fkeysfirst


You can also emerge the graphical frontend that displays the different levels as you change the settings. The package is app-laptop/gtkpbbuttons, and I recommend to install the latest unstable version (0.6.2 for me) since it has a gorgeous MacOSX-like theme.

I added this to my ~/.xsession (*before* the call to the window manager, of course) to start it automatically when I start an X session :

Code:
[~/.xsession snippet]
/usr/bin/gtkpbbuttons -t MacOSX -d


The app-laptop/powerprefs should allow you to configure pbbuttonsd with a nice GUI, but the compilation failed miserably for me, so I'll try it another time ...

CPU Frequency scaling

You can use the sys-apps/cpufreqd package to adapt the CPU frequency to the current machine load. To have it run without error, I had to emerge udev. Anyway, I think it's a good thing to use udev so basically, install it as well and it should work.

You will probably have to change the percent values to absolute values in your /etc/cpufredq.conf file. At least, I had to.

Disclaimer: I have not understood how to configure this properly yet, so it's basically useless right now :-) If anybody has good advices, I'd be glad to learn how to use cpufreqd !

Delete key

Yes, there is no delete key on the Powerbook keyboard. Yes, it sucks.

It seems like in console mode, you can emulate the delete key with Fn+Backspace. I don't remember writing any rule for it, so I guess it does it by default.

For X, you can simply use Xmodmap and add "keycode 107 = Delete" to your ~/.Xmodmap :

Code:
$ echo "keycode 107 = Delete" >> ~/.Xmodmap


And this should hopefully map Fn+Backspace as Delete under X too. If it doesn't work, maybe this is a terminal configuration issue.

For mlterm, I had to setup a termcap file :

Code:
$ mkdir ~/.mlterm
$ echo "xterm:kD=\E[3~" > ~/.mlterm/termcap



Wireless PCMCIA card (prism54)

The Airport Extreme wireless card is supported under GNU/Linux as of late 2005 using the bcm43xx driver. However, it was not when I bought my Powerbook so I bought a PCMCIA wireless card. I leave this section although it has become somewhat obsolete in case other people still want to use an external wireless card.

See this sticky post for help on getting the Airport Extreme to work.

Here is what I did to install an SMC 2835W (802.11g, prism54 driver) on my powerbook.

First, emerge the wireless-tools package and a 2.6.5 or later kernel. You should be able to use an earlier kernel with the separate prism54 Gentoo package, but I prefered the newer versions that integrate the driver right in the kernel tree.
Code:
# emerge net-wireless/wireless-tools
# emerge ppc-development-sources/ppc-development-sources-2.6.5_rc2-r1

Note that it might be marked as unstable, but it works fine for me without any problem yet.

So now you must compile the prism54 module for your kernel, with a two extra modules for PCMCIA support :
Code:
  Bus Options --->
      PCMCIA/Cardbus support --->
         <M> PCMCIA/Cardbus support
         <M> Cardbus yenta-compatible bridge support

  Device Drivers --->
      Networking support --->
         Wireless LAN (non-hamradio) --->
             <M> Prism54 - Intersil Prism GT/Duette/Indigo PCI/Cardbus

After checking these options, just `make modules modules_install`. You don't have to add the modules to your modules.autoload file since they are automatically loaded (and unloaded) by hotplug if you have it running (check rc-update) !

Then, you have to manually grab the firmware because of license issues. I'm not sure of the exact reason, and it looks like the prism54 guys aren't either.
Code:
# mkdir -p /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
# cd /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
# wget -O isl3890 http://prism54.org/~mcgrof/firmware/[i]<version>[/i].arm

New versions are released from time to time, so you have better go to the following webpage and download the latest firmware available :

http://prism54.org/~mcgrof/firmware/

Don't forget to rename the file to "isl3890", or anything that fits your card. See `lspci -v -n` for hardware infos.

That's all, it should work now ;-) On my powerbook, hotplug detected everything automatically and started the right modules for me.

If there is a problem, check that the kernel detects the insertion of the card with `dmesg`, and have fun with `iwconfig` and `ifconfig`. Hopefully you won't need to.


That's all I know about Gentoo on a Powerbook for now. Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment and submit additional informations !


Changes:

Code:

* Saturday 17 April 2004
  - First version posted in the Gentoo Forums
    http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=1052283#1052283

* Sunday 25 April 2004
  - Updated the working/non-working list (thanks to HighOnBonsai)
  - Changed the sound recommandation from OSS to ALSA (thanks to
    HighOnBonsai and corsair)

* Wednesday 5 May 2004
  - Added a section about DVD Burning (thanks to gnomeza)
  - Added a report on the installation of an SMC 2835W wireless pcmcia card.

* Monday 31 May 2004
  - Updated the Table of Contents
  - Updated the Booting section (just found out about holding the 'c'
    key)

* Sunday 20 June 2004
  - Added a remark about the audio group (thanks to _savage)
  - Added the 56k modem in the pending list (please contact me if you
    have tested it, successfully or not)

* Saturday 11 February 2006
  - Updated the status about suspend-to-ram, which has been working
    for a while now.
  - Updated the status about the internal Airport Extreme card,
    since it is now supported by the bcm43xx driver!

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Theefer


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corsair
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 18, 2004 5:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

great howto!!

But why shouldn't I use mac specific keymaps? (the keymap thing is the last issue which doen't work correct on my powerbook)

could use please expand on this?

Markus
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 18, 2004 6:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

corsair wrote:
But why shouldn't I use mac specific keymaps? (the keymap thing is the last issue which doen't work correct on my powerbook)

What exactly doesn't work ?
Do the main keys work (e.g. ABC etc) ?

I found that the mac keys were wrong with the powerbook key mapping, probably because they are intended to be used with another kind of mac (iMac or stuff like that maybe). I use the fr_CH x86 keymap and it's fine. But you can try the mac keymaps too and see if it works for you ...

But I had to customize some stuff (most notably the SHIFT+number keys) with my .Xmodmap file.

So please, tell me exactly what keys are wrong, so that I can see what is wrong exactly. I guess maybe you will have to configure some stuff in your .Xmodmap file, but it's no use posting mine since it all depends on the mapping (I use a french (Switzerland) mapping) ...


Please report what you do to fix the keyboard (what is your mapping schema by the way ? standard american keyboard?), so that I can add it to the HOWTO ! :-)
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 3:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi,

I'm using a german keymap, which I selected through "/etc/rc.conf" (changing from "us" to "de" keymap), so I've no idea which keymap I'm actualy using... :lol:

I used the apple keys (left and right from "space") to emulate the second mouse key. So there is no way to use it as AltGr.

Here are the keys I want to use, but can't (well this unicode app from gnome helps alot): #@][{}|~

By the way: Does your sound works correct? Mine is very scratchy (don't know if this explains it correct, but I didn't found another...) and quite.

Markus
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 10:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

corsair wrote:
I'm using a german keymap, which I selected through "/etc/rc.conf" (changing from "us" to "de" keymap), so I've no idea which keymap I'm actualy using... :lol:

Can you try
Code:
$ loadkeys de-latin1

or even
Code:
$ loadkeys de-latin1-nodeadkeys

?

And see if it works better.

As for the #@etc keys, I think I had to specify them manually in my .Xmodmap file. You can find out which is the keycode of the wanted key with xev, and then add a line to your ~/.Xmodmap :

Code:
keycode <code> = <normal> <shift> <altgr> <shift+altgr>

for example :
Code:
keycode 11 = 2 quotedbl at


See /usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/de for key symbolic names.


Quote:
By the way: Does your sound works correct? Mine is very scratchy (don't know if this explains it correct, but I didn't found another...) and quite.

Yes, it is fine. Did you use the PPCConfDB .config file ? did you load the correct modules ? what gives "lsmod" ?
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 6:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

thx!

loadkeys de-latin1-nodeadkeys did it almost. just had to add some keys manualy.

now let's get the sound problem managed.

I thought that I should only have to make the change to snd-powermac. What is the usb device for? I don't think I have an USB Sound card, do I? But I'll try it out with this config:
http://ppcconfdb.sourceforge.net/conf/PowerBook_G4_1250MHz-15.2_Aluminium/etc/modules.d/alsa

EDIT: sound works now perfekt!!! thx! you are my god ;-)

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 7:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Heh, now maybe *you* can help me : I have tried the snd_powermac and it works indeed, but the sound is accelerated when I play it with XMMS (alsa output) !?

Do you have this issue too ?

What modules are you using, could you post your `lsmod` when the sound is working please ?

Thanks !
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 2:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

At first I want to thank theefer for his GREAT how-to! You helped me so much!

I solved the XMMS problem by making some tweaks in the settings for the ALSA output plugin of XMMS:

Go to Advanced settings of the plugin and increase Buffer time to 3000 ms and Period time to 500 ms - this should fix the problem!

btw: The OSS output plugin for XMMS works very well - from there I have the settings for the ALSA output plug in.

How about mplayer? The OSS output plugin works, but the ALSA output sounds strange. Any solutions for this?

Anyone has a fully working kernel .config for 2.4 kernel? I want to use DRI in XFree but this is not working with kernel 2.6.x. I heard that the DRI is working with the 2.4.x kernel.



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PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 2:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

here is my lsmod output:

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
snd_usb_audio          77988  -
snd_rawmidi            28696  -
i2c_keywest            11300  -
snd_powermac           45292  -
i2c_core               26476  -
snd_seq_oss            40612  -
snd_seq_midi_event      8584  -
snd_seq                62492  -
snd_seq_device          9560  -
snd_pcm_oss            68716  -
snd_pcm               122228  -
snd_page_alloc         13864  -
snd_timer              28516  -
snd_mixer_oss          22748  -
snd                    62948  -
soundcore              11300  -
markus@powerbook markus $ uname -r
2.6.4-pegasos0


My sound is working excelend (also using xmms and alsa output-plugin)

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PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 2:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Im using 2.6.1 - just compiling 2.6.4 now. Maybe this will fix the ALSA problems.

UPDATE: Now I know why I didn't use the 2.6.4 sources: The IEEE1394 drivers are some kind of broken in this version - but I need them for my iPod and my Firewire network... :-(
While modprobing the IEEE-drivers (ohci1394) there is always this:
"No Driver For IEEE1394 product" error message
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 10:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok, here is my "What does work, what does not" - list so far:

Updated: 10-28-2004

Working:

- Graphics: X with x.org X server (using Xfce4 and Fluxbox) - faster than XFree server
- Keyboard: Is working fine (with all the useful keys [@,~,|,Delete...])
- Sound: Except the (solved) problem with XMMS seems to work fine (with Mplayer and Ogle (DVD)) - playing Audio-CDs via XMMS also works fine
- DVD watching (with Ogle)
- Firewire: works fine with kernel 2.6.1 (NOT working with kernel 2.6.4) - network via Firewire and connecting (mounting) my iPod (gtkPod is masked, but just compiles fine)
- USB 1.x works fine (at least my USB mouse :-) )
- Bluetooth works fine: Network via bluetooth (bluez-pan: surfing on my couch...:-) ) and sending receiving files (via gnome-bluetooth - is masked, but compiles with no problems)
- Power managment works fine (with cpufreqd and pbbuttonsd, with cpu freq. scaling) - (battery: 3 - 4 hours)
- Ethernet cards works fine (sungem-driver) (also Gigabit - just tested it at my work)
- MOL (Mac-On-Linux) works great (I love the splash-screen... ;-) )
- Sleep works (currently with kernel patch)
- CD burning works perfect

Not (but hopefully yet) working:

- DRI and all the hardware accelerated stuff (Radeon 9600 M10) (does anybody guess when this will work?)
- Xinerama does not work - in other words: DVI output does not work (at least with DVI-VGA adapter)
- TV-Output does not work (surprise! ;-) )
=> In general: All the video stuff is not yet fully supported (so keep your dual-boot with Mac OS X to watch DVDs via TV-Out)
- Bootsplash not yet tested (I heard that this is difficult to get working)

USB 2, the faster Firewire and Modem not yet tested.

Overall let me say: I'm satisfied so far - but I hope the ATI will deliver PPC-arch drivers for the RV350 chipset: Then I'm happy! :-)


Christopher[/list]
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 12:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you for the list, I'll update the main post shortly !

But I would like to know if you did anything special to have the sound work in mplayer ? On my powerbook, the sound is all scrambled when I try to play a DivX (sound for a DVD works fine though ; the same divx had the sound alright with the OSS driver). The fix for XMMS works fine.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 2:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In mplayer is use OSS output plugin (ALSA is also scrambled... :-( ). What Kernel version do you use? Mine is 2.6.1 (due to the Firewire problem with kernel 2.6.4). I think with kernel 2.6.4 there is also a newer ALSA version.

I can post a small bluetooth How-To here if necessary - but the way to setup bluetooth on the powerbook is similar to other machines (e.g. bluetooth dongle on i386 arch).


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PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 2:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mh indeed it works with "mplayer -ao oss", thanks. I thought I tried but I guess I was wrong. I'll add all this to the HOWTO ASAP !

Edit: I've added the part about the sound and updated the working/non-working list. Thanks !
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 28, 2004 10:48 am    Post subject: Aluminium G4 1GHz 15" PB Howto - DVD Burning Reply with quote

Theefer: You may have implied it by mentioning that CD-burning works, but it may well be worth noting that DVD data recording works too.

I'm using the ide-cd module and the DVD-enabled cdrecord executable from XCDRoast.
It's worth noting that reemerging/updating cdrtools will clobber this executable, overwriting it with the non-DVD enabled one.

I've recorded data DVDs using ISO9660, but not UDF (although this difference should be trivial).
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PostPosted: Sun May 02, 2004 6:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When will airport support work?
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PostPosted: Mon May 03, 2004 1:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Airport does work.
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PostPosted: Mon May 03, 2004 1:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can't install old airport card in pb aluminuim (different slot), only airport Extreme, which works only with macosx.
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PostPosted: Wed May 05, 2004 9:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

corsair wrote:

Here are the keys I want to use, but can't (well this unicode app from gnome helps alot): #@][{}|~
Markus


Try to add
Code:

Option "XkbModel" "Macintosh"
Option "XkbLayout" "de"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"

in the Section "InputDevice" for your Keyboard in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4.
Now, you should be able to reach |@¤{[]}\ with fn+alt-->release fn but not alt + <;q;e;7;8;9;0;ß
you can type "~" the same way as above with the (german) "+" key followed by space
"#" is "#" ;-)

You can find my XF86Config-4 on my Homepage (and some more Linux PPC related topics).
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PostPosted: Wed May 05, 2004 6:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

gentooalex wrote:
When will airport support work?

Airport is supported already, but Airport Extreme (shipping with the latest Apple laptops) is not.
The answer is "as soon as one of these two events occur" :
  • Broadcom publishes the specs for the chipset (used in the Airport Extreme and many other cards) - not much hope for the moment :-(
  • The reverse-engineering project succeeds - hard, but let's hope

Until that, unless you extensively use MacOSX or you have money to spend on things you don't use, I'd advise you to go for a pcmcia wifi card. They work great and are more easily supported (see the HOWTO update and browse the web before you buy one). I think I heard it is possible and actually easy to add an Airport (Extreme?) card later yourself, in case they are finally supported ;-)
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PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 7:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

it is easy to add the card (airport extreme) by yourself really, but as theefer said... hoping one of the 2 events will occur
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PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2004 5:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is anyone currently working to reverse engineer the airport extreme card? I want a powerbook but i'd like to have a working wireless card driver and all the powerbooks now come standard with airport extreme (i'd rather not buy a seperate card just for wifi on linux) I have a wireless network in my house so I will definitely be using wireless. Will it probably be supported by July when I get my powerbook?(
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PostPosted: Tue May 18, 2004 10:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think there is a team working on reverse-engineering the broadcom chipsets. However, I don't think they can give any guarrantee or date of success, so if I were you, I'd consider buying a PCMCIA wifi card. As it was mentionned before, you should always be able to switch to Airport Extreme whenever|if it is ever supported.
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2004 5:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

See this thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/showproduct.php?product=810

They talk about using (on X86 machines) ndiswrapper to run the Windows driver, and it appears to work.

I'm wondering if there's an approach that's similar on PPC, some kind of wrapper that lets you run OS X drivers. Or, and this is really fanciful, if you could somehow get BOCHS to run the driver for ndiswrapper? 8O

I'm not a programmer or driver hacker or anything like that so I have no idea if this is a possibility. Any ideas?

Also, any progress on the sleep issue?

Or 3D acceleration?
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2004 10:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

about the wrapper thing for OSX drivers....

the kext drivers in osX aren't that easy... you need to recreate a whole part of the apple IO sdk to get them working...
simply isn't possible within normal terms...

if you really would like and you get the code, it might work... but reverse engineer the IOKit and the airport drivers... phew... good luck to whomever tries that... :p

i looked into it a few months ago... gave up after 2 weeks...

greetings
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