Re: PowerMac G5 can't startx (nouveau issue?)

[Cedar Maxwell <cedarmaxwell@mac.com>]

Stan:

Thank you for your reply.  Upon further investigation after sending my
prior email, I found I could still load Window Maker, but as discussed,
the Mesa version currently available in the repos has a bug and
therefore hardware acceleration was unavailable.

I built Mesa from source with the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt build-dep mesa
sudo apt install git meson ninja-build python3-mako python3-packaging \
                 python3-jinja2 libx11-dev libxext-dev libxdamage-dev \
                 libxfixes-dev libx11-xcb-dev libxcb-glx0-dev \
                 libxcb-dri2-0-dev libxcb-dri3-dev libxcb-present-dev \
                 libxcb-sync-dev libxshmfence-dev libxxf86vm-dev \
                 libxrandr-dev wayland-protocols libwayland-dev \
                 libdrm-dev llvm-dev libelf-dev zlib1g-dev

git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa.git
cd mesa
git checkout mesa-25.2.0

meson setup build \
  -Dprefix=/usr \
  -Dbuildtype=release \
  -Dgallium-drivers=nouveau,llvmpipe \
  -Dvulkan-drivers= \
  -Dglx=dri \
  -Degl=enabled \
  -Dplatforms=x11

ninja -C build -j$(nproc)
sudo ninja -C build install

It was that easy!  glxinfo, glxgears and mpv player now work. However,
VLC which worked fine with the supposedly broken Mesa version in the
repo, now exhibits the same problem mpv did before: very choppy video.

FireFox, FreeCAD, and other programs which would use GPU acceleration,
still didn't, and still have the blue/purple-colour issue.  So, clearly
there are more issues here than just Mesa.

P.S.: Not sure if this is because of my custom Mesa version, but after
some updates a week or so later, lightdm doesn't work at all anymore,
so now I've no graphical environment at all.  

I'll try your suggestion when I get a chance

Thanks
Cedar

On Fri, 2025-08-22 at 10:25 -0600, Stan Johnson wrote:
> Hello Cedar,
> 
> On 8/12/25 6:57 PM, Cedar Maxwell wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I can no longer startx on my PowerMac G5 after recent updates.  The
> > login screen will load, but upon entering my credentials the system
> > hangs at a black screen.
> > 
> > It doesn't seem to matter which display manager (sddm or lightdm
> > are
> > the only which would install) or desktop environment I choose, the
> > results are the same.
> > 
> > Attached is my Xorg log.  It appears the nouveau driver is having
> > an
> > issue modesetting.  Despite "(WW) Warning, couldn't open module
> > nv", I
> > can confirm xserver-xorg-video-nouveau is installed.
> > 
> > I am aware of the idea of adding "nouveau.noaccel=1" to my GRUB
> > config,
> > but I want hardware acceleration.
> > 
> > Any advice would be appreciated.
> > 
> > Cedar
> > 
> 
> I just updated my PowerMac G5 to the latest Debian SID, and graphics
> didn't work.
> 
> I noticed that Debian's config file for vmlinux-6.12.38+deb13-
> powerpc64
> doesn't include entries that I have had to add for a while now to
> enable
> my NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 video card on my PowerMac G5:
> 
> CONFIG_FB_NVIDIA=y
> CONFIG_FB_NVIDIA_I2C=y
> CONFIG_FB_NVIDIA_BACKLIGHT=y
> 
> The NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 card was an entry-level graphics card for
> ADC
> displays on PowerMac G5 (and G4?) systems. After reverting to a
> custom
> kernel (vmlinux-6.13.6) that was compiled a few months ago with the
> above options, graphics works. I haven't checked whether the FX 5200
> card works using the above CONFIG_FB_NVIDIA options with the latest
> kernel, but it should.
> 
> Hope that helps.
> 
> -Stan