MintPPC

[Roland]

Good news... Threre is a new Linux distro available for our X5000: MintPPC (http://mintppc.nl/). I tested the 32-bit version and it seems to boot/work without any major problems.

First I downloaded the packed 32-bit live USB disk image
(direct link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qlfDEj ... sp=sharing ), unpacked it and copied it with dd
to an empty USB stick. Then I copied with GParted the main partition (about 7 GB) from that stick to my HD.
MintPPC could then be booted just like Fienix, using our usual X5000 kernels etc. There are defined accounts for 'root' and 'mintppc', both have password 'mintppc'.

One small modification was needed for the MIntPPC partition. The /etc/fstab had to be cleaned up from the obsolete disk definitions (they slowed down booting but did not prevent it). Only the first one is necessary:

Code: Select all

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sdb3 during installation
UUID=b3bf6358-4d00-4f4a-80ce-af4ddd83455c /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1

Mate desktop was not preinstalled but it was possible to get it from the default deposit. Of the programs I tested, Arctic Fox, SMPlayer and Abiword worked ok, but Palemoon and VLC did not start at all.

There is also a 64-bit version of MintPPC but it may need Altivec as it was originally meant for G4/G5 Macs.

[xeno74]

Great!

[Roland]

I tested now also the 64-bit version of MintPPC... It started to boot normally, but did not reach the login screen. There appeared a black screen with a blinking prompt, then after a while the text "tipc: TX() has been purged, node left!"

When I logged manually from the terminal window (as root) and tried to run 'lightdm', I got the following error message:

**(lightdm 7039): Warning **:13:08:38.035: Error getting user list from org.freedekstop.Accounts: GDBus.Error: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error. Service unknown: The name org.freedesktop.Accounts was nowt provided by org .service files

What might gone wrong, and is there anything to try to correct the problem...? Does not sound an Altivec problem, though...?

[Roland]

MintPPC 32-bit: I got New Moon (preinstalled), Spiderweb and Faded Orb (these had to be installed manually from the .deb archives) to work! They had a common problem... They all need '/lib/powerpc-linux-gnu/libffi.so.6' to work, but Mint has only the newer 'libffi.so.7'. I made a copy of it and renamed it to 'libffi.so.6'. I do not know if this is the correct way to do it but it works...

Te next step is to get Greasemonkey for all these Wicknix browsers... From "https://github.com/janekptacijarabaci/g ... 3.31.4Fork" I was able to install it directly to New Moon, Faded Orb and Arctic Fox. Spiderweb did not accept it, maybe it needs an older version?

It looks now that MintPPC is really a working alternative for Ubuntu and Fienix .

[xeno74]

Spiderweb did not accept it, maybe it needs an older version?

Please look in the SpiderWeb thread: ****** Link ******.

Many thanks for testing MintPPC.

[Roland]

Now the VLC is working with X5000 in MintPPC! Jeroen Diederen (the author of MintPPC) kindly compiled a special non-altivec version of VLC 3.0.11.1 . Here is a link to the package: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lgPdQO ... sp=sharing
I could also put available a customized MIntPPC partition image, after I have polished it - if there is interest?

[xeno74]

Now the VLC is working with X5000 in MintPPC! Jeroen Diederen (the author of MintPPC) kindly compiled a special non-altivec version of VLC 3.0.11.1 . Here is a link to the package: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lgPdQO ... sp=sharing

Fantastic!

I could also put available a customized MIntPPC partition image, after I have polished it - if there is interest?

That would be great!

[acefnq]

Roland
What is app availability like for Mint? I would be interested in trying.

Cheers

ace

[Roland]

I could also put available a customized MIntPPC partition image, after I have polished it - if there is interest?

That would be great!

The only problem now is that I do not myself have any public storage place for it, and Jeroen said his site has not enough free space. Would it be possible to upload it to your Linux site (xenosoft), Christian?

[Roland]

What is app availability like for Mint? I would be interested in trying.

It is Debian based, so in principle it should be good... If you know what applications you would need, I can check whether they are in the depot. In www-browsers the situation is similar to Fienix, the 'Wicknix' ones are working (New Moon, Spiderweb, Faded Orb, Arctic Fox) but no Firefox (there are on the depot two old versions which cannot be installed). Libreoffice and Abiword are present, too.