X1000 success with CruxPPC and MintPPC Linux Distros

AmigaOne X1000 platform specific issues related to Linux only.
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trevordick
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Re: X1000 success with CruxPPC and MintPPC Linux Distros

Post by trevordick »

AmigaDave wrote:Do the rest of you find that having a second SATA hard drive slows down the OS4.1.5 boot time by several minutes, even though there is nothing on that hard drive? If yes, is there a documented way to reduce this delay when using two hard drives, or will it automatically get better, once I complete the dual boot installation of one or more versions of Linux on my 2nd hard drive?

I am open to suggestions on which version of Linux is the best to install on my X1000's 2nd hard drive, and the reasons why you prefer it over all other Linux versions (speed, ease of use, number of included software programs, etc.).

I can't wait for my back to get fixed, so I can spend more time in front of my X1000. Only 10 more days until I can discuss the possibility of a 2nd back surgery which will hopefully fix me up good as new (or at least good enough).

I look forward to seeing several of you at this year's 2012 AmiWest Show in Oct. (back surgery scheduling permitting).

Edit: I forgot to ask, have any of you experienced any problems booting OS4.1.5 while you have more than 2gb of RAM installed within your X1000? When I installed my 2nd SATA hard drive, I also installed my additional 4gb of RAM giving me a total of 6gb RAM, but my X1000 refused to boot with that configuration. Is there a setting I am missing which is documented in the manual or guide somewhere, but I missed in my quick reading of them?
I have 3 Sata HDD installed and one PATA IDE removable HDD carrier. I have not noticed any slow down on boot-up. I presume your second SATA HDD is blank?

I have 4GB of RAM installed. Some of the betatesters have up to 8GB RAM installed.

As for which version of GNU/Linux to install it comes down to personal choice. Although as a guide:-

Debian Squeeze - the basic Linux distro (which all the others are really based on) - very stable but at the time of writing does not fully support 2D/3D hardware acceleration with Radeon 4650
Debian Wheezy - (the latest experimental Debian release) - less stable than Debian Squeeze but supports 2D/3D acceleration with Radeon 4650
MintPPC - installs all of the multimdia codecs and supports 2D/3D acceleration with Radeon 4650
Ubuntu - Not all multimedia codecs are installed automatically but does support 2D/3D acceleration with Radeon 4650
CruxPPC - slightly more complex installation procedure for Linux novices
Gentoo - more complex installation procedure
Fedora - based on the latest beta version of PowerPC 64 which has a few issues but does support 2D/3D accerelation with Radeon 4650. (Pat Wall created an image of a root filesystem that can be written to a USBStick of 4GB).

I tend to use either Ubuntu or MintPPC but really the choice is yours. I recommend you read through the Installation guide to see what is involved with each distro, bearing in mind that the guide evolved from the original Debian Squeeze installation. Note: the latest version of the guide runs to 65 pages! ;-)

Trevor
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mbrantley
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Re: X1000 success with CruxPPC and MintPPC Linux Distros

Post by mbrantley »

Good rundown of the distros.

Hey, did we ever decide any of these Linux distros work with the Radeon HD 6850 card now? I wasn't sure and got more than a little distracted with AmigaOS. :-) I have the very same card you do, Trevor. I love that it takes up only 1 slot. Hope Linux likes it.
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Re: X1000 success with CruxPPC and MintPPC Linux Distros

Post by daz »

mbrantley wrote:Good rundown of the distros.

Hey, did we ever decide any of these Linux distros work with the Radeon HD 6850 card now? I wasn't sure and got more than a little distracted with AmigaOS. :-) I have the very same card you do, Trevor. I love that it takes up only 1 slot. Hope Linux likes it.
At the moment none of them. Support for the 6000 series and above will require a new kernel based on a more up to date version of linux.

You'll have to stick with a HD4000 card for now, but keep watching this forum, if anything changes news will be posted here.

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Re: X1000 success with CruxPPC and MintPPC Linux Distros

Post by mbrantley »

Darren, thanks. I'll keep a watchful eye out for any development. A 6850 is my main display card in my X1000, but I also still have an older card in the machine feeding a second display. This explains why my Linux installs use the latter and not the former.
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Re: X1000 success with CruxPPC and MintPPC Linux Distros

Post by AmigaDave »

Great and thorough reply Trevor!

I wish all replies to my questions were so easily understood and covered all possibilities so well.

I think MintPPC might be my Linux of choice, but the only other Linux I have tried for many years is Ubuntu. I tried RedHat when it was at version 5.x and 6.x, but that was a long time ago. I am not really that interested in Linux, but will probably install it on my X1000, just because I can.

My Windows computer rarely gets booted at all anymore, but I do still use MacOSX for all of my email and some of my web browsing. I would like to change even that to an Amiga flavored system, but I have had some trouble configuring SimpleMail to send emails out (it has no trouble retrieving my emails).

Thanks again for such an excellently worded reply.
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Re: X1000 success with CruxPPC and MintPPC Linux Distros

Post by daz »

mbrantley wrote:Darren, thanks. I'll keep a watchful eye out for any development. A 6850 is my main display card in my X1000, but I also still have an older card in the machine feeding a second display. This explains why my Linux installs use the latter and not the former.
Just to keep you in the loop, this is being posted from Mint running on a HD6450 card, still a lot of things to sort out but work is progressing.

Debian Squeeze may not be useable with a HD6850, I'll keep trying to fix it, but you may be stuck with Wheezy, Mint and Ubuntu.

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Darren
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Re: X1000 success with CruxPPC and MintPPC Linux Distros

Post by mbrantley »

daz wrote:Just to keep you in the loop, this is being posted from Mint running on a HD6450 card, still a lot of things to sort out but work is progressing.

Debian Squeeze may not be useable with a HD6850, I'll keep trying to fix it, but you may be stuck with Wheezy, Mint and Ubuntu.
Thanks for the update! I look forward to giving this a go soon.
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