Anyone used Open SuSE on a PPC yet?

I've got it,10.1, running on my IBook G4 and it runs well! There is no 3d support for the video so thats a drag but other than that everything is working as it should be, except for the airport extreme of course. Anybody seen a tutorial on how to get the new alpha drivers for the extreme to work in 10.1?

I write this in April with the intention of posting it, but then never got around to finishing it. I realize that it is quite long, but hope it helps someone somewhere. If it just helps one person it will have been worthwhile.

Linux on a PowerBook G3 (Wallstreet/PDQ) April 2006

Introduction

I was recently given an old Macintosh PowerBook G3. I really wanted a dedicated internet/e-mail computer that I could not set up on my work computer and network for security considerations.

I now (after some work) have a PowerBook running SuSE Linux and a wireless internet connection. I will walk through the steps it took to set this up so others can benefit.

The specs on my PowerBook are:

CPU: PowerPC 740/750 running at 266 MHz
RAM: 256 MB
HDD: 4 GB

From various Google searches, etc., I discovered that it is actually a "Wallstreet" model, and actually more specifically a "PDQ". This means its an OldWorld Mac and as such cannot boot from the cdrom drive.


Booting

Because it's an OldWorld machine it cannot boot from cdrom and the simplest solution is to use BootX to boot into Linux. BootX is obtainable from http://penguinppc.org/historical/benh/. See also http://penguinppc.org/bootloaders/bootx/ for more details.

Another option is to use Quik, details at http://penguinppc.org/bootloaders/quik/. I haven't got quik working yet, but if anyone has any info for me on how to get it going on the above hardware, I'd really appreciate it. It looks like the problem is with the video driver


Partitioning

This is what I did, it doesn't mean it's the best way of doing it, but at least that it works.

I backed up the drive over the network. In hindsight I would recommend creating an HFS partition on another computer and backing up to that as that way the file attribute information won't be lost. (The place I learned the most about the file attributes was from the mkisofs man page available on an installed Linux box.)

The PowerBook was running Mac OS 9.22 when I got it, but only had the install CD for Mac OS 8.5. Connecting to the network was no problem with 9.22, but almost impossible with 8.5. This is not something I am familiar with so I didn't do much more with it.


Partition and Reinstall a minimal Mac OS to make room for Linux

Boot from the Mac install cd and, using the Mac partitioner (Drive Setup), create a new partition at the beginning of the drive 150 MB in size. The only reason I have MacOS on there is to boot Linux as I was not able to get quik working, so have to use BootX. 150MB is about the least you can have a MacOS install.

In MacOS Drive Setup, create 2 partitions in the top pull-down list. Make the first 30MB and the second 150MB. Set the partition type of the first to ProDOS and the second to Mac OS. Leve the rest of the disk unallocated. The first partition will be the boot partition as it needs to be ext2, as I understand. The 2nd will be the Mac OS partition.

Then go to Mac OS Install and follow the instructions until you get to the step with a "Customize" button in bottom left of the dialog box. Click on customize and unselect all software except the first on the list ("Mac OS 8.5" on my system). Then install. This takes about 7 minutes and then you can reboot into the new Mac OS.


Install BootX

Copy BootX App to the desktop (or wherever you want to put it) and BootX Extension to "MacHD:System Folder:Extensions". Setting up the extension will open the BootX dialog when you boot up, before booting fully into Mac OS, which makes for a faster boot as you don't need to fully load Mac OS.

Make a new folder in the "System Folder" called "Linux Kernels". Insert the Linux install CD and from the boot folder on the cdrom copy the kernel and the initial ramdisk (initrd) to "Linux Kernels".

For Mandriva Limited Edition 2005, these are called "vmlinux" and "all.gz" respectively.

For Suse 10.0, these are "linux32.gz" and "initrd32", found in the "suseboot" folder. Note however that BootX won't boot a compressed kernel, so you have to uncompress linux32.gz. I don't know of an easy way to do this from Mac OS. I believe Stuffit Expander will extract this, but am not sure. I have done it from another install of Linux, which entails installing something else, copying the files from the first Suse install CD and extracting with gunzip. Overall a hassle.

For Kubuntu these are "vmlinux" and "initrd.gz" found in the "install/powerpc" folder on the CD.

Double click on "BootX App". Select the kernel from the pull-down list in the first dialog. Click on "Options..." and select "Use specified RAM disk" and click "Choose...". Navigate to the Linux Kernels folder and select the initrd. Click OK.

In the box "More kernel arguments:" type the following:

For Suse install:
video=atyfb:vmode:14,cmode:32
Also works: video=atyfb:1024x768@50

For Mandriva install:
ramdisk_size=34000 rw init=/linuxrc udev nodevfs cdroot root=/sysroot/tmp/image video=atyfb:vmode:14,cmode:32
Also works: video=atyfb:1024x768@50

For Kubuntu install:
video=atyfb:vmode:14,cmode:32

For Gentoo install (if you are brave and have lots of time):
ramdisk_size=34000 rw init=/linuxrc looptype=squashfs loop=/livecd.squashfs udev nodevfs cdroot root=/dev/ram0 video=atyfb:1024x768@50

Click "Save to prefs"

Click on "Linux" to boot.

As a note, Pressing tab will highlight the Linux button and then clicking "Save to prefs" will set Linux as the default boot.


In the installer:

Partitioning:
hda7 30MB ext2 /boot #Don't change anything except the filesystem type
hda8 150MB Apple_HFS /mnt/mac #Don't format or change anything on this drive
hda9 3.5GB ext3 /
hda10 265MB swap swap


Installing the bootloader:

When it gets to the point where the bootloader is installed, press Ctrl-Alt-F1 or Ctrl-Alt-F2 to get to a text console. Copy the kernel and initrd from /boot across to the Linux Kernels folder in the System Folder. You can see what is mounted where with the mount command.

On Suse 10.0:
After finishing the Basic Installation on the dialog that counts down to reboot, stop it and press Ctrl-Alt-F2 to go to a console. Check if the /boot and /mnt/mac partitions are still mounted. If not mount them:

mount /dev/hda7 /mnt/boot
mount /dev/hda8 /mnt/mnt/mac

Note, there is an "extra /mnt" on these paths because that is where / is temporarily mounted for the installation.

ls -l /mnt/boot

Here you will see a link from vmlinuz to vmlinux-2.6.13-15-default and from initrd to initrd-2.6.13-15-default. It is the files with all the numbers you want:

cp /mnt/boot/vmlinux-2.6.13-15-default /mnt/mnt/mac/System\ Folder/Linux\ Kernels
cp /mnt/boot/initrd-2.6.13-15-default /mnt/mnt/mac/System\ Folder/Linux\ Kernels

Unmount the partitions you just mounted

umount /dev/hda7
umount /dev/hda8

Change back to the installer with Ctrl-Alt-F7 and reboot. In BootX change the kernel and initrd so they point to the above files and you are set.


On Mandriva:
ls -l /mnt/boot

Here you will see a link from vmlinuz to vmlinuz-2.6.11-6mdk and from initrd.img to initrd-2.6.11-6mdk.img. It is the files with all the numbers you want:

cp /mnt/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11-6mdk /mnt/mnt/mac/System\ Folder/Linux\ Kernels
cp /mnt/boot/initrd-2.6.11-6mdk.img /mnt/mnt/mac/System\ Folder/Linux\ Kernels

Change back to the installer with Ctrl-Alt-F7 and note the kernel argument listed there. Write it down. This is added to the "More kernel arguments:" box in BootX. On my setup it was:

root=/dev/hda9


Additional Notes/Tips/Opinions:

I have listed the options for other distros above, but settled with Suse mainly because I could get wireless networking on it (almost) out of the box. (And I really like Suse.) After some trial and error and more than a little Googling, I found that the 3Com 3CRWE154G72 OfficeConnect Wireless 11g PC Card (Version 1.0) with a Prism54 chipset was compatible. I [just] needed to download the firmware and install it in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware.

I found that KDE was just a tad too sluggish for my liking and, as I prefer KDE to Gnome, I'd already installed a minimal install of KDE. So I installed Fluxbox and still having KDE installed, can use Konqueror or KOffice in a pinch. And I use Kinternet to manage my internet connection, which does quite adequately.

I found Konqueror a bit bulky as a web browser and used Firefox and Kmail for a long time, until I discovered Opera, which has a built in mail client and as such is less resource intensive than having both Firefox and Kmail open at the same time.

The G3 Powerbook does not have built-in USB support, but with a USB 2.0 PC Card, I now have easy (and fast!) USB access. The only problem that I run into is that I can't seem to use the USB card and wireless card at the same time. I haven't gotten round to looking into this to see why or what the problem is exactly, as it's not terribly critical and not a big deal to disconnect from the network to use USB.

This setup is very stable. I have had it up with no crashes or reboots now for 40 days, and no problems. I think the last time I had to reboot was when I was testing out a different window manager and was tryng to start a new session (while keeping my current one going), and that was too much with not enough RAM and/or swap to easily accomplish.

Anyone tried installing SUSE 10.1 or 10.2 on a G4 XServe? Im using Suse 10.2 on a few boxes, but I have yet to get it working on my Xserve (i did get Yellow dog going though). Any hints/help would be appreciated.

I have installed OpenSuse 10.2 on a iMac G4. Works great.

I have installed 10.2 on an XServe. Now if I can figure out how to create a netboot image I will be set.

I have installed OpenSuse 10.2 on a iMac G4. Works great.
[/b]

I installed suse 10.2 on a G4 ppc, the ATI Rage pro video card was not detected and now I get an XServer error, not started followed by a garbled screen when I reboot, how can I fix this (Xconfig?)

I got it working (finally) on my 1.5ghz Powerbook (5,6)
I had to do all the partitioning with a Ubuntu Live CD (last time I tried to install 10.1, it wiped everything, so I let Ununtu do it just in case)
I can't get wireless working
The screen resolution took a while to sort

Overall, It's a nice OS, much more polished than Ubuntu

:blink:
OpenSuSE 10.2 on a old Blue and White G3 (with a G4 500mhz upgrade Processor) Everything seems to be working... Trying to get the 3D working... Shouldn't be all that hard since its an old Rage 128. Seems to be pretty quick... just as fast as OSX (with the exception of the 3d stuff)

Just got the 3d to work... Seems to work perfect.

:blink:
OpenSuSE 10.2 on a old Blue and White G3 (with a G4 500mhz upgrade Processor) Everything seems to be working... Trying to get the 3D working... Shouldn't be all that hard since its an old Rage 128. Seems to be pretty quick... just as fast as OSX (with the exception of the 3d stuff)
[/b]

I am trying to install on a G3 Graphite iMac. The install works but the video and sound are not correct. The screen is shifted to the left and I can not figure out the correct settings for xorg.conf. The sound card is not recognized at all except in the hardware profile. Any resouces available would be appreciated.

Thanks

Chuck