sid - PowerBook G4 1.5 Al (radeon) - No Backlight on fourth boot - pbbuttonsd/hdparm

[Fadi Osman <fospot-ppc@yahoo.com>]

PowerBook G4 1.5 Al (radeon) + sid (using instructions listed on: http://wiki.powerprogress.org/DebianPowerPcStartersManual#Installation_of_Debian_powerpc )

Hello,

After a week or so of installations and re-installations and many nomodeset and attempts to blacklist modules and trying to setup Xorg...

I realized I was getting a Dark Screen ( no LCD Backlight)  during Xorg startup - on exactly the fourth boot after completing installation!

( I originally thought it was the infamous "black screen of death" which occurs on nvidia/nouveau Macs - but the login window was still there in the dark - the machine was not freezed)

I also noticed that the "fn" button on the PowerBook started behaving different starting the third boot - you needed to use it in order to activate the Function buttons F1...F6...etc...
It was not the case for the first and second boot.

So something indicated an issue with pbbuttonsd - which is installed by default.

So I started up in nomodeset - and using the Console, uninstalled pbbuttonsd and hdparm, and now have my Backlight back again!

I have kept the contents of /var/log for each of my boot attempt - but not the fourth unfortunately. A first attempt to compare them was not very helpful.

I might try to reinstall pbbuttonsd and prepare a script to copy the /var/log with the backlight off.

Thanks all for keeping Debian powerpc alive!
Fadi.