Installing Gentoo on a Powermac G5

Hello all,

Hardware:
PowerPC G5, dual 2GHz CPUs, 1.5GB RAM

I am no stranger to installing Gentoo, but I have questions
that don't appear 
to be answered in the PPC64 handbook. I am waiting for a new
SATA drive here, 
and when it arrives I intend to install Gentoo on it. A few
Qs:

1. OS X is on the first sata drive, Gentoo will be on the
second. Is it still 
necessary to create the 'apple_bootstrap' partition if
Gentoo will be on its 
own complete disk?

2. If I follow the PPC64 guide does this give me the 64bit
userland? If so, is 
there enough (hard) unmasked software to use this as a
general desktop 
machine? Is all software in the package database marked
stable under PPC64 
64bit userland software? Can I mix and match PPC32 and PPC64
software? Any 
and all information on this issue would be most helpful, as
I don't think I 
completely understand it (I don't have an x86-64 machine so
I am mostly 
ignorant of 64bit issues).

3. I have the 23 inch Cinema display and a ATI Radeon 9600
Pro vidcard. Are 
there drivers that can make this setup work? I ask because I
booted the 
machine with a Kubuntu PPC livecd to play around and while
the cli worked, 
when it came time for X to start the screen went black and I
was forced to do 
a hard reset. I am not sure if this was just a problem with 
Kubuntu, or some 
other reason. I am not too concerned with hardware
acceleration or anything, 
at most I just want to be able to watch DVDs.

Apropos, if any one has the same, or a similar setup I would
love if you could 
send me your xorg.conf.

Again, I am very familiar with Gentoo, but have little
knowledge of PPC 
hardware and 64 bit issues...pointers to docs that explain
differences and 
ramification on this topic would be great.

Thanks for consideration.
-d
-- 
darren kirby :: Part of the problem since 1976 :: http://badcomputer.org
"...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10,
with more expected..."
- Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972
-- 
gentoo-ppc-usergentoo.org mailing list

The video should not be a big problem.  If you are going to
use xorg-7.1, make 
sure to apply the patch to the ati driver.  I could not get
xorg.conf set up 
correctly, until Xorgautoconfig gave me a starting point.  

I haven't used ppc64, but many of the developers are doing
so.  In fact, I've 
had to add ppc to ebuilds that had ppc64 in the KEYWORDS,
but not ppc.  I 
don't know about mixing ppc32 and ppc64 apps, but perhaps a
chroot 
environment such as that used in amd64 might be possible. 

On Tuesday 03 October 2006 16:26, darren kirby wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Hardware:
> PowerPC G5, dual 2GHz CPUs, 1.5GB RAM
>
> I am no stranger to installing Gentoo, but I have
questions that don't
> appear to be answered in the PPC64 handbook. I am
waiting for a new SATA
> drive here, and when it arrives I intend to install
Gentoo on it. A few Qs:
>
> 1. OS X is on the first sata drive, Gentoo will be on
the second. Is it
> still necessary to create the 'apple_bootstrap'
partition if Gentoo will be
> on its own complete disk?
>
> 2. If I follow the PPC64 guide does this give me the
64bit userland? If so,
> is there enough (hard) unmasked software to use this as
a general desktop
> machine? Is all software in the package database marked
stable under PPC64
> 64bit userland software? Can I mix and match PPC32 and
PPC64 software? Any
> and all information on this issue would be most
helpful, as I don't think I
> completely understand it (I don't have an x86-64
machine so I am mostly
> ignorant of 64bit issues).
>
> 3. I have the 23 inch Cinema display and a ATI Radeon
9600 Pro vidcard. Are
> there drivers that can make this setup work? I ask
because I booted the
> machine with a Kubuntu PPC livecd to play around and
while the cli worked,
> when it came time for X to start the screen went black
and I was forced to
> do a hard reset. I am not sure if this was just a
problem with  Kubuntu, or
> some other reason. I am not too concerned with hardware
acceleration or
> anything, at most I just want to be able to watch DVDs.
>
> Apropos, if any one has the same, or a similar setup I
would love if you
> could send me your xorg.conf.
>
> Again, I am very familiar with Gentoo, but have little
knowledge of PPC
> hardware and 64 bit issues...pointers to docs that
explain differences and
> ramification on this topic would be great.
>
> Thanks for consideration.
> -d
> --
> darren kirby :: Part of the problem since 1976 :: http://badcomputer.org
> "...the number of UNIX installations has grown to
10, with more
> expected..." - Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson,
June 1972

-- 
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*
KMail on Gentoo/PPC
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gentoo-ppc-usergentoo.org mailing list

darren kirby wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> Hardware:
> PowerPC G5, dual 2GHz CPUs, 1.5GB RAM
> 
> I am no stranger to installing Gentoo, but I have
questions that don't appear 
> to be answered in the PPC64 handbook. I am waiting for
a new SATA drive here, 
> and when it arrives I intend to install Gentoo on it. A
few Qs:
> 
> 1. OS X is on the first sata drive, Gentoo will be on
the second. Is it still 
> necessary to create the 'apple_bootstrap' partition if
Gentoo will be on its 
> own complete disk?

Yes.  Open Firmware looks for a HFS blessed partition to
boot from,
which is all the apple_bootstrap partition actually is.  It
contains
a copy of yaboot as well.  When ybin runs, it will tell
OpenFirmware
to boot from this device (well, that what the nvram write is
for.
If your kernel doesn't have nvram support, you'll have to
set this
manually).  Note that it doesn't really matter which disk
this
partition is on, but it's preferred to have it before the
OSX
partition so that if OSX resets the nvram, it will be the
first
blessed HFS partition found and still boot as normal.

> 2. If I follow the PPC64 guide does this give me the
64bit userland? If so, is 
> there enough (hard) unmasked software to use this as a
general desktop 
> machine? Is all software in the package database marked
stable under PPC64 
> 64bit userland software? Can I mix and match PPC32 and
PPC64 software? Any 
> and all information on this issue would be most
helpful, as I don't think I 
> completely understand it (I don't have an x86-64
machine so I am mostly 
> ignorant of 64bit issues).

I can't speak too much for ppc64 (I only have ppc32
machines), but
you have a few options.  A pure ppc64 machine won't work
with
everything.  For instance, there are issues with Mozilla
based
applications and ppc64, but KDE (and konqueror) should work
great.
You can also run a 32bit UL very easily and for desktop
usage this
is the recommended configuration afaik.  I'm not sure about
a mixed
environment.

> 3. I have the 23 inch Cinema display and a ATI Radeon
9600 Pro vidcard. Are 
> there drivers that can make this setup work? I ask
because I booted the 
> machine with a Kubuntu PPC livecd to play around and
while the cli worked, 
> when it came time for X to start the screen went black
and I was forced to do 
> a hard reset. I am not sure if this was just a problem
with  Kubuntu, or some 
> other reason. I am not too concerned with hardware
acceleration or anything, 
> at most I just want to be able to watch DVDs.

This should work just fine with DRI as well.  I have a
Radeon 9600
in my PB and it works very nicely with OpenGL acceleration,
etc. 

> Apropos, if any one has the same, or a similar setup I
would love if you could 
> send me your xorg.conf.

Not really required, just use Xorgautoconfig and it should
work
fine.  With that display you will probably also need to set
the
reduced blanking setting.

> Again, I am very familiar with Gentoo, but have little
knowledge of PPC 
> hardware and 64 bit issues...pointers to docs that
explain differences and 
> ramification on this topic would be great.
> 
> Thanks for consideration.
> -d

Hope that helped,
-Joe
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