Lubuntu 16.04 Remix (updated)

[TheShortTimer]

I'm not sure i understand why you want to make it an .img. If all you want to do is boot from USB, just dd the iso to a usb stick. It'll then act just like the live dvd.

Cheers

I'd read elsewhere that as part of the process it was necessary to convert the iso to an img first. Thanks for the clarification.

DD with the iso to the USB stick worked, Lubuntu booted to the options screen and from there I set up the config for my machine, the boot process continued but then stalled here:

It also stalls with

live video=offb:off

 

[wicknix]

Hmm. Try live video=ofonly once.

 

[TheShortTimer]

It still stalls.

Ah well. Thanks for trying.

 

[wicknix]

Can i ask what machine you are trying on? It may require different boot parameters.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Can i ask what machine you are trying on? It may require different boot parameters.

iBook G3/500 w/ 640MB RAM.

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/ibook/specs/ibook_500.html#macspecs1

 

[wicknix]

Ok. It should work with: live video=aty128fb:1024x768-16
Give it a little time to boot. Unlike 16.04, 12.04 tries to load a splash screen that "hides" console text, even if you add the nosplash param. Hopefully this will get you headed in the right direction.

Otherwise check this page out. Scroll down to the ATI Rage 128 section:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCKnownIssues

Cheers

 

[swamprock]

Updated original first post. Just added a 12.04 remix also. It was LTS until 2017, so after install, and updates are applied, the software is still semi-current vs tiger/leopard. It's FAST. My mac mini G4 feels like my dual G5 now. I liked it so much i wiped 16.04 and installed it. Something to be said for "period correct" software and OS for the hardware. Download link in first post.

Cheers

I should try this build on my DP2.0 G5. That machine hates every other linux distro from Jessie on (haven't tried Wheezy on it), with choppiness and crashing.

 

[swamprock]

Updated original first post. Just added a 12.04 remix also. It was LTS until 2017, so after install, and updates are applied, the software is still semi-current vs tiger/leopard. It's FAST. My mac mini G4 feels like my dual G5 now. I liked it so much i wiped 16.04 and installed it. Something to be said for "period correct" software and OS for the hardware. Download link in first post.

Cheers

How's video support with 12.04?

 

[wicknix]

Pretty good. If you install totem and all the gstreamer plugins, they work great with mozplugger for in browser playback. VLC and mplayer still handled all i tossed at them. I did also build the latest ffmpeg (and bash 5.0) on 12.04 and included them in the remix as i use youtube-dl (also included) with ffmpeg piped to vlc to watch Twitch streams.

Cheers

 

[TheShortTimer]

Ok. It should work with: live video=aty128fb:1024x768-16
Give it a little time to boot. Unlike 16.04, 12.04 tries to load a splash screen that "hides" console text, even if you add the nosplash param. Hopefully this will get you headed in the right direction.

Otherwise check this page out. Scroll down to the ATI Rage 128 section:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCKnownIssues

Cheers

I left it for a couple of hours and it still remained frozen on the "Calling quiesce…" screen.

Perhaps whatever the culprit is will be resolved in the next release.

 

[wicknix]

Unfortunately the 'culprit' is your video card. :-/

 

[swamprock]

Pretty good. If you install totem and all the gstreamer plugins, they work great with mozplugger for in browser playback. VLC and mplayer still handled all i tossed at them. I did also build the latest ffmpeg (and bash 5.0) on 12.04 and included them in the remix as i use youtube-dl (also included) with ffmpeg piped to vlc to watch Twitch streams.

Cheers

I'll have to play around a bit, as I cannot get any in-browser video to work, even after installing all of the plugins. I'd normally just build youtube-dl-gui, so I'll give that a try.

EDIT: Turns out that there's a version of youtube-dl-gui built for Precise, so I gave that a try. It installed fine, so I installed x264, set the video resolution to download to 640x360, and copy/pasted a YouTube video to download. It downloaded the latest youtube-dl and downloaded the video fine. VLC plays it fine; Totem can't find the h.264 plugin. Higher resolutions play horribly, so 640x360 (360p I assume) is it.

 

[wicknix]

Try installing grease monkey and get the viewtube script (browser-plugin-vlc is already installed). Then in viewtube prefs set it to use vlc or totem. Both work well for me. Make sure you enable the plugins in the browser too. AF by default disables plugins. Optionally install mozplugger also to make use of the gstreamer/totem plugins.

Cheers

 

[z970]

I haven't tried 16.04R yet, but I have a few suggestions for 12.04R that may also be relevant to the former...

- Update Yaboot to 1.3.17 over 1.3.16.

- Add windfarm_core to /etc/modules. On USB, my G5's fans were blazing without it.

- I haven't tested, but add pmu_battery to /etc/modules for laptop battery recognition and monitoring.

- Add vm.swappiness=10 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50 to /etc/sysctl.conf to make swap management more efficient, especially on machines with less than 1 GB RAM.

- Add Acquire::Languages "none"; to /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00aptitude to make APT operations faster.

- Preinstall preload to increase speed.

- On 16.04, preinstall Surf and SurfTube so that people have a fast and easy YouTube player, plus a lightweight WebKit browser OOB.

- Remove apps like Simple Scan, and the Penguin games to lessen image size. I'm pretty sure nobody wants to play the Penguin games.

- MX Linux uses sysvinit instead of systemd for its default init, which also improves performance. Maybe you could do something similar, just by installing and enabling it? It may well outright fix the graphical and sleep issues present on the G3 / Radeon machines, so I would at least look into it.

Otherwise, it's an all-around great experience to have (mostly) everything working OOB w/ our great Web browsers already installed. We've got some fantastical stuff here, so thanks again to you (and the rest of us, too).

 

[wicknix]

Thanks for the input. I did forget about windfarm_core and pmu_battery. Doh! I'm not completely sold on the swappiness thing though. Mixed reviews/results when scouring the web.

I added mc and penguin games, because i can't live without mc, i use it daily, and penguin games only takes up about 600kb of space, and i like solitaire. Pretty sure that doesn't impact the size much.

The only real reason remix12 grew from stock 700mb to its current size is that there is 200+mb extra in adding AF and SW, also having to ppa install gcc-4.9 (needed latomic for SW to run) added a bit.

Here's my current remix12 desktop on my macmini g4:

Cheers

 

[wicknix]

Ok, since i originally wanted this to fit on a CD, i 'remixed' the 12.04 remix. Download link and name of .iso is still the same. Changes: removed spiderweb (can still be installed after install), removed VLC, removed simple scan, removed guvcview (web cam software), removed firefox (installed arcticfox in it's place), and removed all non english locales (can still be installed after install). Added missing windfarm_core and pmu_battery, swappiness and apt fixes posted above, and replaced vlc with mplayer (smaller size). The result.... 671mb..wooo!

Cheers

 

[z970]

I would still suggest taking a second look at sysvinit (355kb) and Surf / SurfTube (~80kb, 16.04)... as well as Yaboot (176kb) and preload (40kb) ...

 

[Amethyst1]

-MX Linux uses sysvinit instead of systemd for its default init, which also improves performance. Maybe you could do something similar, just by installing and enabling it? It may well outright fix the graphical and sleep issues present on the G3 / Radeon machines, so I would at least look into it.

It's not about performance.

 

[z970]

It's not about performance.

No, it's really not...

But it still has an effect.

Seems like systemd is the total Linux equivalent to Common Core; forced inferior change...

 

[saxfun]

I just tried Lubuntu 12.04 on my PB 5,8:

- CPU scaling governor NOT working flawlessly: „ondemand governor failed, too long transition latency of HW, fallback to performance governor“ - CPU always runs in PERFORMANCE mode, POWERSAFE manually possible.

- incredible!!!!! - SLEEP is working, closing the lid is working!

- touchpad feels ugly. I cannot find the alterations someone recommended to smothen the feeling of the trackpad. Any help?!

 

[chicago-joe]

I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts on whether respun Lubuntu 12.04 (or 16.04) might work with an IBM p5 510 (9110-51A) with 2 P5+ CPUs. A few years ago I had gotten it run Debian 7 ppc64 with a MAC ATI 128 PCI graphics card. It would not run Debian 8 though; there was some suggestions that Power5+ chips don't have Altivec (or IBM's name for it) and might be causing problems with the kernel configuration. 9110-51A's with 2x2.1GhZ CPUs and 16G of memory can be had for a couple hundred dollars US and the graphics cards are very cheap. If there is a chance 12.04 RS might work, I'll get my kevlar vest, helmet and a ball bat and venture into the basement and find it and bring it upstairs. ;-)

I realize this is technically not a Mac question (though it does have Power CPUs), and if it should be in a different forum, I'll move it and start a new thread.

Thanks,

Joe

 

[wicknix]

@saxfun : Glad to know sleep works. I oddly never tested it. For trackpad i just adjusted them to less sensitive levels and it's better. Not as good as osx, but better. Menu -> prefs -> keyboard and mouse. Here's my setting on my powerbook running 16.04.

@chicago-joe : Interesting. Maybe try the amiga x1000/x5000 kernels? They lack altivec as well, but otherwise run the same userlands we are (ubuntu, debian, fienix etc). Look in the linux sections of the forum.
http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.com/

Cheers

 

[z970]

I've tried to install 16.04R on a G5 via USB, and 12.04 on a G3 via CD, and both times the installer hangs at "Saving installed packages...".

Ideas?
[automerge]1577085493[/automerge]

 

[wicknix]

Hmm. I know some people had issues if they were connected to the net while installing. Can you try not connecting, then running the updates after install?

Cheers

 

[z970]

Will try later on.