lubuntu-qa team mailing list archive

[Walter Lapchynski <wxl@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I'll look into it, thanks!

@wxl | http://polka.bike
Lubuntu Release Manager & Head of QA
Ubuntu PPC Point of Contact
Ubuntu Oregon Team Leader
Ubuntu Membership Board & LoCo Council Member
Eugene Unix & GNU/Linux User Group Co-organizer
On May 25, 2015 3:30 PM, "Boris Reinhard" <reinhard.boris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> Meant to pick up on that earlier, as time and time again has shown it
> often still comes down to a gap in communication or a missing link of sorts
> between the different ppl ("players") aside from bothering Michael Ellerman
> some months ago I haven't made further contact.
>
> Wolfram Sang might be someone we could approach!?
> I might add that one route we might want to aim for is to shoot things
> upstream to Debian. Since we're not on a tight development cycle (LTS
> only for Lubuntu PPC), that gives us some time. We just need to make
> some friends involved with Debian PPC. Does anyone already have any
> contacts? If not, let me know and I'll go searching.
>
> On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 4:35 PM, Boris Reinhard
> <reinhard.boris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > It's complicated, for various reasons some stuff works while some can
> only
> > run due to extensive workarounds, with heavy performance compromises or
> > doesn't run at all.
> >
> > You have to keep in mind ppc macs are only supported on community effort,
> > ppl do not get paid anymore to fix stuff for our old ppc Macs. That is
> why
> > we need testing, to locate issues as good as we can and hopefully bring
> it
> > to someones attention via various means, someone who can actually do
> > something about it.
> >
> > The hardware pool for that however and manpower is not that huge and
> even if
> > you have that part covered how to translate it into an actual progress is
> > another matter entirely.
> >
> > It is my understanding we on ppc Macs basically gain mostly from stuff on
> > the side, stuff ppl do on the side of their work they actually get paid
> for
> > or mostly in their spare time on the side, as you probably can imagine
> that
> > is not ideal to get things fixed as ppl have to actually look into it and
> > simply stating an issue is not even close to having it fixed and it wont
> > magically fix itself either.
> >
> > There are few ppl left interested and able to look into ppc mac related
> > issues. Maybe there are much more but I feel like there is a bit of a
> > communication struggel so a person who located an issue might not be
> able to
> > get in direct contact with the correct someone who could help or that
> > someone is busy with much higher priority work and eventually things are
> > forgotten or dragged out over years.
> >
> > The ppc kernel devel or other lists where parts that come up now and
> then on
> > ppc issues, eg. mesa or nouveau, have a certain procedure and lingo to
> it,
> > certain requirements, to the outsider, everyone not familiar with
> > development of such things or the way things and ppl are connected there
> and
> > used to work and communicate in these circles have basically really slim
> > chances to participate or correctly bring attention to specific issues
> that
> > would need some looking into by someone in the know, also without
> stepping
> > on someones toe.
> >
> > Ppl far more experienced than me don't even seem to post there, I can
> only
> > imagine they are facing a similar dilemma, a wrongly or badly drafted
> post
> > there could easily do more harm than good.
> >
> > There are some brave enthusiasts however who every now and then pop up,
> but
> > they can only do so much on their own,.. To some this might come as a
> > surprise but that reminding Amiga community, did a lot that also aided
> our
> > ppc mac community. Recently I saw a post where they actually raised a
> bounty
> > (collected money) to hire an external developer for work on optimizing
> video
> > codecs with altivec instructions to gain performance on ppc systems,
> imagine
> > that.
> >
> > I remember around the year of 2006 or so I was reading about how Linus
> > Torvalds himself supposedly was running a Power Mac G5, ppl assumed they
> > would get fixes, well guess what, not even the king of linux cared
> enough to
> > see this through (granted if it even was at all true and he was using
> such a
> > system, we do not even know to what extend), Power Mac G5 with Nvidia
> fx5200
> > with nouveau, no fun at all, no way more typical Mac users could use
> such a
> > system under linux in any meaningful way. :(
> >
> > Of course there is always more to it, ppl grow older, have kids, lots of
> > newer and more interesting stuff to spend their time on and of course the
> > actual work to make ends meat and hopefully have enough time for as much
> of
> > everything else as possible. But still I can't help but feel sad about
> the
> > unearthed potential of those late ppc Macs, which in many cases likely
> are
> > going to waste quite literally.
> >
> > Grüße
> > boris
> >
> > ps. on the rage128 issue try to enforce pci and disable agp transfer, so
> far
> > I had to do this for radeon and nouveau cases to get somewhat of a stable
> > sytem.
> >
> > It's all there: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCKnownIssues
> >
> > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCFAQ
> >
> >
> > null <meets@xxxxxx> schrieb am Mi., 11. März 2015 22:55:
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Sorry to disturb your methods, I am putting the order from first to last
> >> and answering at
> >> the bottom.
> >>
> >> On Wed, 11 Mar 2015 14:20:15 -0700
> >> Walter Lapchynski <wxl@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >> > On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 1:42 PM, Mari <saltycat77@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >> > > But I am disappointed by the lack of PPC support-they are old
> >> > > computers
> >> > > people like to keep. Its mainly the issue with the old ATI rage Pro
> >> > > 128
> >> > > cards which is slowing down the install and keeping it from running
> >> > > optimally (it should, in my opinion, run at least as well as OS X
> >> > > Tiger does
> >> > > and, in fact, should run faster).  While there seems to be a fix out
> >> > > there
> >> > > that Debian still maintains, Ubuntu dropped support for the PPC some
> >> > > time
> >> > > ago and I had trouble compiling the necessary files for installation
> >> > > on the
> >> > > powermac. I'm sure I will sort it out eventually but its clearly not
> >> > > for the
> >> > > novice.
> >> > >
> >> > > I wonder if there might be a way to maintain a Lubuntu repo for
> these
> >> > > old
> >> > > PPC computers, since Lubuntu is great for older hardware.
> >>
> >> > Changes in Debian get synced downstream to Ubuntu. Where do you think
> >> > the fix is?
> >>
> >>
> >> Doesn't xserver-xorg-video-r128 work? This is what is supposed to work
> for
> >> ATI Rage Pro
> >> 128:
> >> https://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo
> >>
> >> I see the package in the list of files for PPC:
> >>
> >>
> http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/trusty/daily/20150219/trusty-alternate-powerpc.list
> >>
> >> Perhaps some "dri" or "libdri" version 1 would not be available anymore
> ??
> >>
> >> So? Mari, what would be missing you think? And why should it be faster
> >> than the operating
> >> system built for this architecture? (On a chan recently I've been told
> >> that Linux boxes
> >> dont make old Apple machines as optimally as the original OS'es, but I
> >> don't know that, I
> >> am not a Mac user).
> >>
> >> Best regards,
> >> Mélodie
> >>
> >>
> >> --
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> >
> >
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>
>
> --
> @wxl | http://polka.bike
> Lubuntu Release Manager, Head of QA
> Ubuntu PPC Point of Contact
> Ubuntu Oregon LoCo Team Leader
> Eugene Unix & GNU/Linux User Group Co-Organizer
>