Debian on Powermac 604e (Power Tpwer Pro)

[Me]

Hi all,

plenty of questions, will try to keep it short ,,,

havde tried loading linuxPPC, mandriva and debian on a stock standard
Power Tower Prp (604e (cloch chipped to 205 mHz), IMS Twin Turbo *M
Video card, a plethora of discarded SCSI HD's ...

The best I've got is to have debian insttal, but it doesn't want to
start a GUI ...

Any advice?

Questions - x windows won't install without kdm, kdm wont install - gdm
can't find the monitor ... is there a way of monifying the config for
video (tried base-config and xf86config to no avail).

have re-run tasksel & dselect - sometimes a package that won't install
will magically work after 3 cycles of this tedious process ... why? I
figure it's got something to do with dependencies ...

Thanking you in advance for any assistance,

Me (DownUnder)

[Jack Malmostoso]

Post by Me
The best I've got is to have debian insttal, but it doesn't want to
start a GUI ...
Any advice?

Did you install woody? Try upgrading to Sarge (just change all occurences
of "woody" or "stable" in /etc/apt/sources.list to "sarge"):

# apt-get update
# apt-get dist-upgrade

And then:

# apt-get install xserver-xfree86

It will ask you some questions, answer them and you should have your video
configured.

[jim bob and joe bob]

Post by Me
Hi all,
plenty of questions, will try to keep it short ,,,
havde tried loading linuxPPC, mandriva and debian on a stock standard
Power Tower Prp (604e (cloch chipped to 205 mHz), IMS Twin Turbo *M
Video card, a plethora of discarded SCSI HD's ...
The best I've got is to have debian insttal, but it doesn't want to
start a GUI ...
Any advice?
Questions - x windows won't install without kdm, kdm wont install - gdm
can't find the monitor ... is there a way of monifying the config for
video (tried base-config and xf86config to no avail).
have re-run tasksel & dselect - sometimes a package that won't install
will magically work after 3 cycles of this tedious process ... why? I
figure it's got something to do with dependencies ...
Thanking you in advance for any assistance,
Me (DownUnder)

I don't know if it will work for you but this is what I did to finally
get x-windows working on my beige G3. I repeatedly ran dpkg-reconfigure
xserver-xfree86 followed by startx, changing one parameter at a time
until it finally worked. I am running debian woody. One thing I
changed that seemed to make a difference was the monitor refresh rate.
I had been putting in conservative numbers and finally put both vertical
and horizontal rates at 85 mhz. This seems to be a maximum setting. My
hardware will not support that high a rate. Running dpkg-reconfigure
will put you into the spot in the installer where you specify system
parameters. It took me 10 or 12 tries but it finally paid off. I have
tried installing on a Umax c600 with no success with x-windows but have
never used the above technique. Before I got it to work on the G3 I
kept getting an error that there was no core pointer (mouse, I think).
I now believe that this is a false error message caused by some other
problem in the configuration. I do not remember changing anything
having to do with the mouse but eventually something worked. I posted my
XF86Config-4 file on here somewhere. Yours will probably differ since
your hardware is different.

Good luck.