3/28/14 Daily build tested on iBook G4 -- 75% OK--iMac not so good

[Fritz Hudnut]

Gents:

Seems like I'm stepping in to an interesting conversation.  I'm new to this
list, and generally I'm a GUI user of linux for the last couple of years;
chiefly as a way to try to keep my two PPC computers somewhat viable.  I
started with fink; but fink is the perfect name for it; and I moved on the
mintppc, which worked OK for awhile but also seemed to break with updates;
so I went to straight Debian until I got onto Xubuntu 12.04 with LXDE
added.  Recently I posted on the Apple user thread, "Tester's wanted for
12.04 PPC" and Mr Phil replied to me there with links for testing 14.04 and
this email list.

I'm just posting to this list because generally I'm pressed for time, but
if I can try out a Live Desktop on my iBook I will.  I don't think I have
time for the qa deal . . . and don't have a machine that I can do installs
of alpha or beta systems at this point.  I have my two PPC computers set up
for dual boot, each has 10.4.11 & Xubuntu 12.04 LTS running . . . it's
doubtful that my iMac will make the upgrade.

I burned the daily build from today 3/28/14 of Lu 14.04 . . . and it booted
up OK in the iBook, we got the 14.04 splash screen, it showed a "b43 error"
for the wifi, got the mouse, and a desktop with the toolbars.  Only problem
is/was desktop image was grainy resolution--when I tried to change the
desktop image all of them were low resolution.  I opened Xterm and the
window was fine and I ran "lsmod"--no "radeon" & certainly no "nv" showed
there.  The system time was wrong so I wanted to set that before I opened
my webmail, when I launched the "Time and Date settings" app there was just
the frame with "Time and Date" across the top, and showing the Xterm data
inside it.  "User settings" was the same--empty frame; but "customize look
and feel" was OK.  Synaptic had the frame problem, but Firefox did not, the
window showed the web stuff and I got to a Ubuntu page.

This morning I tried to boot the system in my iMac, first using live
video=ofonly and got the 1/3 green and 2/3 black screen; and I rebooted and
pressed tab and entered the same but added something like
"driverupdatesppc" and something "check powerpc" and got a thin sliver of
purple and the rest black . . . .  This problem is well known to guys like
"rsavage" and others working with the iMac, and there are some terms like
"forcenv" that I have buried somewhere in notes from a year ago when I was
trying to get the system running on the iMac, but no time.

The 800MHz G4 iMac runs best on the "nv" driver for the Nvidia card, it
doesn't seem to "run right out of the box" as is claimed, second best is
the what "fb" driver?  I heard that the nv driver is no longer available to
"retro-install" as I had to do with my 12.04 install; I'm thinking it might
not run 14.04.

But, on the positive side, yes, the iBook with radeon driver ran pretty
well on the Live DVD just hitting "return" and letting it do its thing.
Only problem seems to be that some windows are not being rendered and
others are.  But, still overall the font rendering was a tad rough, I guess
I usually adjust that in preferences . . . which did render OK in its
window.

OK, that's my "report" on my experience with a daily build, as Al or
someone said, "It's not quite ready."  If there is something I can run in
this build again for someone I can do that, but, time is limited; yesterday
I was somewhere where the .iso could be downloaded in 8 mins, whereas at
home that would take an hour, etc.

F.
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