Last Update
:
Fri Sep 19 11:22:02 CEST 2003
by Matthias Schmidt
<schmidt at giessen dot ccc dot de> - (GnuPG key)
Hardware
- PowerPC G4 Prozessor with 867Mhz
- 384MB RAM
- 60 GB HDD
- 2 x USB 1.1
- 1 x Firewire 400
- 12.1" Display with Nvidia GeForce4 420 Go
- MATSHITA CW-8122 DVD/CD-RW Kombi
- Sun GEM (PCI) 10/100BaseT Ethernet
- Bluetooth
- Airport Extreme WLAN Karte
- PowerMac Snapper DMA sound
- Internal Modem
0. General
0.1 Experiences
0.1.1 Battery
The battery is not as powerfull as Apple writes (~ 5 hours). Under OS X the laptop goes into suspend mode after 2.5 hours. Under Linux and heavy load (I compiled the kernel four times, rebooted four times and also compiled a lot of source code) the laptop works for 3.5 hours. Under normal circumstances the battery was empty after 4 hours.
0.1.2 Heat
You won't get cold fingers if you hack in the winter :) The PB has an active fan, but the aluminium chassis acts as an passive cooler. During compiling Xfree 4.3.0 the PB chassis was _really_ hot.Chassis temperatures |
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0.2 Important Keys
Important keys |
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0.3 Terms
- Mac OS Extended = HFS+
1. Mac OS X
1.1 Install Mac OS X
My PB (and the PB 12" of others too) isn't able too boot of the OS X install DVD. You'll see the gray apple but nothing will happen. I tried it with OS X CDs from an old iBook, but they failed too. I found a solution for this problem in the Apple support forum:
Solution |
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During the installation I partitioned the harddrive into two partitions. One for OS X and the another one for Linux.
2. Install Debian GNU Linux
2.1 First steps
Download the following files and copy them into the OS X root directory:Needed files |
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The first three file are from http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-powerpc/current/new-powermac/, the fourth is the kernel from Orion Buckminster Montoya, which I renamed to linux.bin. You have to take his kernel, because the debian default kernel doesn't support ATA 100. The ATA chipset is the "intrepid chipset, which is UniNorth bridge and KeyLargo IS ASIC merged in one chip. It's CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE_PMAC in kernel config".
If copying failes, activate the OS X root account with sudo passwd root.
Reboot and press immediately [apple] + [alt] + [o] + [f] to enter the Open Firmware BIOS. Boot the Debian installer with
Boot debian installion (This is the Open Firmware Prompt) |
> boot hd:X,yaboot |
Replace the X with the location of your OS X partition. I filled 9 in. If 9 isn't your OS X partition, look at the mount output in the OS X Terminal. I won't write anything about the Debian install process, have a look at the tutorials in the appendix.
2.2 Boot your system
Anyone who installed Debian testing or unstable can skip this section. The boot-floppies here have to correct yaboot version installed. You only need to run yabootconfig.You won't be able to boot your system with the Debian yaboot (1.3.6). You'll receive an error-message during the installation, but don't panic. Reboot, enter the Open Firmware and boot, as described above, yaboot again. Now at the yaboot prompt type in the following
Boot the installed system (This is the yaboot prompt) |
boot: hd:X,/linux.bin root=/dev/hdYY ro |
and boot your installed system (the Y char) with the kernel on the OS X (the X char) partition. Now linux should start and you can finish the Debian installation. (Thanks to Jonathan Love who pointed me at a mistake in my description).
After this, download the newest yaboot (1.3.10) from http://penguinppc.org/projects/yaboot/ and install it. Note: If the old yaboot version from debian is still installed, be sure to use the new version. ybin -V or apt-get remove yaboot will help you in any way :-P. If you step into problems email me and have a look into the yaboot HOWTO. Here is my yaboot.conf.
3. Configuration
3.1 Kernel
Does cat /proc/cpuinfo reports 53MHz as CPU speed? Like this:
cpu : 7455, altivec supported clock : 53MHz revision : 3.3 (pvr 8001 0303) bogomips : 51.90 machine : PowerBook6,1 motherboard : PowerBook6,1 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh detected as : 271 (Unknown Pangea-based) pmac flags : 00000008 L2 cache : 256K unified memory : 384MB pmac-generation : NewWorld
If yes, install the newest benh Kernel (see below). If you're looking for further information please search the debian-powerpc archives.
You only have one choice: the kernel from Benjamin Herrenschmidt. You'll get it via rsync:
benh kernel via rsync |
# mkdir /usr/src/benh_kernel # rsync -avz rsync.penguinppc.org::linux-2.4-benh /usr/src/benh_kernel |
Here is my .config
3.1.1 Network
The Ethernetdevice from Sun works perfectly:sungem.c:v0.97 3/20/02 David S. Miller (davem@redhat.com) eth0: Sun GEM (PCI) 10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet 00:03:93:cc:b2:a2 eth0: Found BCM5221 PHYActivate CONFIG_SUNGEM=y in your kenerl config.
3.1.2 Sound
Works fine. Active the following options during kernel configuration:Sound settings |
CONFIG_SOUND=m CONFIG_DMASOUND_PMAC=m CONFIG_DMASOUND=m |
and create a file named sound in /etc/modutils/ with the following content:
/etc/modutils/sound |
alias char-major-14 soundcore alias sound-slot-0 dmasound_pmac alias char-major-14-3 dmasound_pmac alias /dev/dsp dmasound_pmac alias sound-service-0-0 i2c-keywest alias char-major-14-0 i2c-keywest alias /dev/mixer i2c-keywest |
3.1.3 Bluetooth
I've tested the bluetooth support with the T68i mobile phone from Sony Ericsson and it worked well.3.1.3.1 Kernel options
You'll need the following activated kernel options to talk with the mobile:Bluetooth kernel options |
CONFIG_BLUEZ=m CONFIG_BLUEZ_L2CAP=m CONFIG_BLUEZ_RFCOMM=m CONFIG_BLUEZ_RFCOMM_TTY=y CONFIG_BLUEZ_HCIUSB=m CONFIG_BLUEZ_HCIUART=m CONFIG_BLUEZ_HCIUART_H4=y CONFIG_BLUEZ_HCIVHCI=m |
You have to load the modules below to get a working connection:
hci_usb 7680 1 rfcomm 34696 1 l2cap 18612 2 bluez 36008 3 [hci_usb rfcomm l2cap]
3.1.3.2 Installation
I don't use the blue userland programs from Debian, instead I compiled them for myself. Download the tarballs below from bluez.sf.net.Required software |
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After installing I searched my mobile via hcitool:
littlejohn!ms:~ $ hcitool scan
Scanning ...
00:0A:D9:37:49:9F Superphone
If hcitool successfully detects your phone, use rfcomm and a PPP tool (pppd, wvdial)
to connect to the internet via bluetooth :)3.1.4 Internal modem
I was able to install and use successfully the modem driver. I downloaded the driver from Linux drivers for Conexant modems and installed them. During configuration the hcfusbconfig-script wanted insistently a awk version > 3.1.0. I loaded gawk version 3.1.2 from gnu.org and installed it.Now I was able to finish the modem configuration. I had to modify the init-string of the modem to make it work:
New modem init-string |
ATX3 |
Have a look at my wvdial.conf
3.1.5 USB 1.1
My Logitech USB mouse work and my USB Memory Stick (with usb-storage) also works.3.1.6 Firewire 400
Firewire Cameras semmed not to work. A Firewire HDD worked without problems.3.1.7 Power management
Nope. APM says: Sleep mode not supported on this machine and Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote on debian-powerpc:
> sleep support No, may take a while before it's supported
Anyway you can do cat /proc/apm to get the correct information about your battery status.
3.1.8 CPU
The CPU is fully supported. To get full speed (867 MHz) have a look at the following:
Change CPU freqency |
littlejohn!ms:~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep clock clock : 533MHz littlejohn!ms:~ $ echo -n "0%100%100%performance" > /proc/cpufreq littlejohn!ms:~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep clock clock : 867MHz |
And don't forget to activate cpufreq support during kernel configuration.
3.2 DVD/CD-RW drive
SVCD and DVD playback works. With mplayer I wasn't able to play all DVDs (eg LOTR failed). Somebody reported that DVDV playback with xine is fine. The CD burner works without problems. Activate SCSI-Emulation during kernel configuration and add an entry to your yaboot.conf The output of cdrecord -scanbus:
Cdrecord 1.10 (powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2001 Jörg Schilling Using libscg version 'schily-0.5' scsibus0: 0,0,0 0) 'MATSHITA' 'CD-RW CW-8122 ' 'BA1D' Removable CD-ROM 0,1,0 1) * 0,2,0 2) * 0,3,0 3) * 0,4,0 4) * 0,5,0 5) * 0,6,0 6) * 0,7,0 7) *
3.3 Keyboard
I choose mac-usb-de-latin1 (german) as keyboard layout. Furthermore I installed pbbuttonsd. You'll now be able to use the PB special keys (eject, mute, volume, ...) with this daemon. I wrote a little init script to activate pbbuttonsd at startup. If you want to eject CDs from the build-in CD-ROM drive you have to install eject additionaly.
3.4 Trackpad
With the following /etc/gpm.conf the trackpad works fine under console.
/etc/gpm.conf |
device=/dev/input/mice responsiveness= repeat_type= type=ps2 append="" sample_rate= |
I mapped the second and third mouse button to F11 and F12. If you enter showkey and press any key, you'll see the keycode My /etc/sysctl.conf:
/etc/sysctl.conf |
dev/mac_hid/mouse_button_emulation = 1 dev/mac_hid/mouse_button2_keycode = 87 dev/mac_hid/mouse_button3_keycode = 88 |
3.5 TV adapter
I wasn't yet successfull getting the TV adapter working.
3.6 Analog VGA Monitor
Same for the VGA adapter. It worked fine under OS X (surprise).3.7 Airport Extreme
It seems that the chipset on the Airport Extreme Card is a Broadcom chip. Broadcom don't tend to release the Linux driver or any information how to write them. There is an ongoing petition, just sign it :)Mmh, no :) I was able to successfully load the hermes module, but that's all. kern.log shows the following:
Mar 26 21:45:50 kernel: hermes.c: 5 Apr 2002 David GibsonMar 26 21:47:52 kernel: orinoco.c 0.11b (David Gibson and others) Mar 26 21:47:52 kernel: airport.c 0.11b (Benjamin Herrenschmidt ) Mar 26 21:47:52 kernel: orinoco.c 0.11b (David Gibson and others) Mar 26 21:47:52 kernel: airport.c 0.11b (Benjamin Herrenschmidt )
The aiport modul failed with the following message:
/lib/modules/2.4.20-ben9/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/airport.o: init_module: No such device Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters
I created an alias (eth1) for the card and ifconfig eth1 reported the following (surprise ;):
eth1: error fetching interface information: Device not found
4.0 Xfree 4.3.0 with a Nvidia GeForce4 420 Go
Julian Scheel has started an online petition for nvidia linux driver for ppc. You can sign it here.
4.1 Installation
It works! To get X working, try the following steps. If you use unstable/sid you can skip the first three steps.
Note: A lot of readers reported problems with the CVS-Version of xfree86. If you run into trouble compiling unstable, try the stable version of xfree 4.3.x. It'll work :)
Step-by-Step instruction for X11 |
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If you use sid, you don't need to compile X from source. You can use the deb packages from Daniel Stone. To get the packages type apt-get install x-window-system. Update: With a recent (ben10) benh kernel you'll be able to quit and restart your Xsession without problems. Disadvantage: Your console will be limited to 80x30 characters after boot. Orion Buckminster was the first person who reported this issue on debian-powerpc. I'll work on a fix and report it as fast as possible.
My XF86Config and the output of XFree86.0.log.Note: My color depth is 16Bit per default, but you can use 24Bit (according to Sander) without problems.
4.2 Configuration
4.2.1 Keyboard
Note: Christophe Cattlegrid wrote very usefull information about X and keyboard mapping in his HOWTO, so I'll skip this. Have a look at his HOWTO (see Appendix) instead. I modified my .Xmodmap to get a usable german keyboard layout. I mapped for example [AltGr] on the [apple] key.
Appendix
A. Credits
Thanks to Jonathan Love who pointed me at a mistake and gave me helpfull tips relating testing/unstable.
Sander van Geloven successfully tested X11 with 24Bit color depth.
Johannes Becker reported a broken link and gave me a tip relating the boot prompts.
B. Information
Systen information |
C. Links
Interessting threads/postings on debian-powerpc:debian-powerpc |
Interessting websites:
Websites |
D. Disclaimer
This document is licensed under the GNU GPL. I'm not responsible for the content of the hyperlinks here. If you follow a link, it's your own fault not mine.
Note: I'm not responsible for any damage (software or hardware) this document could cause. Use this document on your own risk!
© 2003 by Matthias Schmidt