Bug#369760: Video problems installing etch on oldworld PowerPC Mac (beige G3)

[Moritz Muehlenhoff <jmm@inutil.org>]

On Thu, Jun 01, 2006 at 03:00:47AM -0400, Rick Thomas wrote:
> Package: debian-installer
> Severity: Important
>
> I've been trying to test install the "etch" daily netinst CD on an  
> oldworld Mac (beige G3) and I can't get off first base because I can't 
> get the video to co-operate.
>
> I'm using the BootX bootloader under MacOS-9.2.2
>
> Before I begin describing my problems, let me state that I was able to 
> install "sarge" using just about any of the available combinations of 
> video setting in BootX ("Force video settings" checkbox on or off, "No 
> video driver" checkbox on or off, and any one of three settings for "More 
> kernel arguments:" -- "video=ofonly", "", and  
> "video=atyfb:vmode:17,cmode:8") (Does anybody know what the two video  
> checkboxes translate into in terms of kernel arguments???)
>
> The problem is that, no matter what I set for video options in BootX,  
> using the "debian-testing-powerpc-netinst.iso" CD image from
>
> 	http://cdimage.debian.org/daily-builds/arch-latest/powerpc/iso_cd/
>
> I get unreadable stuff on the screen during the part that should be  
> kernel messages and evenutally it hangs.  I never get to the language  
> chooser screen at all.
>
> In some cases I get tiny unreadable green text which is duplicated  
> between the left and right halves of the screen, followed by readable  
> characters in white saying:
>
> 	Preparing boot params...
> 	Preparing BAT...
> 	pmac_init(): exit
> 	id mach(): done
> 	MMU: enter
> 	MMU: hw init
> 	hash: enter
> 	hash: find piece
> 	hash: done
> 	MMU: mapin
> 	MMU: setio
> 	MMU: exit
>
> then it hangs.
>
> In other cases (in particular with none of the BootX video checkboxes  
> set and with kernel args set to "video=ofonly") I get a seemingly random 
> collection of white dots on a black screen (nothing recognizable as 
> potential kernel messages) and it hangs.
>
>
> Is the ATI video driver compiled into the kernel on this CD?

Does this error still occur with more recent kernel versions?

Cheers,
        Moritz