Resolved Lubuntu 16.04 Boot Error (Solution Within)

[AphoticD]

I'd say that the most likely case.
I've installed various distros umpteen times and never had an install issue - getting it all to work, that's another matter
I would say though, if you're not happy with PowerPC/Leopard performance, Linux is not going to fare any better - it offers different choices but it's not faster.

True. Linux brings more software availability and features (like the ability to run non-emulated PPC64 VMs on a G5), current builds of Firefox and a host of open source software. But for what I do with my PowerPC Macs, Leopard is king for productivity, development and creative purposes, networking with modern Macs and getting the most out of the old hardware.

It would have been great to see a Mac OS X with Tiger level performance and Leopard+ features for PowerPC. I believe the G5s could have handled Snow Leopard easily, but Lion/Mountain Lion and up would have been the hardware destroyer. HiDPI/Retina UI, Core Animation effects and GPU crunching transparency, blurring and effects everywhere. Lion crippled my MacBook Unibody '08 until I finally moved along the bogged down annual Mac OS X upgrade chain and landed on El Capitan, which brought it back to life like a new(-ish) Mac.

 

[philgxxd]

Are you saying El capitan performs actually better on that old Macbook ?

 

[AphoticD]

Are you saying El capitan performs actually better on that old Macbook ?

Yes. El Cap is hands down the best OS for Intel imho. Snow Leopard is obviously lighter, but everything between 10.7 - 10.10 was dog slow in comparison.

An SSD and 8GB of RAM also improved things for me

And Sierra although possible, is just too much for the 'book. El Cap for Intel Macs is what Tiger is to PowerPC

 

[philgxxd]

Don't want to further hijack this thread so I will just say that I still have to try el capitan on my non-unibody early 2008 macbook pro. It hasn't your specs gpu and ram (4gb) wise though but I'm curious...

 

[z970]

I'd say that the most likely case.
I've installed various distros umpteen times and never had an install issue - getting it all to work, that's another matter
I would say though, if you're not happy with PowerPC/Leopard performance, Linux is not going to fare any better - it offers different choices but it's not faster.

Leopard was very fast on my G5. Speed is not an issue. Although, I would think LXDE is at least faster than Leopard. You can correct me, though.

I guess I'll re-download the iso and burn it to another DVD. I'm already sick of this.

But I'm not abandoning Linux.

 

[z970]

Alright so, here's what happened. I never ended up downloading a new iso and re-burning a disc. I tried installing the original Mate install disc on my PowerBook G4, with the automatic install option, and it worked flawlessly. I got Mate installed, booted up, installed some firmware software and updates, and browsed the internet a little bit. Ultimately though, I took it out and reinstalled Leopard because trackpad input was laggy and the fan was behaving erratically.

So, I've ruled it out as not being the disc's fault, it was perhaps my two hard drives I had available for the G5.

I suppose I'm stuck with Leopard. And I've already had Leopard Webkit bug out on YouTube, so I am currently writing this from TenFourFox. So for all intents and purposes, we can mark this issue solved.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Ultimately though, I took it out and reinstalled Leopard because trackpad input was laggy and the fan was behaving erratically.

That was the main reason I took Debian off my 17" DLSD. It's only a little thing but inaccurate tracking brought the whole experience down - and I spent hours trying every fix available.
As I've said before, Linux is a breeze on X86 but an endless, uphill battle on PPC - maybe it was a smoother ride years ago.

 

[AphoticD]

That was the main reason I tool Debian off my 17" DLSD. It's only a little thing but inaccurate tracking brought the whole experience down - and I spent hours trying every fix available.
As I've said before, Linux is a breeze on X86 but an endless, uphill battle on PPC - maybe it was a smoother ride years ago.

The different trackpad response and thermal management also put me off Linux and MorphOS on my PowerBooks. On a mini and a g5 is fine though (at least in my case). Mouse tracking and cooling / fan speed behave as expected.

 

[z970]

I'm sure there's some sort of fix for that, but like you guys said, I'd suppose it's uphill.

Hey, I just remembered. Did you guys see some of the comments on the Lubuntu 16.04 On PowerBook G4 video on YouTube? Last time I checked, I think I saw a couple people saying stuff about thermal software and management.

 

[bunnspecial]

That was the main reason I took Debian off my 17" DLSD. It's only a little thing but inaccurate tracking brought the whole experience down - and I spent hours trying every fix available.
As I've said before, Linux is a breeze on X86 but an endless, uphill battle on PPC - maybe it was a smoother ride years ago.

The trackpad thing killed my one attempt with Ubuntu on a DLSD several years. I made an honest effort, but never could get used to the trackpad response. The thing that seemed to bother me the most was that, unlike in OS X(and I think Windows now) the response was totally linear-i.e. a certain amount of movement on the pad produced a certain amount of cursor movement regardless of how fast you moved your finger. Of course, as anyone who uses trackpads now knows-whether consciously or not-this isn't the case-slow movements give fine control and fast movement move the cursor quickly.

Funny enough, I have an iBook G4 that dual boots Tiger and Lubuntu, and although I rarely boot into Lubuntu I don't encounter THAT specific issue. It's slower than Tiger with worse software support, though, so I haven't seen any need to use it.

I had a room mate who was on a "Linux on everything I can get my hands on" kick, although I'd classify him more as an anti-establishment anarchist than a computer geek(i.e. it was about principle more so than utility). I gave him a 733mhz Quicksilver loaded with OS 9 and Tiger along with a blank drive. A month or so later, he saw me using a similar computer and asked how mine was so fast-he'd given up because he'd installed Debian(I think) and said that it was so slow as to be unuseable.

 

[AphoticD]

Where would we be without Tiger? It was Apple's best selling OS for good reason.

Kudos to the clever minds who developed 10.4. It was the crowning achievement of Mac OS X performance, something which Apple will never come close to this again.

Not to mention the broad spectrum of supported hardware;

• PowerPC G3, G4, G5
• Intel Core Solo, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Xeon
• Pentium 4, AMD64 (Hackintosh)
  
• 603/604 PowerPCs? I'm sure @LightBulbFun could answer that!

And let's not forget about the original AppleTV which ran a stripped version of Tiger 10.4.7 on a Pentium M chip.

 

[bunnspecial]

[*]603/604 PowerPCs? I'm sure @LightBulbFun could answer that!

604s are confirmed. I think he's only been waiting about 3 years now for someone to test it on a 603

I got set up one evening to do it on my 6500, which truthfully is no small feat. At one point, I had a portable "Tiger Kit" with two hard drives. One had OS 9 and Xpostfacto, while the other had an install with LBF's modified kernel. Both were semi-permanently connected to a Sonnet ATA card. The 6500 has essentially NO internal space and it's a weird enough set up that I actually had to snake the ribbon cable out(I don't remember where) to the drives sitting outside the computer and then externally power them. Unfortunately, the drive with my Tiger install decided to give up the ghost(click of death) during the exercise and I didn't get around to repeating.

My 3400c would be easiest since I could just shove the install on a CF and boot off it, but mine doesn't have enough RAM. Kanga 128mb modules(or at least the one I have) read at half capacity, and while 128gb Kanga ones are uncommon the 128mb modules for the 3400 seem non-existent.

Whatever the case, I've confirmed Tiger working on a 604. Interestingly enough, if you have a dual 604 system, it only sees one of them.

 

[AphoticD]

604s are confirmed. I think he's only been waiting about 3 years now for someone to test it on a 603

I got set up one evening to do it on my 6500, which truthfully is no small feat. At one point, I had a portable "Tiger Kit" with two hard drives. One had OS 9 and Xpostfacto, while the other had an install with LBF's modified kernel. Both were semi-permanently connected to a Sonnet ATA card. The 6500 has essentially NO internal space and it's a weird enough set up that I actually had to snake the ribbon cable out(I don't remember where) to the drives sitting outside the computer and then externally power them. Unfortunately, the drive with my Tiger install decided to give up the ghost(click of death) during the exercise and I didn't get around to repeating.

My 3400c would be easiest since I could just shove the install on a CF and boot off it, but mine doesn't have enough RAM. Kanga 128mb modules(or at least the one I have) read at half capacity, and while 128gb Kanga ones are uncommon the 128mb modules for the 3400 seem non-existent.

Whatever the case, I've confirmed Tiger working on a 604. Interestingly enough, if you have a dual 604 system, it only sees one of them.

It's a shame that the 604MPs aren't recognized properly. A 9600/200 MP with maxed out RAM and a PCI Radeon would probably handle OS X pretty well, all things considered. You just don't see any decent beige Macs for sale any more, I guess they've all gone to landfill heaven. Dust to dust and all.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Where would we be without Tiger? It was Apple's best selling OS for good reason.

I can never shirk the idea that Leopard's PowerPC compatibility was a reluctant afterthought from Apple, seeing as it was developed and released after the X86 transition.
I recently aquired an immaculate 1.5Ghz 12" Powerbook that came with Tiger - after checking it over I installed Leopard. There was nothing noticeably wrong with the performance at all but I played a specific video in Coreplayer for reference and ran Geekbench, I then wiped the drive and installed Tiger.
Under Tiger, the same video plays using 5% less CPU and the Geekbench score had zoomed from 723 to 869.
In the cramped confines of the 12" Powerbook, I think those few CPU cycles saved and the barely Core Image capable GPU being spared Leopard's demands will be better for the longevity of the system.

 

[AphoticD]

I can never shirk the idea that Leopard's PowerPC compatibility was a reluctant afterthought from Apple, seeing as it was developed and released after the X86 transition.
I recently aquired an immaculate 1.5Ghz 12" Powerbook that came with Tiger - after checking it over I installed Leopard. There was nothing noticeably wrong with the performance at all but I played a specific video in Coreplayer for reference and ran Geekbench, I then wiped the drive and installed Tiger.
Under Tiger, the same video plays using 5% less CPU and the Geekbench score had zoomed from 723 to 869.
In the cramped confines of the 12" Powerbook, I think those few CPU cycles saved and the barely Core Image capable GPU being spared Leopard's demands will be better for the longevity of the system.

Yes, the Leopard Overhead on the PB12" appears to be due to the FX 5200 Go card. My theory is the graphics card is using the CPU and system memory as fallback for nearly every graphics operation. I've witnessed several Core Image based apps using (a lot) more Wired memory on the PB12" than when doing the same operation on a PB15".

 

[bunnspecial]

It's a shame that the 604MPs aren't recognized properly. A 9600/200 MP with maxed out RAM and a PCI Radeon would probably handle OS X pretty well, all things considered. You just don't see any decent beige Macs for sale any more, I guess they've all gone to landfill heaven. Dust to dust and all.

1.5gb and a Radeon 9200 in my 9600/200MP. It's not as bad as you might think

 

[z970]

I recently aquired an immaculate 1.5Ghz 12" Powerbook that came with Tiger

Oh lucky you. Just saying, mine is almost trashed and requires taped rubber feet to it's main case AND display. I've tried super glue, and I've discovered super glue doesn't like PowerBooks.

Many more issues, but I won't get into it.

 

[Dronecatcher]

mine is almost trashed and requires taped rubber feet to it's main case AND display

You could try something like this, they come in all shapes and sizes:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/49-BUFFER...epid=0&hash=item4865a39fab:g:2uQAAOSwl8NVa0z8

 

[z970]

You could try something like this, they come in all shapes and sizes:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/49-BUFFER...epid=0&hash=item4865a39fab:g:2uQAAOSwl8NVa0z8

They don't ship to the United States.

Got any suggestions for reattaching an F11 key? Two of the bits on the key broke off, so the right side has barely any security to the keyboard, while the left side isn't attached at all. No, putting it directly above its slot and pressing down won't work.

I've tried taping the sides to the keyboard plate, the underside, above next to the power button, and none hold together.

 

[zappaesque]

Oh lucky you. Just saying, mine is almost trashed and requires taped rubber feet to it's main case AND display. I've tried super glue, and I've discovered super glue doesn't like PowerBooks.

Many more issues, but I won't get into it.

Yeah, they're hard to find in non-mangled condition these days. If you're patient, a nice one comes along once in a blue moon. I got lucky and snagged a really nice 1.5ghz 12" PB off eBay, untested, for $60. If anything, I could use it as a shell to make into a nice-looking, good-running 12". As luck would have it, the only issues it had were a bad hard drive and dim display. A transplanted iBook display, adapter/mSATA combo, and aftermarket battery later, and she's a nice-running, nice-looking machine.

 

[Dronecatcher]

They don't ship to the United States.

There'll be suppliers on ebay over there.

Can't help on you on the keys, haven't had to face that problem yet.

Yeah, they're hard to find in non-mangled condition these days.

I was lucky to find a seller with a whole bunch of Powerbooks and Macbooks selling in the wrong section of ebay, prices real low probably because no one could find them!

 

[z970]

Well, after nearly a year-and-a-half of time (and a whole lot of experience), I got 16.04 working on the G5. It was very simple.

1. Partition the first partition as a 1 MB NewWorld Boot partition, or 1 GB if dual-booting on the same drive. MAKE SURE it is mounted at /boot. This was the step I previously repeatedly failed to do.

2. Partition the second to be a 20 - 40 GB Ext4 partition, mounted at /. This, also, is key.

3. Make a third partition to be whatever amount your installed memory is. Set it to be used for swap, no mount point is required.

4. Use the rest of the remaining space (or whatever is big enough for you) to make an Ext4 partition, mounted at /home.

This method will not only optimize hard drive access speeds, (given it was followed exactly as shown), it will also give you a more stable system because you're telling the system exactly what it should always do with the crucial sub-directories, and where it should put them. Anybody who follows these instructions should have no trouble installing and booting into any 16.04 desktop (including Lubuntu, which I do not recommend putting in for several reasons) on any machine.

Has anyone with trackpad issues installed xserver-xorg-input-synaptics? I'm curious if that solves anything.