iBook G4

There are some howtos to install Debian on it:

• English one

• Spanish one

• French one

We need to merge them in this wiki, with updated info

Sleep-to-RAM just works with all kernel >= 2.6.13 out of the box (I think is was 2.6.13...just use the latest, It'll work)

Sleep-to-disk does work with 2.6 kernels.

Second head out

There is a patch for OpenFirmware which enables the second head of the Radeon iBooks. Read the info here

One button mouse

On iBook G4, editing mouse.sh with

echo 0x61 > /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button2_keycode
echo 0x64 > /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button3_keycode
echo 1 > /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button_emulation

makes the Fn-CTRL and Fn-ALT combinations behave as a middle and right button.

PowerBook 15"

Airport Extreme

It works, using the bcm43xx (reverse engineered) driver. Use at least 2.6.17 kernel.

Sleep-to-RAM

As of Nov 2, 2004, a working patch exists for 2.6.9 kernel.

2D, 3D acceleration

The video cards are suspected to be manufactured by ?[Nvidia] (unconfirmed, but this hase been seen on Apple Power PC Desktop computers). The Nvidia series of cards do not currently support open source 3D acceleration, however 2D functionality is provided and a proprietary 3D driver is available for Nvidia series cards.

?[Nvidia3D]

Videoprojection (TV out?)

A working patch for 2.6 kernel exists. Julien Blache writes that this patch works only on Rage 128 chipsets (see output of lspci). (However, I have Mobility Radeon 9600 M10 and it works.)

Bluetooth

It works fine.

keyboard backlight

You have to add i2c-dev support and ic-keywest. The download and compile lmud http://waterwave.ch/weblog/stuff/lmud-0.01.tar.gz Read http://waterwave.ch/weblog/stuff/lmud-0.01.tar.gz

PowerBook 12"

There is a lot of information on the Powerbook G4 12" install HOW-TO by Matthias Schmidt

Also here

For Powerbooks manufactured February 2005 on, installation is easier. See this Powerbook G4 12" install HOW-TO

PowerBook 15" Aluminium / Squeeze

September 2009

# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
cpu             : 7447A, altivec supported
clock           : 1333.333000MHz
revision        : 1.1 (pvr 8003 0101)
bogomips        : 73.47
timebase        : 18432000
platform        : PowerMac
model           : PowerBook5,4
machine         : PowerBook5,4
motherboard     : PowerBook5,4 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh
detected as     : 287 (PowerBook G4 15")
pmac flags      : 0000001b
L2 cache        : 512K unified
pmac-generation : NewWorld
Memory          : 1280 MB

Out-of-the-box-Support: Keyboard, USB 2.0, Firewire, Ethernet, Display, Touchpad (use Mouseemu for right click), Sound, Power-Management (Suspend-to-Memory, Display), Function-Keys with On-Screen-Display for brighter/darker-Display and Mute/Volume Up/Down (KDE/Gnome), DVD/CD-RW

Installation

Install MacOS first, because it will erase a GNU/Linux installation. Use Disk-Utility in MacOS to make a partition for debian. Recommendation 5 GB to test, better 10 GB for debian plus Swap-Partition (double amount of RAM) and one New-World-Bootblock (mine has 16.2 MB).

0. BACKUP data from MacOS-Partition!!

1. Debian Net-Install download: http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/ Recommendation: Testing / Squeeze Installation-CD.

2. Reboot ?PowerBook and press 'c' while or before Apple-Boot-Sound to start from CD.

3. Recommendation: Choose Graphical Installation.

4. You need at least a /-Partition, a swap-Partition and one New-World-Bootblock boot partition for yaboot (mine has 16.2 MB).

5. Boot-Manager has to be installed in New_World_bootblock.

6. Follow the next hardware-configuration steps. Important: X-Server and Wireless

Wireless - Airport Extreme

Just install this package from contrib:

# aptitude install firmware-b43-installer

With WPA:

# cat /etc/network/interfaces

 allow-hotplug wlan0
 iface wlan0 inet static
        address 192.168.2.12
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        gateway 192.168.2.1
        dns-nameservers 208.67.222.222 # opendns.com
        wpa-ssid 2000AP
        wpa-psk SecretPassword

See also bcm43xx.

X-Server - 2D, 3D acceleration

For ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10] install the following firmware for radeon driver from non-free for 3D-Acceleration, Compositing, etc.

# aptitude install firmware-linux-nonfree

# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Configured Video Device"
    Driver      "radeon"
    Option      "EnablePageFlip"        "on"
    Option      "AccelMethod"   "EXA"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option      "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Multimedia-codecs & Tools

Package w32-codecs doesnt exist for PowerPC. Some from non-free and deb-multimedia.org

# aptitude install amarok gtkpod gnupod-tools kino ffmpeg libavcodec52 gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-nice gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-base gstreamer0.10-plugins-good gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly mjpegtools lame libquicktime1 mencoder mplayer avidemux easytag dvdrip libdvdcss2

#FIXME!!!#

Resources

• Models OldWorld NewWorld

• Debian GNU/Linux PowerPC PowerMac Page

See also: InstallingDebianOn/Apple

• CategoryLaptopComputer CategoryMacintoshComputer