[VOT] Newbie LinuxPPC install [was: Re: [Unix]Can't get VM's off Ian's website]

Ian Piumarta Ian.Piumarta at inria.fr
Thu Sep 21 14:19:05 UTC 2000


Sorry about the junk mail, but I simply can't sit idly by and watch
while people make unfounded libelous remarks about LinuxPPC...

[ObTestimonyForTheDefense ON]

> So far I'm not impressed

Agreed that to install LinuxPPC you need to know what you're doing
(for one because Open Firmware is just way more advanced and powerful
than anything a regular PC user has ever experienced).  Put it like
this: my first ever install of LinuxPPC on a PowerBook took a couple
of hours.  My first install of Linux-i386 on a PC laptop took an
entire weekend.

> lousy install setup

It's either the standard RedHat installer (which works fine for me,
and is trivial to launch from BootX on MacOS pre-9.0.4), or you copy a
preformatted partion off the CD onto a clean HD partition and reboot
and then OF runs a CHRP boot script to launch yaboot and then the X
installer off the CD (which also works for me).

(If anything should go wrong, you can open a root shell to fix things
in either of these install methods.  What's more, if your CD is on a
strange device, or you need weirdo kernel options for the install,
then you can either edit the yaboot.conf in the HD boot partition or
boot into Open Firmware and then launch things manually, which gives
you total control -- but then you really do need to know about the
hardware on which you're trying to install; "winging it" is simply out
of the question.)

> the usual junk UI

That's not a problem with the distribution, but with your
configuration.  If you don't ditch KDE and/or Gnome in favour of
something much better (and a lot smaller) the minute the machine is
installed, then that's your choice.

> To cap it all the page on their website regarding email tech-support
> does _not_ have their email address.

Be aware that www.linuxppc.{org,com} is NOT the same thing as
linuxppc.org, and the latter is by far the more useful of the two.

Also, all the tech support you could possibly need is on the FAQ-O-Matic:

     http://penguinppc.org/usr/search/
  or http://lppcfom.sourceforge.net/fom-serve/cache/1.html

> Powermanagement: you need "pmud". 

For power status, pmud also comes with a tcl/tk script called Batmon
which works on any UI.

In addition to emergency sleep on low power and sleep when the lid
closes, if you have the right kernel (do an rsync of Paul Mackerras's
latest stable sources -- this is the only kernel worth running on
PowerMacs) then you'll also get a working cooling fan.

  rsync -avz --delete linuxcare.com.au::linux-pmac-stable /usr/src/linux-pmac-stable
  cd /usr/src/linux-pmac-stable
  make pmac_config
  make config
  make

See also linuxppc.org/blueg3 (WITHOUT the www.) for all the info
you'll ever need on how to configure/recompile/install PPC kernels;
e.g:

  http://linuxppc.org/blueg3/g3_faq.shtml
  http://linuxppc.org/blueg3/g3_kernel_howto.shtml

FWIW, the blueg3 page also has links to full instructions for both
install methods mentioned above.

[ObTestimonyForTheDefense OFF]

Hope that helps.

One final thing: welcome to LinuxPPC.  You won't regret it.

Ian





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