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Gentoo X5000?

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 6:45 am
by esc
Hi,

I have been using lubuntu on my g4 PowerBook for a while but decided to switch to something that will still support 32 bit PowerPC and really there is only gentoo at this point.

That said, setting it up was a learning experience! I’m considering trying on the X5000. Has anyone else tried this?


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Re: Gentoo X5000?

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 7:34 am
by xeno74
Hi Esc,

I haven’t tried Gentoo on my X5000 yet but I know that it works on the X1000. We have installation instructions for the X1000. I could post these instructions here if you like.

Cheers,
Christian

Re: Gentoo X5000?

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 5:13 pm
by esc
Hi Christian,

That would be great! And especially if we have good X5000 kernel configs :)


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Re: Gentoo X5000?

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 6:35 pm
by Spectre660
Actually Debian is still available . Debian Sid. Both 32 Bit and 64 Bit versions.
Debian Sid ppc32 is coming on quite nicely . Debian Sid ppc64 has some issues on X5000 with Browsers and video playback.
Interestingly Gnome classic works in Debian Sid ppc64
https://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc ... 00012.html

I have never tried a Gentoo installation but I did do an X5000 Gentoo Minimal Install USB image for those interested to try.
http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.biz ... 634#p41634
esc wrote:Hi,

I have been using lubuntu on my g4 PowerBook for a while but decided to switch to something that will still support 32 bit PowerPC and really there is only gentoo at this point.

That said, setting it up was a learning experience! I’m considering trying on the X5000. Has anyone else tried this?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Re: Gentoo X5000?

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 7:32 pm
by xeno74
Hi Julian,

Thank you for your help. :-)

@Esc
Please use Julian’s X5000 Gentoo image.

Cheers,
Christian

Re: Gentoo X5000?

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2017 5:55 pm
by esc
Awesome! Will do. Still waiting on my X5000. Hopefully I will have it in a few days.

Anecdotally I feel comfortable saying my PowerBook feels much faster using gentoo than it did with lubuntu. Of course there are problems every step of the way I’ve had to overcome haha.


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Re: Gentoo X5000?

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 11:02 pm
by esc
Quick followup - ppc32 on Gentoo is miserably broken. Most packages won't compile nowadays, to include basic things like web browsers. Instead of wasting time working on that, I'd rather just invest further in the direction the PPC community is already headed, which for now feels like a community supported Ubuntu of sorts.

So, I'm reinstalling lubuntu on my powerbook now. :)

Re: Gentoo X5000?

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2017 9:08 am
by xeno74
esc wrote:Quick followup - ppc32 on Gentoo is miserably broken. Most packages won't compile nowadays, to include basic things like web browsers. Instead of wasting time working on that, I'd rather just invest further in the direction the PPC community is already headed, which for now feels like a community supported Ubuntu of sorts.

So, I'm reinstalling lubuntu on my powerbook now. :)
Hi Esc,

Thanks a lot for your report. Good to know. :-) What about the PPC64 version of Gentoo?

Links:
Maybe it works on our X5000 and X1000.

Thanks,
Christian

Re: Gentoo X5000?

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2017 7:56 pm
by esc
Yeah, I'm excited to give the PPC64 version a shot, but I don't know if using gentoo is worthwhile. When things are broken (frequently), there's not really anywhere to turn for support since so few people use powerpc.

Re: Gentoo X5000?

Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2017 11:04 am
by marcus
I'm using gentoo (64bit userland) on the X5000. I used to run 32bit userland with 64bit multilib on the X1000, but there were some packages (notably the "go" programming language) which did not work correctly so I switched on the X5000.

There are quite a few packages that need local patches to work correctly, but at least with gentoo you can apply local patches in a sane way. :-)

make.conf settings:

Code: Select all

CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -mcpu=e5500 -mno-altivec"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
CHOST="powerpc64-unknown-linux-gnu"
USE="bindist -altivec"
VIDEO_CARDS="radeon radeonsi"