Elton One

I am becoming increasingly disenchanted with Apple and it’s software (when you call up, Computer Support is the 4th selection choice - after of course iPhone, iPod and Buy Accessories - that says it all) so it seems obvious to start looking elsewhere for an operating system and applications that fulfill my needs. I have been considering the switch to Linux for some time and now seems the ideal point to experiment before making a move.

Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) on the Apple Powerbook G4

I have an old and very beaten Powerbook G4 (Specifically Machine Model PowerBook5,2 and Build 8L127) which I have not turned on for over a year so I charged that up and downloaded the latest version of Ubuntu (7.10 Gutsy Gibon). I looked at other Linux distributions for PPC, and while there are many more specific OS’s, Ubuntu has great support for a range of architectures (PPC [G3, G4, G5], Intel and AMD), a really good user base and forum and lots of versions and documentation, plus a live CD so you can use before install.

As Ubuntu has the ability to boot live off CD by typing at the prompt:

live

but unfortunately that didn’t work too well and when it finally loaded I ended up on a blank screen:

A quick search brought up this great post by 小罗 w which while sharing many of my views on Apple recently also has some great information on exactly the problems I have been having, also using 7.10 on a Powerbook G4. On start up from the live CD he typed:

live-nosplash-powerpc resolution=1024×768 vga=795 video=ofonly

It’s pretty obvious what it does but I had a load of problems just like 小罗 . I have also tried using the suggested

live video=ofonly

but had similar problems. Here are some screen grabs (the complete set on Flickr here).

Got nearly all of it, some screens went a little too fast to photograph with a still camera. [N.B It takes absolutely AGES. Over 10 minutes and as 小罗 say sosmetimes you get crashes. It is pretty interesting to look at all the errors coming up. Surprise surprise, there is a system clock error.. (See further down this post).

After all this, you get this dialogue box (sometimes you need to press a button or the power button quickly as the computer stalls):

I chose YES the first time, and got this X11 warning which led to a restart:

I then did the same again and chose NO, which led to this:

So 7.10 does not even load on a Powerbook G4 as far as I can get it to. But it's not all bad news - 7.04 does.

Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) on the Apple Powerbook G4

[N.B I actually tested these the other way round, and have test all versions from 6.06 (Dapper Drake) but to make things easier to follow I've written it up this way. Maybe I wouldn't have tried it the other way round. Nah, I definitely would have done, I'm determined to get this working].

On to trying 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) I just used almost the same line (I figured go for broke) at the prompt booting off the live CD:

live resolution=1024×768 vga=795

think this next error is something to do with my wireless card:

and there you have it:

Ubuntu now loads up fine and looks pretty nice too which is great until I get these errors on the desktop:

I can load the applications but on comparing 7.04 on my G4 to 7.10 running on an Intel iBook I didn’t seem to have any of the ’system tray’ stuff and menu bar items that the iBook had, and the error messages I got seem to reflect this.

In doing some more reading I found out something I really should have noticed when I chose which version of Ubuntu to install - that is that version 6.10 Edgy EFT is apparently the last version to support PPC. See here… While there is nothing saying 6.10+ versions won’t work, the fact that support for PPC apparently ends with 6.10 is not very encouraging. Although while downloading all 6.10+ versions there is a specific ISO for PPC for example http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/gutsy/release/ - so maybe it is supported. Hmm..

So I downloaded 6.10 as a test and booted off the live CD again but still the same errors, and I have also had pretty much identical problems with Ubuntu 6.06 & 6.10 and Kubuntu and Xubuntu 6.06. So far I have yet to try the following solution on these versions and have only tried it on 7.04.
Being consistent across 6.06, 6.10, 7.04 & 7.10 and Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu made me think the problem lay with my computer as opposed to a disc or OS version specific error. But it’s only a hunch. More of a search for the specific errors turned up a few really useful pages on the Ubuntu forums which between them helped me work out the problem (See what I mean about support - it’s great, I found an almost identical screen grab here).

Javahead noted (in post #8) that on a G4iMac he had to reset the PMU/NVRAM for Ubuntu 7.04 Fiesty Fawn to install, which then worked fine. In another thread (post #6) DirtDawg also talked about a dead PRAM battery in a G3 giving the errors I have been seeing.

Now I’m not sure what PMU/NVRAM or PRAM are but I do know that if your internal battery dies (this can easily happen if your computer is old and you leave it off for a good while as I did) then your hardware clock resets. If this happens the date sets itself to the earliest date it can - something like 1901 - and your computer then says “Wait.. I haven’t been invented, I must behave erratically!” (well, not really but it’s easier thinking of it like that) and fails to work correctly. It’s the bloody millennium bug all over again.

To test this, I booted up in OS X which I still had installed and surprise surprise, I got this notification:

So with things making a little more sense I thought I’d try running the 7.04 live CD so I started Ubuntu, got errors like I had before and opened terminal and typed sudo date MMDDhhmmYYYY (obviously with the real date in);

Then closed Terminal and clicked the power button at the top right of the screen and logged out;

Then let Ubuntu log back in as the default user;

Et Voilà:

Sorted. Thanks JavaHead!

As I am running off the live CD, this needs to be typed in every time I start up so next step is to hard install and see if my battery IS totally dead (i.e My system clock resets every time I turn the machine of and on again) in which case I will hack open my G4 again and replace it, or if it is fine and I can move onto sorting out right clicks, wifi and all the other things that in my reading so far I have found out are hard to get working on a G4 Powerbook.

The Joys of Linux

Lets see….