10.3 On Powerbook G4 Works!

Hi all, been a while since I was lurking around the linux forums. I got a powerbook a while ago for work so I stopped using Linux.

But curiosity got the better of me and I just installed OSS 10.3 on a G4 1GHz PowerBook. After a bit of "fiddling", I'm glad to say that it mostly just works.

The major probs were sound and wireless. I fixed the sound by editing /etc/init.d/alsasound and changing line 188 from:

test -d /proc/asound && start_rest to test -d /proc/asound && start_all.

Notice I have just changed start_rest to start_all. This meant I didn't have to keep starting alsa as root and it now works after every restart (yay!!!).

Now as for the wireless. I honestly don't have a good feeling for what I did. But after 24 hours I finally got it working. I have removed network manager completely. I used fwcutter and wl_apsta.o. I also used the traditional ifup approach.

The first time I rebooted after getting it working it didn't work. So I iwconfig > ifdown eth1 (because the if was up but didn't connect for some reason) > ifup eth1. This got it working again and now it connects at every reboot (yay again!!!!). I also have a full speed connection.

The only thing remaining to do is get the 3D acceleration working, but I'm not holding my breath. I notice one user claims to have it working but gave no details as to how!!!!


Anyway thanks for listening to my rambling. Hope this helps convert some more ppc users.

By the way, OSS 10.3 would have to be the most polished distro I've ever seen. It is just beautiful!

cheers

wanger

Hi i just got a g4 1ghz laptop recently was thinking of trying suse on it, i would want to install it on a external usb hdd though do you know if this would work or is it too slow? also i am wondering , you can only use certain repos now, just for the ppc? and is there much software?

it would be cool to have suse and compiz-fusion going on the macbook

thanks

nick

Hi Nicholas,

Not too sure about the details, but I found a how-to for the external HDD install

http://en.opensuse.org/Installing_Su...rnal_USB_Drive

As for the repos, there are a few things missing for the ppc version, but overall, I'm still loving it! One of the big ones missing is 3D support for the graphics card and flash of course!

cheers

wanger