Re: Ubuntu/Kubuntu on Mac G5.

On 22. jan 2006, at 16.06, Larry Grover wrote:

Brian Durant wrote:
On 22. jan 2006, at 13.44, Eric Dunbar wrote: 
On 1/21/06, Larry Grover <lgrover@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Brian Durant wrote:

BTW, I just joined the YDL-newbie list and they were asking about my
firmware version. I pointed out that I am running OS X Tiger (10.4.4)
but I don't know how to find out how to confirm my firmware version. It
would be best if I knew what version I have before I file a bug report,
right? So, how do I confirm the firmware version that my G5 is using?


I'm not sure what "firmware" is supposed to mean. If it's the machine
model, then you can get it in linux by opening a terminal window and
running "cat /proc/cpuinfo"), or in OSX by clicking on the blue apple
(upper left corner), selecting "About this Mac", clicking on the "More
Info" button and then selecting "Hardware". My iBook is a PowerBook4,3
and my iMac is a PowerMac8,1.

Regards,
Larry



Open Firmware is the boot code used by all PowerPC Macs (and some
older Macs); it serves the same purpose as BIOS in IBM clones. Open
Firmware has been replaced by EFI in the new i86 Core Duo Macs.

You can figure it out by following Larry's instructions to get into
the System Profiler (About this Mac... More Info).

The Open Firmware version is the "Boot ROM Version".

Eric.
Thanks Eric. My "Boot ROM Version" is 5.2.2f2 That should be the latest version for my machine, yes? If that is the case, then the problem should be in the two modules "windfarm_pm91.c" and "windfarm_smu_sensors.c".
Cheers,
Brian

I'm pretty sure the "windfarm" modules are for thermal/fan control. So, yes, they are probably your problem. Unfortunately, if your machine is quite new, you may have to wait a while for support to make it into a stable, distro-released kernel.

If you don't want to wait to install linux on your machine you could go ahead and install which ever distro seems to have the best overall support currently. I don't think the lack of fan control will do any harm to your system -- as long as the fans are spinning at top speed you are getting adequate cooling (but the noise does get irritating). As support for your hardware starts to mature you will have the option of patching/compiling a custom kernel, to get thermal management before it shows up in a stable distro release.

Regards,
Larry

Here is some response from the help forum on http:// www.linuxformat.co.uk:

-snip-

"Umm. I may be a newbie to Linux, but isn't the kernel that you boot on an installation CD a reflection of the kernel that you are going to get on install? The messages I usually see when the boot kernel gets loaded often have something to do with PPC-64, G5 or such like. Otherwise, if there is a choice of kernels (manually) at boot, the instructions usually say to prompt for "install-g5" at "boot:" That would suggest that what you see at boot is something like what you are going to get when the system is going to be installed, isn't it??? "

> "Something like, but not necessarily the same.

> _________________
> RAM disk is not an installation procedure."

BTW, I tried installing Ubuntu Dapper PPC Flight 3 on my G5. I have switched the SATA drives so that OS X is now located in the lower drive bay. As I also had my Firewire external drive turned on and attached so that Ubuntu would register it as well. Therefore, the drive I installed Ubuntu on was registered as /sdb. Everything went find until Ubuntu tried to install yaboot. Here are the messages, in the correct order, but maybe not total content as I had to write it on a piece of paper from tty3:

"Failed to install boot loader."
"Please check system log or the output of the third console (tty3)"
[2075.240927] ioct132(nvsetenv:4417): Unknown cmd fd(7) cmd(20007043)
{` ´} arg(00000000) on /dev/nvran
mkofboot: Finding OpenFirmware device path to `/dev/sdb2´...
mkofboot: Finding OpenFirmware device path to `/dev/sdc3´
ofpath: Driver: sg is not supported
mkofboot: Unable to determine OpenFirmware path for macosx=/dev/sdc3
mkofboot: Try specifying the real OpenFirmware path for macosx=/dev/ sdc3 in /etc/yaboot.conf
mkofboot: Failed with exit status 1

I tried to reinstall the installer 2 more times with the same result, while inside the install procedure, with the same result. Then I continued with the install procedure and received the following message:

"boot manuallty with the /boot/vmlinux kernel on partition /dev/sdb3 and root=/dev/sdb3 passed as a kernel argument."

So, the question is where do I go from here? I imagine I could boot from the Ubuntu Dapper PPC Flight 3 live-CD and go into etc/ yaboot.conf which should reside on /dev/sdb2, correct? But what else do I need to do? Remember, I am a newbie. I would want yaboot to default to OS X, but to be able to boot into Ubuntu.

Lastly, I now get prompted when OS X has started up about my Ubuntu install HD not being able to be read by OS X.

I hope you have some ideas :-)

Cheers,

Brian
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