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Re: etch graphical installer does not work on G5 PowerMac?

>>>>> "Sven" == Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> writes:

    Sven> Could you try passing the directfb noaccel option ? not sure
    Sven> exactly how, but Attilio could help you there. This is
    Sven> similar of what happens with atyfb and rage 128 chips. Right
    Sven> now we only had success on the x86 vesafb and radeonfb.

Hi,

Sorry for the wide distribution - enclosed below is Attilio's
instructions for the unaccelerated driver copied to debian-powerpc as
he requested.

I attempted what Attilio suggests with Sven's Dec 2 daily build.

When I start debian-installer from the command line I get a flash on
my screen and I'm back to the shell prompt (<aha> so now I know d-i is
just repeatedly restarting when I boot with the default front end
</aha> :)

Looking in dmesg I see (copied by hand)

ioctl32(debconf:1129) Unknown cmd fd(6) cmd(00004700){00} arg(0f394e70) on /dev/fb/0 

One such line is written each time I start d-i.

It means nothing to me, but I suspect some one out there might be able
to tell if this information helps?

Cheers!
Shyamal
--- Begin Message --- 
Sven Luther wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 09:12:21AM +1100, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
> 
>>On Sat, 2005-12-03 at 08:05 -0800, Shyamal Prasad wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Yes, it is an Nvidia GeForce card, unfortunately that is what Apple
>>>sells with these machines. I'll swap it when I can but for now I'm
>>>stuck with it.
>>>
>>>So, I tried the daily build. It boots fine, but the installer (more
>>>likely the fb itself) does not do anything useful with the nvidia
>>>card. It just flashes (white) the screen (black background) every few
>>>seconds. I can switch to a vt and use the shell, but the screen
>>>continues the flash at the same rate.
>>
>>nvidiafb  on recent kernels should work fine, as should the X "nv"
>>driver...
> 
> 
> Well, this is 2.6.14, is this recent enough ? And the problem is not so much
> plain fbdev, but the directfb and gtk-directfb layers over it. 

Yes, that's true: i had some troubles running DFB apps with DFB 
0.9.22/24/CVS with kernel 2.6.14 on my i8x0 laptop and the cause has 
still to be discovered..

> Could you try passing the directfb noaccel option ? not sure exactly how, but
> Attilio could help you there. This is similar of what happens with atyfb and
> rage 128 chips. Right now we only had success on the x86 vesafb and radeonfb.

this worked with wolfram's G3 powermac with ATI video card

-At boot prompt type

install video=ofonly DEBIAN_FRONTEND=newt

this should bootup a fb driver that works on Wolfram's ppc; i'm no ppc 
expert at all but i know other fb drivers for ppc exists, maybe Sven can 
give further details about this.

-The debian installer will boot with NEWT frontend: switch to VT2 nd type

echo 'no-hardware' >>/etc/directfbrc
echo 'screenshot-dir=/' >>/etc/directfbrc
export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=gtk
debian-installer

if everything goes as expected the graphical installer should start 
using DFB's unaccelerated video driver.
Now you could be able to use the "Stamp" key to take nice screenshots.. :)

Since i'm not subscribed to debian-powerpc@lists.debian.org could 
someone forward this mail there too since may be useful for other users too?

thanks

Attilio

--- End Message ---
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