update 10.04 -> 10.10 fails on PowerMac G4

[Risczard Groszinski]

I tried to update a smoothly working Ubuntu 10.04 via "update-manager -d" to Ubuntu 10.10 (beta).
Hardware: PowerMac with PPC G4 and NVIDIA Geforce 4MX graphics.
Everything works fine until the first start of the new system.
The system told me after rebooting something about a failing nouveau driver (sorry, I didn't write down the message, but I'll try to reproduce this on a second system). I understood that the system did a try to fix this itself and did another reboot. Now, the system boots up until the "Ubuntu 10.10 . . . . ." message displays and then hangs.
Probably a bug with Xorg. A test installation of the actual debian testing-version (daily build) gave similar results. The installation crashes, the XServer isn't working at all. "Xorg -configure" run from a text-console results with a non-working xorg.conf file.
To be continued...

[Risczard Groszinski (risczard)]

okay, meanwhile I tried the same on my second PowerMac G4. This one has a slightly different Geforce 4MX graficscard (the one with 64 MB, my first system has the 32MB version). Here is what I did: First installed Ubuntu 10.04 from scratch, added the smp-kernel and all updates, second I started "update-manager -d" for a version 10.10 install. After reboot, the system hangs. No error- or any other message, no text-console, no nothing. So we do have an issue here!
My next experiment will be to switch the NVIDIA Geforce 4MX against some ATI-graficscard from my hardware-fundus.
To be continued...

[Risczard Groszinski (risczard)]

here is the result:
After replacing my Geforce 4Mx with some ATI Rage 128 Pro graficscard I installed 10.04 from scratch, added the updates and the smp-kernel. Then I did "update-manager -d" to install 10.10 (beta). After reboot, the system comes up with (almost) no problem. The resolution is inadaequate - seems the ATI-card isn't used to it's limits or the monitor isn't detected correctly. But the system as such is up and running. :-)
So it _is_ a problem with Xorg and Geforce MX graficscards.
Since there are a lot of those cards out there, I consider this bug as important.
Whom may I contact to offer some beta-testing or development-assistance in this regards?

[StevenGraham (srg4096)]

I'm getting this basic problem on the final version of Ubuntu 10.10 on my Macintosh Server G4 with an Nvidia GeForce MX Card. The Live CD will just hang with a blank screen but...

If I install with the Alternate CD, the install goes fine, but on booting the new system it gets to the "Ubuntu 10.10 . . . . ." message and then hangs.

I'm guessing it's the nouveau driver that's at fault, I may look at getting a Radeon card for this Mac.

[Risczard Groszinski (risczard)]

The trouble is that with several PowerMac models (lamp, cube, mini) the switching of the graficscard is hazardeous to impossible. :-(
I hope the nouveau driver will be fixed soon, since I love the brilliant clear pictures my Geforce MX cards used to produce...

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

Hello to all
Can i have some updates of this issue ?
Can someone test a live session of Natty from
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/
Can someone start the system holding down the right shift, type e and remove quiet and splash from the linux line then ctrl+x to start in textual mode to see what happens ?
Thanks
Fabio

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for Ubuntu because there has been no activity for 60 days.]