My "test machine" and newest project...

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Yeah, at least on this one I can wipe the hard drive repeatedly and not even try to get a successful multi-boot. Doesn't matter if I break it over and over, because it doesn't have to work.

Yeah, I've seen that one before. In my household, it's actually true. I've taken looks at OpenSUSE, Sabayon, VectorLinux, Debian, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu, plus regular use of Ubuntu for a while. Plus Solaris and a failed attempt at FreeBSD. 7 Linux distros (or just 5 if we lump all the *buntus together) and one Linux user.

Thanks for the tips. I suspect the Function keys behave incorrectly on Apple hardware (they have their own uses) but Ctrl-Alt-Backspace ends the errant X session.

I think I've figured out my next move from some other forum postings. As root, I entered the command "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" to set up a xorg.conf file. The first thing it asks me is my video car's bus identifier, which I don't know. It recommends using "lspci" to find it if I'm not sure. However, after running lspci I don't understand which chunk of gobbledygook is the video card bus id.

The output of lspci is:

Its an AGP ATI rage with 128 megs of ram. nice for a desktop of the time. you sure regular buntu wont work well?

So for video bus id I would enter... 0000:00:10.0 Display Controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage 128 RL/VR AGP? That gives me the error message "Incorrect format for the bus identifier."

I'm fairly certain I could at least get Xubuntu running on this reasonably well, but that's very much a last resort. I wanted to get my decade-old iMac running like a champ and putting the new Mactels with bloated Leopard to shame. Also, I do kind of like IceWM.

Look at this file http://mac.linux.be/Xfree4_2_1/iMac400DV and try adjusting your xorg.conf accordingly (look at the "Device" and "Monitor" sections). It worked for me a few years ago. It says the bus id of the video card is 0:16:0

[quote="Orwell"][/quote]

ATI Technologies Rage 128 should be what it wants.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI should help from there.

and try this one if that fails.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

The second link helped, particularly in a hexadecimal vs decimal hint (f**k hexadecimal). Now I get a different error message! Well, at least it feels like progress.
Anyways:


EDITED because I changed a config file and got a different error message.

This is becoming a bit of a marathon...

One thing that occurs to me is... was there a choice of an "alternate" install CD? The alternate CDs, I believe, include a larger range of drivers.

In your case, it really does sound as if you just don't have the ATI driver at all!

The clue in there is that the configuration asked you where your graphics were, in the first place. If it had recognised the device, it wouldn't have needed to ask which PCI ID it was (and dropping the leading "000:" is typical, as most people only have a single PCI bus).

Via a search on the Ubuntu forums, I got to:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=754620
&highlight=driver+ATI+Rage+128+RL%2FVR+AGP

At the end of the day, posting a question there may be your best bet. It certainly seems that others have installed Ubuntu on the kit you are using (but maybe not the whittled down version you have gone for, which maybe has had some bits whittled away that shouldn't have been whittled away!)

You may need to check out this.

Debian has a ton of .iso's, but I'm not sure if any of them is an "alternate" CD like the kind Ubuntu uses. The netinst cd, if I am not mistaken, just downloads any packages as needed, so it should be able to do anything a regular install cd does. It even gave me the option of installing a desktop environment (defaulting to GNOME) but I didn't want to do that.


Yeah, I have a thread over on the Ubuntu forums asking for help on this as well. Since I'm not really at home in editing config files and setting up X manually, it might be better for me just to give in and install a light DE like XFCE. Then at least I'll have a graphical interface to work with.

OK, now I'm confused as hell. I just tried to install from a normal Debian install disk, with XFCE/LXDE on it. I told it to go ahead and put on a desktop environment. Then, when the install completes and the computer reboots, I get... a console login. "startx" fails as it has before.

... but you've switched to Debian now?

So... when do you start asking about building your own kernel?

(It's easy(-ish), and I had to keep doing it, to get my sound to work, and have a kernel that would fit in memory! I can't recall the last time I did a "make bzImage".)

Definitely not before I manage to get a functional Debian. I've tried a couple different installations (netinst and the full install cd that includes xfce and lxde) and the result is the same- a command prompt, no way of starting X that I can tell. Ironic that I'm using a computer whose original OS (MacOS8) didn't even have a command-line, and I'm not able to get anything other than a command-line now.

Default settings for xorg.conf (and as restored by "dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg") give the following output on the failure of "startx"

From a rather ancient source:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/ ... 00475.html

The trick this guy seems to be using, is to be aware that the driver DOES support his card, or rather, a card of almost the exact same model, but the driver doesn't have it in its list.

So, with an appropriate "Identifier" change, you could give that a wrirl.

Use: to find out what the device ID is, and try putting that into the ChipID entry.

My Nvidea comes back with: and for that, it would be

You could see if giving the driver as either "ati" or "radeon" is of any help.

A long shot, I guess.

Well thats going to a problem. This is why I still advocate OSX for Macs and Windows for PC's. Oh and about your sister, Good like when she buys a piece of software at Circuit City that won't run on linux. Or a piece of hardware. Linux is not very friendly if your not a geek.

This old iMac G3 runs like crap on OS X. Complete and utter crap. It needs something lighter, which means either Linux or BSD. Macs are PC's just like Dell, HP, and all the rest. The difference is that Macs default to a better OS which can't be (legally) installed on other brands of PC.

Who buys software at Circuit City? Literally every piece of software that I have for daily use is freely downloadable off the Internet. There's also some Apple software that came pre-bundled with my computer, but I don't normally boot into OS X so that stuff doesn't get much use. None of it was purchased at a retail store. And hardware, meh, she's on an ageing PPC laptop, and even Apple is soon droping all PPC support. The best bet for such machines is now Linux or BSD, since new version of OS X are too bloated to run on the older PPC computers.