Installing Gentoo Linux 2004.3 on a iBook G4 1GHz

I installed from the install-ppc-universal-2004.3.iso cd image using a stage 3 install and used then the packages-ppc-2004.3.iso CD imageto install gnome and some other packages. Here I describe the difficulties I encountered and some useful hints. This is not a replacement for the Gentoo Linux 2004.3 PPC Handbook. All information published in this article is under the GNU Free Documentation Licence.
Feel free to contact me: tinux _ at _ mail . com.

Install the base system from stage 3

Generally I followed the procedure described in the Gentoo Linux 2004.3 PPC Handbook. Untarring the stage 3 tarball left me with several errors:
tar -xjpf /mnt/cdrom/stages/stage3......tar.bz2 (I omitted the -v option to speed up a little)
Error: /dev/... cannot mknod: file exists.
The devices have already been created by
mount -o bin /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev
I ignored the errors and went on.

After compiling the kernel (2.6.7) and rebooting, I ended up with a non-functioning keyboard. The kernel options you have to choose are:

device drivers ---> macintosh device drivers --->
[*] Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) support
[ ] Support for CUDA based Macs and PowerMacs
[*] Support for PMU based PowerMac
[*] Include MacIO (CHRP) ADB driver
[*] Support for ADB input devices (keyboard, mice, ...)
[*] Support for mouse button 2+3 emulation

Im not sure aout the last two though. As I own an Apple USB keyboard, I connected that one and it worked. Just until the next (more severe) error showed up: I could not login due to a PAM error.

Few words just to tell you that probably people installing from universal LiveCD on ppc will probably spend time with a PAM error at the login, right after the first boot. The solution, in my case, was to add "pam" to the USE flags in /etc/make conf and then doing a emerge shadow. It is a bad problem, as not emerging shadow with pam will let login fail right after you type your username at tty. This happened with g4 stage3 from universal install 2004.3, to be precise.
from http://www.ppcnerds.org/Topic25.html

The problem is that now you need a working internet connection. Not being able to log in, I reset (press ctrl-apple-power button) the iBook and rebooted using the CD, mounted all stuff and chrooted:

swapon /dev/hda3

mount /dev/hda4 /mnt/gentoo
mkdir /mnt/gentoo/dev
mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev
mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
env-update
source /etc/profile

Now I started networking, set the pam USE flag and re-emerged shadow

dhcpcd eth0
nano -w /etc/make.conf
[add the line USE="pam"]
emerge shadow

This doesn't take very long. I recompiled my kernel using the kernel options above and rebooted.

Install gnome as GRP

Now I was ready to install gnome as described in the manual from the package CD:

mount /dev/cdrom/cdrom0 /mnt/cdrom
export PKGDIR="/mnt/cdrom"
emerge gnome

This takes a long time! I would not recommend you compiling Gnome from scratch on this slow machine.

I gladly took a working X configuration file from Colin Leroy's article about gentoo on iBook G4. No changes needed here, just change the keyboard mapping.

cp xorg-g4.conf /etc/X11
ln -s xorg-g4.conf xorg.conf

Setting up xdm (startup to X Window System instead of terminal)

You need to set some environment variables in /etc/rc.conf first:

DISPLAYMANAGER="gdm"
XSESSION="Gnome"

then add xdm to your default runlevel, if you want:

rc-update add xdm default

Otherwise you now can start Gnome and X with

xinit

Installing useful software

OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 english
This was the most recent OOo.org version I could find. It installed without problems. I haven't tested it much until now.

gimp
emerge gimp

To Do: