Re: PowerMac G5 fans run out of control with kernel4.17.0-3-powerpc64 but not with 4.16.0-1-powerpc64
On 8/26/18 7:51 AM, Rick Thomas wrote:
> The pre 4.x kernel “i2c_powermac” fix came from an old email on this list — I don’t remember who it was from. It seemed to be common knowledge on the list at the time — common enough that making the module built-in with the 4.x powerpc64 kernels was uncontroversial.
>
> Then Dennis Clarke replied to my original email, mentioning that it might have something to do with “windfarm”. I had noticed that keyword in the list of available modules, so looking at the output of “lsmod” was an obvious first-step. When I noticed that “windfarm_core” (and a bunch of other “windfarm” modules that it depends on) were missing from the running 4.17 kernel, it seemed that doing “modload windfarm_core” was at least worth a try. I did try it, and it worked — the fans quieted down immediately. I put that knowledge together with the old information about “i2c_powermac” and gave it a try.
So nothing got broken. It's just that module names were changed and we may
have to update the kernel configuration. Nothing that calls for the total
demise of Debian on PowerPC as Dennis put it.
It would really help if people wouldn't start dramatizing things when something
doesn't work out of the box. Neither powerpc nor ppc64 are release architectures
anymore. That means that there is no thorough testing anymore and bugs are handled
with less priority which means that things can get broken.
However, this does not mean that all is lost and beyond repair. It just means that
you cannot expect a perfectly polished product. But I don't see this as a problem,
if something is broken, we're fixing it.
I have recently posted a TODO list for Debian/sparc64 [1] and I can post the same
for powerpc/ppc64. One of the most pressing problems on Debian powerpc/ppc64 is
the deprecation of Yaboot. Yaboot is completely unmaintained these days and should
have been replaced with GRUB long time ago. If you install Debian powerpc/ppc64 on
an IBM-based system (CHRP-IBM or whatever it's called), the installer will actually
install GRUB. On Mac systems (NewWorld), it will install Yaboot with the various
problems that people are experiencing.
Getting GRUB work on PPC Macs requires an extra utility which is currently part
of the Yaboot package so this needs some extra work. But we have worked on this
in the past and we hope to get this finished soon. Then we have one annoyance
less to worry about.
Adrian
> [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2018/08/msg00027.html
--
.''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz@debian.org
`. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de
`- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
Reply to: