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Re: kernel 5.9 no keyboard on PowerBook



On 11/7/20 7:24 PM, Riccardo Mottola wrote:
> Anybody who knows :) But it appears to be USB.
> Do we have the same model of powerbook? You said it works for you.

I have an iBook G4 and some older Apple Powerbooks somewhere in my
basement.

> I also have an iBook G4 which I refrained from updateing until now.
> I could, by holding the current kernel, just for safety :)

Installing the updated kernel does not remove the old kernel. You
will be able to choose the preferred kernel in the GRUB menu.

>>> What is this regulatory.db? what firmware could I miss?
>> That's just for WiFi, unrelated to your keyboard.
> 
> Ok! wifi works... but always at my second attempt to pull it up :)

It will work with or without the database. It might just not be legal without
the database. To fix this problem, install the wireless-db package:

> https://packages.debian.org/sid/wireless-regdb

> The keyboard works in GRUB and works with a previous version of the kernel....
> what else can I test and say?

OK. If that's reproducible, it sounds like a kernel bug.

>> If not, you will have to bisect this issue to find which commit broke your keyboard.
>>
>> I recommend cross-compiling the kernel from a fast x86_64 machine.
> 
> cross-compiling to a debian kernel  build but using kernel? I could at least
> attempt different kernel releases and make a first bisectino of versions.

Just build a normal upstream kernel with the config you created using

	make localmodconfig

on the laptop itself.

> I can also attempt a native compile I don't know how to build & package a kernel
> so that it is digested by debian

You don't need to build a Debian kernel. Just checkout the kernel from git on a fast
machine, copy the .config file over from the laptop generated with "make localmodconfig"
and start bisecting between v5.8.0 and v5.9.0.

# apt install gcc-powerpc-linux-gnu (as root)
# export ARCH=powerpc
# export CROSS_COMPILE=powerpc-linux-gnu-
# git bisect start
# git bisect good v5.8.0
# git bisect bad v5.9.0
# make -j<number of cores)
# make modules_install INSTALL_MODPATH=/path/to/modules

Then copy over the kernel and the modules from INSTALL_MODPATH to test.

Mark a working kernel with "git bisect good", a bad one with "git bisect bad".

Repeat until you find what broke the keyboard.

Adrian

-- 
 .''`.  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


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