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

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Sat, Dec 03, 2005 at 08:05:01AM -0800, Shyamal Prasad wrote:
> >>>>> "Sven" == Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> writes:
> 
>     Sven> On Thu, Dec 01, 2005 at 06:54:47PM -0800, Shyamal Prasad
>     Sven> wrote:
>     >>  I tried booting the graphical installer (the file mini.iso
>     >> dowloaded from
>     >> http://people.debian.org/~fjp/d-i/gtk-miniiso/alpha/powerpc/)
> 
>     Sven> Could you try the latest daily-builds from :
> 
>     Sven>   http://people.debian.org/~luther/d-i/gtkdi/images
> 
>     Sven> as i am not sure what Frans did put in the above images, but
> 
> Well, the link to Frans' installer I found via the debian installer
> page (alpha release of graphical installer). So I guess it is what
> most other newbies are finding.

Yeah, the same as they linked to unusable miboot floppies and i got to support
the users trying them out.

>     Sven> the current daily builds have the 2.6.14-3 kernel. I believe
>     Sven> the images you tried may have 2.6.12 still, and thus didn't
>     Sven> solve your problem, not sure. Your box has Nvidia graphics,
>     Sven> right ? Where i you, i would take that card out and put a
>     Sven> nice Radeon inside, would solve you worlds of trouble.
> 
> 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.

He, so i guess this means you are volunteering to help debug the graphical
installer with nvidiafb :)

> 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.
> 
> Any advice on how I can be helpful?

This is the sign of directfb/gtk/d-i crashing, i suppose you need to find out
how to get debugging info out. I would try subscribing to the directfb-dev
mailing list and post there.

Friendly,

Sven Luther