MorphZone

Xorg on G5

Intuition

# 1
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1110 from 2013/5/24

From: Nederland

I'm planning on installing Linux on my G5, last time I tried it (year or two ago) xorg had weird graphics corruption no matter what video card I used (9650, PC X1950 and a Mac X800XT iirc).

Anyone know if this is no longer an issue? Or a workaround if it is?
1.67GHz 15" PowerBook G4, 1GB RAM, 128MB Radeon 9700M Pro, 64GB SSD, MorphOS 3.15

2.7GHz DP G5, 4GB RAM, 512MB Radeon X1950 Pro, 500GB SSHD, MorphOS 3.9
»27.04.18 - 14:59

vox

# 2
Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 524 from 2003/11/24

From: Belgrade

Luigi "gigi" Burdo is your man.

Here is 2017 discussion https://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-2221421.html

At Google+ https://plus.google.com/+LuigiBurdo
YT https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkb4bw4N19d-x_tn2FXLojQ

He is even virtualizing SAM460 and X5000 under qEMu
https://www.generationamiga.com/2017/09/03/qemu-x5000-motherboard-emulation-released-for-power-mac-g5/
------------------------------------------
iMac G5 1GB with MorphOS and MacOS X
Lame PC with AmiKit XE
YT channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdHl_msNWHEVPf229h_gijQ
Telegram Amiga group: https://t.me/amigaranchorelaxo
»28.04.18 - 04:45

Intuition

# 3
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1110 from 2013/5/24

From: Nederland

Thanks, I'll have a play.
1.67GHz 15" PowerBook G4, 1GB RAM, 128MB Radeon 9700M Pro, 64GB SSD, MorphOS 3.15

2.7GHz DP G5, 4GB RAM, 512MB Radeon X1950 Pro, 500GB SSHD, MorphOS 3.9
»28.04.18 - 10:32

Andreas_Wolf

# 4
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> Luigi "gigi" Burdo is [...] virtualizing [...] X5000 under qEMu
> https://www.generationamiga.com/2017/09/03/qemu-x5000-motherboard-emulation-released-for-power-mac-g5/

I don‘t think he really managed to do this.

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=12137&start=66
»28.04.18 - 12:17

vox

# 5
Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 524 from 2003/11/24

From: Belgrade

Quote:

Andreas_Wolf wrote:
> Luigi "gigi" Burdo is [...] virtualizing [...] X5000 under qEMu
> https://www.generationamiga.com/2017/09/03/qemu-x5000-motherboard-emulation-released-for-power-mac-g5/

I don‘t think he really managed to do this.

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=12137&start=66

Yes, user https://morph.zone/users/5212.html is defenetely Gigi here.

Maybe its an overstatement, tried to.

However, is advanced PPC Linux user for sure.
------------------------------------------
iMac G5 1GB with MorphOS and MacOS X
Lame PC with AmiKit XE
YT channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdHl_msNWHEVPf229h_gijQ
Telegram Amiga group: https://t.me/amigaranchorelaxo
»28.04.18 - 19:25

ernsteiswuerfel

# 6
Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 556 from 2015/6/18

From: Funeralopolis

@Intuition:
I do run Linux on the G5. The situation with Xorg-/drm-/Mesa-bugs got a little better over the last 2 years. My G5 (+ Radeon 9800 Mac Edition) is able to run now X with correct colors and a 2D-accelerated desktop. Firefox works fine too.

However you need a recent toolchain (gcc 7) and software stack for this. No problem on Gentoo which I run, but it is more or less a problem on other distros.

Ubuntu PPC got ditched, 16.04 LTS is the last supported version. Debian PPC ports may be recent enough. There is also openSUSE Tumbleweed for ppc64 (klick). Last time I tried, the iso successfully booted on my G5.
Talos II. [Gentoo Linux] | PMac G5 11,2. PMac G4 3,6. PBook G4 5,8. [MorphOS 3.18 / Gentoo Linux] | A600GS
»29.04.18 - 17:06

Intuition

# 7
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1110 from 2013/5/24

From: Nederland

Quote:

ernsteiswuerfel wrote:
@Intuition:
I do run Linux on the G5. The situation with Xorg-/drm-/Mesa-bugs got a little better over the last 2 years. My G5 (+ Radeon 9800 Mac Edition) is able to run now X with correct colors and a 2D-accelerated desktop. Firefox works fine too.

However you need a recent toolchain (gcc 7) and software stack for this. No problem on Gentoo which I run, but it is more or less a problem on other distros.

Ubuntu PPC got ditched, 16.04 LTS is the last supported version. Debian PPC ports may be recent enough. There is also openSUSE Tumbleweed for ppc64 (klick). Last time I tried, the iso successfully booted on my G5.

Thanks Ernst. I'll have a look at SuSE. I used 5.2 up to 10 but switched to Debian and Ubuntu.

I have a vague memory of trying the ppc64 Tumbleweed iso a while back and it not booting though.
1.67GHz 15" PowerBook G4, 1GB RAM, 128MB Radeon 9700M Pro, 64GB SSD, MorphOS 3.15

2.7GHz DP G5, 4GB RAM, 512MB Radeon X1950 Pro, 500GB SSHD, MorphOS 3.9
»29.04.18 - 17:26

ernsteiswuerfel

# 8
Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 556 from 2015/6/18

From: Funeralopolis

Just learned there is also a relatively new Linux Distribution targetting ppc/ppc64 as tier1 supported platforms (G3, G4, G5, Talos II): Adelie Linux

This one may be especially interesting as they do testing on Apple PPC hardware (though X1000 also reported working). And their packages depend on musl instead of glibc C standard library, so the packages consume less resources which should make the distro run faster on low end PPC hardware.

Have to try that out by myself!
Talos II. [Gentoo Linux] | PMac G5 11,2. PMac G4 3,6. PBook G4 5,8. [MorphOS 3.18 / Gentoo Linux] | A600GS
»05.05.18 - 11:07

ASiegel

# 9
Posts: 1376 from 2003/2/15

From: Central Europe

Based on the ISO size, it seems to be rather limited in terms included packages / functionality.

In general, it is nice that there is any interest in POWER / PowerPC these days but, for end users, if a new distribution does not include a reasonably modern web browser, then it is of limited or even no use.
»05.05.18 - 11:18

Andreas_Wolf

# 10
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> for end users, if a new distribution does not include a reasonably
> modern web browser, then it is of limited or even no use.

Adélie Linux 1.0-ALPHA6 (04/2018) seems to include Otter Browser 0.9.96 (03/2018), which uses QtWebEngine/QtWebKit.
»05.05.18 - 16:03

ASiegel

# 11
Posts: 1376 from 2003/2/15

From: Central Europe

Quote:

Andreas_Wolf wrote:
Adélie Linux 1.0-ALPHA6 (04/2018) seems to include Otter Browser 0.9.96 (03/2018), which uses QtWebEngine/QtWebKit.

It would be interesting to know which version of Webkit is being used on PowerPC specifically (as a base for QtWebkit).
»05.05.18 - 17:29

ASiegel

# 12
Posts: 1376 from 2003/2/15

From: Central Europe

Based on ernsteiswuerfel's comments on the Otter Browser's bug tracker, it sounds like there are massive endianess issues when Javascript is enabled on PowerPC:

https://github.com/OtterBrowser/otter-browser/issues/1435

Put differently, the browser engine may be modern but it appears to also be fairly broken.
»05.05.18 - 17:49

Intuition

# 13
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1110 from 2013/5/24

From: Nederland

Quote:

ernsteiswuerfel wrote:
Just learned there is also a relatively new Linux Distribution targetting ppc/ppc64 as tier1 supported platforms (G3, G4, G5, Talos II): Adelie Linux

This one may be especially interesting as they do testing on Apple PPC hardware (though X1000 also reported working). And their packages depend on musl instead of glibc C standard library, so the packages consume less resources which should make the distro run faster on low end PPC hardware.

Have to try that out by myself!

Thanks for the info Ernst, I'll definitely have a play with it.
1.67GHz 15" PowerBook G4, 1GB RAM, 128MB Radeon 9700M Pro, 64GB SSD, MorphOS 3.15

2.7GHz DP G5, 4GB RAM, 512MB Radeon X1950 Pro, 500GB SSHD, MorphOS 3.9
»05.05.18 - 22:38

Intuition

# 14
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1110 from 2013/5/24

From: Nederland

Void Linux has been ported to PPC

https://forum.voidlinux.org/t/porting-void-to-powerpc/6228
1.67GHz 15" PowerBook G4, 1GB RAM, 128MB Radeon 9700M Pro, 64GB SSD, MorphOS 3.15

2.7GHz DP G5, 4GB RAM, 512MB Radeon X1950 Pro, 500GB SSHD, MorphOS 3.9
»31.07.18 - 17:54

asrael22

# 15
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 404 from 2014/6/11

From: Germany

I've tried the openSUSE Tumbleweed.
And it booted, but at some stage the screen went blank and... nothing.
Tried several times so see where it hangs. Seems like when loading X. But I gave up. Sadly, but no priority for me.

Manfred
»31.07.18 - 19:29

TheMagicM

# 16
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1220 from 2003/6/17

I'm going to try Debian 9.5. It would be awesome if it worked.

EDIT: Hmm...dont think there is an installer for 9.5...

[ Edited by TheMagicM 31.07.2018 - 21:37 ]
»01.08.18 - 01:32

Intuition

# 17
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1110 from 2013/5/24

From: Nederland

Quote:

TheMagicM wrote:
I'm going to try Debian 9.5. It would be awesome if it worked.

EDIT: Hmm...dont think there is an installer for 9.5...

They don't support ppc anymore.

NetBSD do though.

https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/macppc/
1.67GHz 15" PowerBook G4, 1GB RAM, 128MB Radeon 9700M Pro, 64GB SSD, MorphOS 3.15

2.7GHz DP G5, 4GB RAM, 512MB Radeon X1950 Pro, 500GB SSHD, MorphOS 3.9
»01.08.18 - 13:30

Andreas_Wolf

# 18
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> They don't support ppc anymore.

It's been relegated to Debian Ports:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/10.0/powerpc/iso-cd/
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/10.0/ppc64/iso-cd/
»01.08.18 - 15:28

Andreas_Wolf

# 19
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> there is also a relatively new Linux Distribution targetting
> ppc/ppc64 as tier1 supported platforms [...]: Adelie Linux

Another one:
https://fienixppc.blogspot.com (website)
https://fienixppc-news.blogspot.com (news blog)
http://ppcutopia.ddns.net/repos/apt/debian/ (repository)
»08.12.18 - 16:50

TheMagicM

# 20
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1220 from 2003/6/17

Fienix looks pretty good. Based on Debian which I run on my x64 Thinkpad.
»09.12.18 - 01:30

ASiegel

# 21
Posts: 1376 from 2003/2/15

From: Central Europe

As usually with these type of distributions, the question is whether it features a recent browser with properly working Javascript.
»09.12.18 - 12:12

ernsteiswuerfel

# 22
Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 556 from 2015/6/18

From: Funeralopolis

Seems a realistic target for a modern browser running on PPC Linux (BE and LE) will be Firefox 65. People around the Talos II put quite some effort in it: klick

Chromium is also in the works but not that advanced in porting efforts, and it seems to involve a lot more work.
Talos II. [Gentoo Linux] | PMac G5 11,2. PMac G4 3,6. PBook G4 5,8. [MorphOS 3.18 / Gentoo Linux] | A600GS
»09.12.18 - 14:14

TheMagicM

# 23
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1220 from 2003/6/17

Quote:

ASiegel wrote:
As usually with these type of distributions, the question is whether it features a recent browser with properly working Javascript.

I just want a Linux distro that is somewhat up-to-date. If a browser isnt as up-to-date along with js, I'm ok with that.

Its tough finding a distro for my G5 that works and is modern.
»09.12.18 - 15:22

ernsteiswuerfel

# 24
Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 556 from 2015/6/18

From: Funeralopolis

Quote:

TheMagicM schrieb:
Its tough finding a distro for my G5 that works and is modern.

As already suggested in this thread there are some. I run Gentoo and Adelie Linux on my G5 which both run out of the box and got a modern software stack. Adelie is faster and uses less resources 'cause of being built against musl (instead of glibc).
Talos II. [Gentoo Linux] | PMac G5 11,2. PMac G4 3,6. PBook G4 5,8. [MorphOS 3.18 / Gentoo Linux] | A600GS
»09.12.18 - 15:53

xilinder

# 25
Caterpillar

Posts: 39 from 2018/2/1

From: USA

Quote:

TheMagicM wrote:
I just want a Linux distro that is somewhat up-to-date. If a browser isnt as up-to-date along with js, I'm ok with that.

Its tough finding a distro for my G5 that works and is modern.

Have you tried CentOS 7? https://wiki.centos.org/Download

I have their power9 offering working on my Talos2 with both KDE and Gnome. So far,, so good. :)
»09.12.18 - 17:24