I've installed MintPPC 9.1 on my iBook http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/ibook/stats/ibook_se.html and no problem encountered during installation.


It has 310MB RAM and a 6G harddisk. Also, I gave it an ASUS WL-167G USB wireless.


I want to use it as a server and put it somewhere at the corner, where no wired network is available. So, I want to setup the machine to use the wireless USB stick.

The wireless interface is not there after the installation. However, you can verify that the system indeed see the USB wireless stick.

1. lsusb will show the details of the wireless adapter, including chipset information.

2. The chipset of the adapter is Ralink RT2500USB. The system already has the drivers for this chipset. You can verify this by looking into /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-powerpc/kernel/drivers/net/wireless

To enable the USB wireless adapter, I did the following:

1. Modify /etc/network/interfaces and add the following two lines at the end. wlan0 is the default interface name. This will enable the interface to use DHCP to obtain IP address. Ask Google about "/etc/network/interfaces" if you want the interface to use static address.
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp

2. Enable the interface with /sbin/ifup in a terminal.

3. In Wicd Network Manager, add the wireless interface wlan0 in Preferences, and setup the SSID/security accordingly.

Now, your WL-167G should connect you to the internet. (I wonder if step 1 and step 2 are needed. Please share if you tried to run step 3 directly.)

Doing the above will only allow the machine to connect outwards. If you want to ping or ssh your MintPPC machine, you need the following extra steps.

1. In a terminal, issue the following commands in a terminal
set interface wlan0/0 ip manageable
set interface wlan0/0 manage ping
set interface wlan0/0 manage ssh
set ssh version 2
set ssh enable

2. Restart the interface by issuing the following in the same terminal
/sbin/ifdown wlan0
/sbin/ifup wlan0

3. Now, try to ping or ssh your MintPPC iBook from another machine.

I am not a network guy and the above settings seems link firewall rules. They are lost when I restart the machine and I have to run them again. I hope someone can show me how to set them permanent.

Strange. When the screensaver is on, the Wireless USB goes off and the ssh session breaks. When return from screensaver, I have to restart the wireless interface and set it "IP Manageable" again.

What's wrong?

Maybe you can disable screensaver with powerprefs.

PS what a cute computer

Yeah, it is cute and noisy. Its humming noise is a bit disturbing, and that's why I want to put it into a corner.

I disabled Screensaver in Power Management and Screensaver, and set Cover Action to no action in PowerPrefs. However, the wireless interface still went down.

I noticed the following in syslog:

Dec 22 23:23:17 iBookG3 pbbuttonsd: INFO: Script '/etc/power/pmcs-pbbuttonsd suspend ac ram' launched and exited normally
Dec 22 23:23:17 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4937.239031] PM: Syncing filesystems ... done.
Dec 22 23:23:17 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4937.295155] PM: Preparing system for mem sleep
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4937.536871] Freezing user space processes ... (elapsed 0.07 seconds) done.
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4937.609720] Freezing remaining freezable tasks ... (elapsed 0.00 seconds) done.
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4937.610462] PM: Entering mem sleep
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4937.610474] Suspending console(s) (use no_console_suspend to debug)
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4937.876327] phy0 -> rt2500usb_set_device_state: Error - Device failed to enter state 1 (-16).
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4938.539734] eth0: suspending, WakeOnLan disabled
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4939.445758] atyfb 0000:00:10.0: Refused to change power state, currently in D2
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4940.012207] eth0: resuming
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4940.076519] PHY ID: 406212, addr: 0
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4943.138946] hda: host max PIO4 wanted PIO255(auto-tune) selected PIO4
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4943.167816] adb: starting probe task...
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4943.169252] hda: UDMA/33 mode selected
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4943.256369] hdc: host max PIO4 wanted PIO255(auto-tune) selected PIO4
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4943.256537] hdc: MWDMA2 mode selected
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4943.421762] adb devices: [2]: 2 c3 [3]: 3 1 [7]: 7 1f
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4943.428681] ADB keyboard at 2, handler 1
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4943.444079] ADB mouse at 3, handler set to 4 (trackpad)
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4943.503861] adb: finished probe task...
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4943.696648] usb 1-1: reset full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4944.193723] usb 1-1.4: reset full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4944.365709] rt2500usb 1-1.4:1.0: no reset_resume for driver rt2500usb?
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4944.366266] wlan0: deauthenticating from 94:0c:6d:ee:6d:e4 by local choice (reason=3)
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4944.743441] phy1: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel'
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4944.747276] Registered led device: rt2500usb-phy1::radio
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4944.747371] Registered led device: rt2500usb-phy1::quality
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 kernel: [ 4944.752876] PM: Finishing wakeup.
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 dhclient: receive_packet failed on wlan0: Network is down
Dec 22 23:26:14 iBookG3 dhclient: receive_packet failed on wlan0: Network is down

Quesetion: Is the problem related to RT2500USB driver?

Something I noticed, which has nothing to do with your problem, is that you are not in a Linux Mint session. Next time you login choose Linux Mint LXDE as Session. You are in LXDE I think.

Maybe wake on lan is what you need to setup:
http://lojic.com/blog/2008/09/03/ubuntu ... ke-on-lan/

http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/wakeonlan
http://wiki.debian.org/WakeOnLan

that horrible humming noise might be the hard drive. When I found my imac g3 it made a really loud buzzing noise but was otherwise ok, after I replaced the hard drive it went completely silent.

I don't know if the hard drive on that computer is replaceable, but it may be something to look into.

Sweet. I used to have that computer. Sadly it was murdered by coffee. Would love to have it back to play with Mint on it.

I found two of them (366 Firewire machines) at the local recycler/reseller for $5 each! They go pretty cheap if you can find them locally (well, in the US, anyway). Two more machines to experiment with...



Oh, it's replaceable, all right. It's a little like having your toenails pulled out one by one, or a job that's enjoyable only by sadists, but it can be done. You have to practically strip the entire machine down, and there are a ton of little screws of all different sizes in it. But yes, it can be done. A white iBook G3 hard drive replacement is a breeze compared to these old clamshells...

well, yeah, u do have 2 disassemble, but it's doable:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iBook-G3-Cl ... ment/116/1
and just tape the screws to the screwguide:
http://ifixit-documents.s3.amazonaws.co ... WvyXVv.pdf