I have just installed MintPPC 9.3 on an iMac G3 400MHZ 128MB RAM

When it hits runlevel2 the screen goes black.

I know about the Horiz. & Vert. refresh rate issue supposedly causing this.
So..........

I am trying to configure X, when I do the following logged in as root:

/# "cd /etc/X11/"

X11 # "Xorg -configure

I get:

Fatal server error:
Server is already active for display 0
If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X0-lock
and start again.

Should i do as it says? Like this:
X11 # "rm /tmp/.X0-lock" ............I tried this and it still won't work.
and try again?

or?

I downloaded the .txt file for my Xorg configuration for slot loading iMac G3 using "wget" but I take it that is just so I can see how to do it? Can I make it take that file and turn it into my xorg configuration with a specific set of commands or?

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

The following is my exact machine, I hope!

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/stats/imac_se_dv_400.html

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR HELP

Use these... and good luck!



(note that in the 2nd line shown above, 'mv' will move the file 'imac5.txt' to the directory path '/etc/X11' and rename the file to 'xorg.conf'...... at the same time.... pretty slick, huh?)

Hey THANK YOU SO MUCH! I did as you said it took a couple tries and finally worked after I got frustrated and was gonna try later, so I used Command "shutdown now" and it said I was now in single user mode and to type root pw for maintenance or type Control D to continue, then I tried your fix again, and it did not really confirm that it had done ANYTHING, however figuring what have I got to lose, I typed "startx" and woohoo! party party party! I have been trying to get linux set up on that G3 imac for almost a month now, whilst my GF was sleeping, I was tinkering every night till this morning!

For the sake of helping others I am posting a link to my thread at LQ Linux Forums which is much longer than this one and shows everything I went through to get where I am now, starting with several unsuccessful debian installs and one arch brain fart, and then my good friend on that forum said "try Mint" Best advice I ever got on this other than your code, which finally got my LXDE up and running!

LQ.org Forum Link:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/imac-powerpc-g3-screen-goes-black-during-boot-907673/

THANKS AGAIN rkmugen!
If I can ever do anything to help you, although I don't know how or with what, you just say the word and I will do my best.
NK9sBoo

Welcome to the club!

Hey, Thank You! linuxopjemac! and Thank you for all your hard work on MintPPC! Great Job!
This is my first post getting here on Iceweasel on THE iMacG3MintPPC9.3.

I may have further questions re: a flash player plugin? and other stuff which I know doesn't go in this thread.
I will look first, then post my ????s in the appropriate part of the forum, hopefully!

Only last question I have is do I need to do anything so my xorg settings won't revert or update to a non compatible xorg configuration?

THANKS AGAIN FOR MINTPPC!

The xorg.conf file is in place now, it stays there until you remove it.

Congrats on getting MintPPC installed on your imac, your perseverance is admirable . You definitely need some more RAM, unless you are one of those people who love to see how low they can go and still boot.

You ask about Flash, and there are many posts on this forum with this question, but I thought I'd summarize here for you:

There is no Flash for Linux PPC. None, never will be. There are two open source Flash projects, Gnash and Lightspark, neither of which work with mintPPC at this juncture. To view youtube video you have a few options, but your imac is kinda slow for some of them. Minitube is a godsend for mintppc, but likely you will not be able to use it with a 400mhz G3. There are some extensions for Iceweasel, flashvideoreplacer and downloadhelper that may be of help to you. Flashvideoreplacer will use gnome mplayer to play flv files, you will be the happiest if you stick with 240p. I can't promise it will work, but with some more RAM on board it might. Downloadhelper enables one to download flv and mp4 files from many sites, and you can play back in VLC or gnome mplayer. VLC is pretty hard on older machines I find.

There is a way to download and play youtube from the command line in mplayer without a GUI, that likely would work the best with your machine. linuxopjemac told me how to do this, I tried it once but my ibook G4 can handle the above methods so I didn't memorize it.

Welcome to the revolution.

Hey Thanks ocmac!, I actually found the Minitube player but, I was actually just checking to see if pogo games would load on it just for the fun of it, the first time, I was going to a solitaire game, it told me I needed flashplayer, but I went back a second time and tried a slot game, it didn't fully load but, it's NOT flashplayer I needed anyway, and I did not think Pogo had changed, and I was right. Pogo games use the Java Runtime Environment, requires a plugin for Iceweasel, I'm gonna search in the forums about it but if you know of one that works, I'm all eyes.
Also, yes, I do need more RAM, This was just my first attempt at doing this and iMac was free so I figured I'd see if I could do it If you have specific suggestions about what I should add.... well you know all eyes blah blah. Oh yeah, and that iMac is kinda slow but then again so is our Broadband (Satellite Only Available Here 1.5M down / 256K up), unless I wanna pay $695/month for a T1 line and that would just fix the up (1.5M both ways) from what AT&T told me. I live in the wilderness but it's pretty!

Thanks again for the welcome and all the help everyone!
NK9sBoo

As an alternative to Flash, you can also view YouTube vids in HTML5 from within Iceweasel...

http://www.youtube.com/html5

I should warn you that the performance will really suck (for lack of a better word... and for emphasis), given the shear age of the video hardware of the G3 iMacs. My iMac is 200Mhz faster than yours and even if I set the video quality to 240p (if it is even available at all on any given video), the video is still choppy, and the sound is still seriously out of sync with the video.

Shrinking the YouTube video's size to less than 1/4th of your monitor's display area does help.... but not by much.

I wish MiniTube gave the option to select 240p on all videos instead of selecting 360p (or higher) by default. Not everyone has a G4 or a G5...

As far as RAM goes, max it out, I don't know exactly what machine you have, but seems like its a DV or an early 2001 Indigo, according to lowendmac.com they can both take a Gig:

RAM: 64 MB, expandable to 1,024 MB using two PC100 SDRAM (3.3 V, 64-bit, 168-pin, 100 MHz)

Tiger is actually pretty darn usable on any G3 with a GB of RAM, not that I am encouraging you to go back to the mac, just sayin.

You are stuck at a measley 8mb of video RAM, which is what will cripple you, besides the slow processor. There was a G4 upgrade for the slot loaders, long discontinued, but you might luck out and find one on ebay. It was a 550mhz G4 if I remember correctly. Might be easier to find an imac which already had an upgrade.

I am sorry to hear you are stuck with satellite internet, but that's better than dial up for sure. I am utterly spoiled with 20 Mb/s internet here in Phoenix, USA. My wife needs really high speed internet to work from home, and I have to say it is sure nice to surf at 20 Mb/s.