Installed system on an SMU ppc64 G5 loads a dangerous module
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
linux-source-2.6.15 (Ubuntu) |
Invalid
|
Medium
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
The later single processor powermac G5, and the related imacs, maybe even the most-recent multiprocessor G5s, have something withihn the hardware which the powermac alsa driver mis-identifies (Ben H knows about this, but it isn't a high priority).
the 6.06-beta2 installer loads the alsa powermac module, which stops the desktop appearing (gets as far as a brown background, then nothing more). A thread in the forum talks of using a tty to rename /usr/bin/esd (I rebooted after that, perhaps killall esd would have been sufficient).
Unfortunately, with this module loaded, the system displays the old ("lock up as soon as he's silly enough to try to get tab completion") behaviour in a tty, although without esd I was able to use a gnome terminal normally. Also, until I'd done this (previous attempts to use a tty to try to diagnose the problem) the system was very unstable - lock-ups within a couple of minutes, and attempts to shut it down produced an error message (scrolled too quickly to read) and did not power off.
With esd renamed, I got a desktop and was able to rename the troublesome module so that it won't get loaded again.
Shutdown was also very messy (had to ctrl-alt-bs to kill X, after that the box shut down cleanly), maybe that was a side-effect of having the alsa module loaded.
On the bright side, this is a little better than 5.10 (the network now works with the shipped kernel), but still very close to unusable for your target audience.
Does it help to blacklist the module by adding it to the /etc/modprobe. d/blacklist file?
Also make sure it is not included in the /etc/modules file.