Installing Gentoo on a Powermac G5

Note: Sorry if this shows up twice, but both my responses
(to David
and Joseph) seem to have been lost in a black
hole...(Resending from
gmail).

quoth the Joseph Jezak:

> > 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.

Ok. I suppose I should have explained better. OS X is
already installed, so I
imagine the bootstrap partition is already on the OS X disk
right? Sorry to
be thick, but you say 'it doesn't matter which disk' it is
on, so as long as
it is on one of them that's OK?

I should say here, my SATA drive just arrived an hour ago,
and I installed it
and booted OS X, and it seems the drives were reversed, that
is, the old disk
is disk 1, and the new one is disk 0. Does this make a
difference...

I guess I'll just make the partition anyway, as I don't
believe it takes a
whole lot of space.

> > 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.

Ok, I see on the mirrors there are PPC64 32 bit UL and 64
bit UL tarballs. To
tell the truth I am planning on using KDE anyway (and I can
live without
firefox) , so I think I will give the 64bit a shot. If it
doesn't work out
for me I will just do a reinstall. No big whoop. Just
playing around for now
anyway.

Just to confirm, the packages in the database that are under
PPC64 arch are
the 64 bit userland apps right? I have already checked and
everything I
want/need is stable for PPC64...

> > 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. 

Sounds good!

I responded to David's post but it seems to not have made it
to the list. In
that post I asked if all I needed to do was add:

VIDEO_CARDS="radeon"

to make.conf to get the drivers I need (assuming xorg 7.0).
Is this right?

>
> Hope that helped,
> -Joe

Sure did, thanks a lot,
-d

-- 
http://badcomputer.org
-- 
gentoo-ppc-usergentoo.org mailing list

For xorg you need to place the following in make.conf 
VIDEO_CARDS="radeon" #Thats for the video driver 
INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" #optionally you
could add evdev to test.

If you decide to use  xorg-7.1:

The ati driver patch is here for xf86-video-ati-6.6.2. 
http://
bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=146706
All it does is some sanity checking.  Otherwise, the driver
assumes an x86 
VESA Bios and generates useless values.  Developers are
waiting on the patch 
to see if this or something else is used upstream.
-- 
gentoo-ppc-usergentoo.org mailing list

David Gurvich wrote:
> For xorg you need to place the following in make.conf 
> VIDEO_CARDS="radeon" #Thats for the video
driver 
> INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" #optionally
you could add evdev to test.
> 
> If you decide to use  xorg-7.1:
> 
> The ati driver patch is here for xf86-video-ati-6.6.2. 
> http://
bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=146706
> All it does is some sanity checking.  Otherwise, the
driver assumes an x86 
> VESA Bios and generates useless values.  Developers are
waiting on the patch 
> to see if this or something else is used upstream.

It's also not needed on all ATI cards (works fine here
without it),
I'd give it a try before patching.

-Joe
-- 
gentoo-ppc-usergentoo.org mailing list

Darren Kirby wrote:
> Note: Sorry if this shows up twice, but both my
responses (to David
> and Joseph) seem to have been lost in a black
hole...(Resending from
> gmail).
> 
> quoth the Joseph Jezak:
> 
>> > 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.
> 
> Ok. I suppose I should have explained better. OS X is
already installed,
> so I
> imagine the bootstrap partition is already on the OS X
disk right? Sorry to
> be thick, but you say 'it doesn't matter which disk' it
is on, so as
> long as
> it is on one of them that's OK?
> 
> I should say here, my SATA drive just arrived an hour
ago, and I
> installed it
> and booted OS X, and it seems the drives were reversed,
that is, the old
> disk
> is disk 1, and the new one is disk 0. Does this make a
difference...
> 
> I guess I'll just make the partition anyway, as I don't
believe it takes a
> whole lot of space.

While you could use your OSX partition as a bootstrap
partition,
it's really not a good idea.  The bootstrap is for Linux
only.  As I
said before, it's an HFS formatted partition that holds the
yaboot
binary that OpenFirmware loads.  That's why it's so small.


>> > 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.
> 
> Ok, I see on the mirrors there are PPC64 32 bit UL and
64 bit UL
> tarballs. To
> tell the truth I am planning on using KDE anyway (and I
can live without
> firefox) , so I think I will give the 64bit a shot. If
it doesn't work out
> for me I will just do a reinstall. No big whoop. Just
playing around for
> now
> anyway.
> 
> Just to confirm, the packages in the database that are
under PPC64 arch are
> the 64 bit userland apps right? I have already checked
and everything I
> want/need is stable for PPC64...

If it's marked ppc64, it'll work on ppc64, the 32 bit UL
uses the
ppc keyword, just like the PPC32.

>> > 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. 
> 
> Sounds good!
> 
> I responded to David's post but it seems to not have
made it to the
> list. In
> that post I asked if all I needed to do was add:
> 
> VIDEO_CARDS="radeon"
> 
> to make.conf to get the drivers I need (assuming xorg
7.0). Is this right?

Yes, that should do it.  The PPC FAQ has more detailed
directions
for configuring your kernel as well.

-Joe
-- 
gentoo-ppc-usergentoo.org mailing list

On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 22:10 -0400, Joseph Jezak wrote:
> David Gurvich wrote:
> > For xorg you need to place the following in
make.conf 
> > VIDEO_CARDS="radeon" #Thats for the
video driver 
> > INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse"
#optionally you could add evdev to test.
> > 
> > If you decide to use  xorg-7.1:
> > 
> > The ati driver patch is here for
xf86-video-ati-6.6.2. 
> > http://
bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=146706
> > All it does is some sanity checking.  Otherwise,
the driver assumes an x86 
> > VESA Bios and generates useless values. 
Developers are waiting on the patch 
> > to see if this or something else is used upstream.
> 
> It's also not needed on all ATI cards (works fine here
without it),
> I'd give it a try before patching.

As of around 16 hours ago version 6.6.3 of the driver hit
the tree that
seems to fix the open issues.

--Dan