These instructions are specific to setting up Lubuntu 16.04 on PowerMac G4/533 (Digital Audio). https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_533.html
This particular model has a Nvidia GeForce 2 MX which is problematic for Linux.
You must do a cold boot. If you don't, at the end of it all, it won't be able to find the boot partition 'cd:,\:tbxi'
To boot into Open Firmware, hold down this key sequence during boot:
Option + Apple + O + F
There is no help, so don't bother trying.
Find the location of your usb drive. It will be named disk@n, on either usb@18 or usb@19:
dev /
ls
To rescan for an inserted usb drive:
probe-usb
I think. Sometimes this hangs/crashes and you have to reboot. So don't actually do that.
Set an alias for booting. It must be 'cd' because farther along the boot process expects it to be 'cd'. So you must overwrite the existing 'cd' devalias.
devalias cd /pci@f2000000/usb@18/disk@1
To view aliases type:
devalias
boot cd:,\\:tbxi
Yea, that's the boot command... Ponder that while you're meditating on mushrooms.
If you did not do a cold boot, this command will fail. So, start over from the beginning or go back to your PC and forget this nonsense.
The nouveau kernel driver does not work. The older nvidiafb kernel driver must be used instead.
The kernel parameter "nomodeset" is required to turn off KMS because the Nvidia drivers and/or frame buffer drivers do not work with KMS.
Comment out the "blacklist nvidiafb" line in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf.
Add a line in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf to blacklist nouveau.
Add these to kernel parameters in /etc/yaboot.conf: nomodeset video=offb:off
Reinstall yaboot: sudo ybin -v
Reboot
(Untested by me)
Linux Kernel 5.x does not work with X nouveau or fbdev so X will not run at all under Kernel 5.x.
Olivier Laverré With Debian (Linux Kernel 5.x), also add to your yaboot.conf: append="video=TV-1:d nouveau.config=NvPowerChecks=0". This avoids a black screen. Or add it at the boot prompt: " Linux video=TV-1:d nouveau.config=NvPowerChecks=0".
OR, using this boot parameter:
video=nvidiafb:1280x1024-16
The install software will repartition the drive and then go on with the install. But this never works. The machine has to be rebooted after the repartition or nothing done after the repartition will actually work, even though it seems to during the install. You then have to redo the whole installation process using the same exact partitioning scheme. I'm not sure what the best way to handle this is. Possibly to abort the install and reboot right after the new partition table is written to disk. Then restart the install using the same partitioning scheme.
The install program should really force a reboot after partitioning and then resume at the point right after the partitioning after the reboot.
/proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 cpu : 7450, altivec supported clock : 733.333331MHz revision : 2.0 (pvr 8000 0200) bogomips : 66.58
total bogomips : 66.58 timebase : 33290001 platform : PowerMac model : PowerMac3,4 machine : PowerMac3,4 motherboard : PowerMac3,4 MacRISC2 MacRISC Power Macintosh detected as : 69 (PowerMac G4 Silver) pmac flags : 00000010 L2 cache : 256K unified pmac-generation : NewWorld Memory : 1024 MB
lspci: 0000:00:0b.0 Host bridge: Apple Inc. UniNorth 1.5 AGP 0000:00:10.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400] (rev a1) 0001:10:0b.0 Host bridge: Apple Inc. UniNorth 1.5 PCI 0001:10:13.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 50) 0001:10:13.1 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 50) 0001:10:13.2 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 51) 0001:10:15.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 20) 0001:10:17.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Apple Inc. KeyLargo Mac I/O (rev 03) 0001:10:18.0 USB controller: Apple Inc. KeyLargo USB 0001:10:19.0 USB controller: Apple Inc. KeyLargo USB 0002:20:0b.0 Host bridge: Apple Inc. UniNorth 1.5 Internal PCI 0002:20:0e.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): LSI Corporation FW322/323 [TrueFire] 1394a Controller 0002:20:0f.0 Ethernet controller: Apple Inc. UniNorth GMAC (Sun GEM) (rev 01)