Re: old G5 iMac with NVIDIA card

I don't know if there is a command to indicate what driver is being used by the X11 system. I also don't have a functional debian system at the moment but running

sudo grep driver /var/log/Xorg.0.log

on my Fedora 22 laptop gives:

[ 40.931] X.Org XInput driver : 21.1

[ 44.288] (==) Matched intel as autoconfigured driver 0

[ 44.288] (==) Matched intel as autoconfigured driver 1

[ 44.288] (==) Matched modesetting as autoconfigured driver 2

[ 44.288] (==) Matched fbdev as autoconfigured driver 3

[ 44.288] (==) Matched vesa as autoconfigured driver 4

[ 44.288] (==) Assigned the driver to the xf86ConfigLayout

[ 44.288] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/intel_drv.so

[ 44.642] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/modesetting_drv.so

[ 53.891] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/fbdev_drv.so

[ 54.058] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so

[ 54.084] (II) FBDEV: driver for framebuffer: fbdev

[ 54.084] (II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa

[ 54.096] (II) intel(0): Using Kernel Mode Setting driver: i915, version 1.6.0 20151010

[ 54.166] (II) intel(0): [XvMC] xvmc_vld driver initialized.

[ 54.166] (II) intel(0): [DRI2] DRI driver: i965

[ 54.166] (II) intel(0): [DRI2] VDPAU driver: va_gl

So it looks like I'm using (on my laptop, not the G5) either the intel driver, the fbdev driver, or the vesa driver.

sudo grep -i fbdev /var/log/Xorg.0.log

[ 44.288] (==) Matched fbdev as autoconfigured driver 3

[ 53.891] (II) LoadModule: "fbdev"

[ 53.891] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/fbdev_drv.so

[ 54.058] (II) Module fbdev: vendor="X.Org Foundation"

[ 54.084] (II) FBDEV: driver for framebuffer: fbdev

[ 54.099] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev

[ 54.099] (II) Loading sub module "fbdevhw"

[ 54.099] (II) LoadModule: "fbdevhw"

[ 54.099] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/libfbdevhw.so

[ 54.110] (II) Module fbdevhw: vendor="X.Org Foundation"

[ 54.119] (II) UnloadModule: "fbdev"

[ 54.119] (II) Unloading fbdev

[ 54.119] (II) UnloadSubModule: "fbdevhw"

[ 54.119] (II) Unloading fbdevhw

so it's not using the fbdev driver

sudo grep -i vesa /var/log/Xorg.0.log

[ 44.288] (==) Matched vesa as autoconfigured driver 4

[ 54.058] (II) LoadModule: "vesa"

[ 54.058] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so

[ 54.084] (II) Module vesa: vendor="X.Org Foundation"

[ 54.084] (II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa

[ 54.110] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa

[ 54.119] (II) UnloadModule: "vesa"

[ 54.119] (II) Unloading vesa

so it's not using the vesa driver

Must be using the intel driver (which makes sense since this is an i7 laptop).

On Thu, Jun 9, 2016 at 4:55 AM, G 3 <programmingkidx@gmail.com> wrote:

Here is the information:

0000:f0:10.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV350 [Radeon 9550/9600/X1050 Series]

On Wed, Jun 8, 2016 at 10:07 PM, Herminio Hernandez Jr. <herminio.hernandezjr@gmail.com> wrote:
To see what video card you have run this command

lspci | grep VGA

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 8, 2016, at 6:52 PM, G 3 <programmingkidx@gmail.com> wrote:

I gave up on Debian so I don't have it installed anymore. But if you mean what I have for Ubuntu Mate, I don't know. Maybe someone could send me a command to execute and I can email the results back to the list.

On Jun 8, 2016, at 8:03 PM, Steven Grunza wrote:

What video driver do you use?

On Wed, Jun 8, 2016 at 6:56 PM, Programmingkid <programmingkidx@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jun 8, 2016, at 12:13 PM, Steven Grunza wrote:

> Does anyone know if the nouveau driver will work with an old G5 PowerPC and the GeForce FX G05200 it originally used?
>
> The last time I tried it had numerous problems (no graphics, kernel panics, etc).
>
> lsusb reports the video card as:
>
> NVIDIA Corporation NV34M [GeForce FX Go5200] (rev a1)
>
>
> Various versions of jessie failed in various ways. Does Stretch have a different version of the nouveau driver? Since the machine is PowerPC I can't use the NVIDIA driver.
>
> - Steven G.

Debian is still broken when it comes to iMac G5 compatibility. My iMac G5 booted to a command prompt after installing Debian. I think the only fix is to move on to a different distribution like Ubuntu Mate 15.10. It works well on my iMac G5.

Just to note, my iMac G5 has a ATI Radeon 9600 in it, so your issues might be different from mine.