PowerBook G4, touch pad, suspend/hibernate

Architecture specific questions.

PowerBook G4, touch pad, suspend/hibernate

Postby pbg42005 » 09 Apr 2009, 23:21

Hello all,
I recently installed YDL 6.0.1 or 6.1, which ever the newest release is. In any event I am a comp sci student, but somewhat new to Linux, been using a basic command line version for some time now. I was running Fedora 10, but could not get it to suspend and had read that YDL was more tuned towards the ppc and apple computers. Here are my issues, any suggestions, links, etc would be greatly appreciated.

1. The touchpad is almost unusable on this machine, it randomly clicks when i am trying to move it around the screen, and is very unresponsive. I was able to get the touchpad drivers running on Fedora, but I can't seem to replicate my success.

2. Hibernate... I know this is a big problem for Linux. When i click the suspend button the computer fads to black and then immediately prompts me for my password with out suspending or hibernating. When I log back into GNOME i am told that there was an error durning hibernation and to follow a dead link. I tried grep something thing or another to see if it "can" hibernate, i get false for general hibernate, false for to disk but true for to ram. When i was running Fedora, the screen would be come distorted and then the system would freeze, i figured it was bad video drivers.

3. If anyone has any general advice for optimizing YDL on a powerbook I would appreciate it.

SYSTEM:
I am running a late 2005 pb g4 1.5 ghz with 1.25 gig ram. I have 14 gig set aside for linux.

Thanks in advance for the help!
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Re: PowerBook G4, touch pad, suspend/hibernate

Postby rajoletes » 01 Jun 2009, 19:38

I know that... the touch pad is your problem. Standby cant work because linux dosent knows mac standby code. :) :D :( :o :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :) :lol: :x :lol:
RUNNING fat ps3 purchased christmas 2008 for 300$ AND 2005 Powerbook G4 AL got as present
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Re: PowerBook G4, touch pad, suspend/hibernate

Postby aguilarojo » 24 Aug 2009, 02:59

pbg42005 wrote:Hello all,
I recently installed YDL 6.0.1 or 6.1, which ever the newest release is. In any event I am a comp sci student, but somewhat new to Linux, been using a basic command line version for some time now. I was running Fedora 10, but could not get it to suspend and had read that YDL was more tuned towards the ppc and apple computers. Here are my issues, any suggestions, links, etc would be greatly appreciated.

1. The touchpad is almost unusable on this machine, it randomly clicks when i am trying to move it around the screen, and is very unresponsive. I was able to get the touchpad drivers running on Fedora, but I can't seem to replicate my success.

2. Hibernate... I know this is a big problem for Linux. When i click the suspend button the computer fads to black and then immediately prompts me for my password with out suspending or hibernating. When I log back into GNOME i am told that there was an error durning hibernation and to follow a dead link. I tried grep something thing or another to see if it "can" hibernate, i get false for general hibernate, false for to disk but true for to ram. When i was running Fedora, the screen would be come distorted and then the system would freeze, i figured it was bad video drivers.

3. If anyone has any general advice for optimizing YDL on a powerbook I would appreciate it.

SYSTEM:
I am running a late 2005 pb g4 1.5 ghz with 1.25 gig ram. I have 14 gig set aside for linux.

Thanks in advance for the help!


I'm running YDL 6.2 on a PB as well. I've no troubles that you've reported. Your description about using the powerkey/suspend button and then YDL blacking out is the way it's supposed to function. The idea is so that you can close the lid and go about your business on other tasks. When that is done open the PB lid and press the powerkey again and you should be back in your screen. What you mentioned about being asked your password sounds like there could be two different problems.

First, when you installed YDL you should have set up two different accounts one for root or System Administrator (for typical programmers/SA work erasing files, making/destroying partitions, creating networks, etc. and of course - programming). The other account is for using applications as a user. They have different purposes and should have different passwords. I've observed a lot of persons get into trouble with various Unix/Linux systems because they weren't aware of these differences and ignored them.

Second, Gnome and other desktop environments behave rather differently depending upon if you activated either the screensaver or sleep function to show the screensaver or sleep together with the option to lock the screen in which case you will see with the screensaver or sleep mode exactly that message you complain about -- that a password is required. In that case, the user password is expected. However, if you didn't define which password is for what you'll be kept out because the system won't know whether you intend to have root or user functions.

Interesting basic problems for a Comp. Sci. student. The simple answer is to make sure your root and user accounts are distinct with separate passwords. Also investigate your screensaver and sleep/battery/power mode settings from within Gnome or whatever desktop environment you are using within YDL. If you are using YDL 6.0/6.1 and certainly 6.2 you'll still have to check what I've recommended but you should not be having problems with the trackpad. I've been using YDL for many years, I believe there may have been a problem that you report with the trackpad before v.6.0.1. I don't recall problems with YDL 6.1 and definitely not with YDL 6.2.

All the best...

Everything on the Earth has a purpose.
Every disease an herb to cure it.
And every person has a mission.
This is the Indian Theory of Existence.
-- Morning Dove, Salish (1888-1936)
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Re: PowerBook G4, touch pad, suspend/hibernate

Postby LinuxKitten » 13 May 2011, 19:40

I'm quite aware that I'm posting in a pretty old thread, but I wanted to come on here to thank aguilarojo for his (her?) advice. It's very much appreciated! I haven't utilized any of your suggestions just yet, but seeing as you're experiencing many of the same computer issues as pbg, it may be useful. I also have a Powerbook G4 and I've only recently installed that particular version of YDL on there. My touchpad is working just fine, but it simply won't go into hibernation mode. Really, really odd.

Either way, I'll have to give these suggestions a shot. If they don't work, then I guess I'm stuck getting a new computer. This one is gettin' pretty old anyway. Has anyone used hhgregg to get a new computer? How are they?

Thanks, folks! =)
Last edited by LinuxKitten on 14 May 2011, 16:37, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: PowerBook G4, touch pad, suspend/hibernate

Postby aguilarojo » 13 May 2011, 21:10

LinuxKitten wrote:I'm quite aware that I'm posting in a pretty old thread, but I wanted to come on here to thank aguilarojo for his (her?) advice. It's very much appreciated! I haven't utilized any of your suggestions just yet, but seeing as you're experiencing many of the same computer issues as pbg, it may be useful. I also have a Powerbook G4 and I've only recently installed that particular version of YDL on there. My touchpad is working just fine, but it simply won't go into hibernation mode. Really, really odd.

Either way, I'll have to give these suggestions a shot. If they don't work, then I guess I'm stuck getting a new computer. This one is gettin' pretty old anyway. Has anyone used hhgregg to get a new computer? How are they?

Thanks, folks! =)


Hi Irene, I'm male, and it's nice that you find the information I posted potentially useful. Regarding your problem with hibernation mode, if you access this reference page here you'll find that at least one Powerbook G4 (Apple PowerBook 12" 867MHz-1.33GHz G4, 2003-04) when running YDL that the hibernation/sleep mode will not function. Note the comment that instead of sleeping (or being in hibernation) those models continue running. When that reference (which I provided the link to) was written the company (Terra Soft Solutions) which wrote those comments still existed. Terra Soft Solutions was sold and absorbed into Fixstars which is why the webpage title is under Fixstar's name and logo.

Since you acquired the G4 you should also have the original Apple system disks which came with that particular model laptop. If you do you can run OS X and YDL, booting from one to the other operating system with no difficulty. The advantage to do this is that the graphic/movie and other visual based stuff is much better within OS X than YDL. The cause of that difference is related to the software which PowerPC based Linux (including YDL) was permitted to have access to via legal licensing. This was a challenge for Terra Soft Solutions and remains a difficulty for Fixstars.

Returning to dual-booting between OS X and YDL, the preparation and installation process involved to do this correctly takes some study of this document which is here. If you have difficulty feel free to write here in this thread.

All the best...

P.S. My real first name is Derick. Good Luck!

Everything on the Earth has a purpose.
Every disease an herb to cure it.
And every person has a mission.
This is the Indian Theory of Existence.
-- Morning Dove, Salish (1888-1936)
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Re: PowerBook G4, touch pad, suspend/hibernate

Postby andyx » 09 Jan 2012, 14:06

PowerBook 5,6
(G4e 1,67GHz)

PROM default disables any sort of hibernation.
http://www.hutsby.net/2009/08/deep-slee ... rbook.html
You need OSX dualboot to enable it.

Also I changed prom battery recently (2 hours of completely tearing down computer and putting it back together) when started to get 1970 and PROM getting to defaults (effectively killing hibernate on and on again)
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Re: PowerBook G4, touch pad, suspend/hibernate

Postby trnunes » 19 Aug 2013, 21:19

Hello all,

I thought I should respond, as at least one poster stated that the touch pad issues originally reported in this thread don't exist in new YDL distributions. I'm running the latest YDL distro on an Apple iBook G4 (downloaded/installed a little over a month ago, in June of 2013), and am experience the exact same erratic, frustrating touch pad issues (i.e. phantom clicks via the touch pad, cursor randomly jumping/selecting (and therefore deleting upon next character typed) here and there, etc). Though I've developed a healthy appreciation for Ctrl-Z, any assistance/guidance in tweaking/fixing the operation of the touch pad would be greatly appreciated!


Sincerely,

Tim N.
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Re: PowerBook G4, touch pad, suspend/hibernate

Postby trnunes » 22 Aug 2013, 15:06

Leon & other iBook G4 users of YDL 6.2 suffering from the frustrations of 'phantom mouse clicks',

I believe I've solved this problem. The problem appears to be caused by the fact that, though the Synaptics Touchpad driver *is* installed in a default YDL 6.2 installation, it is not *configured* as a Synaptics Touchpad. In such a configuration, the installed Synaptics driver simply operates in mouse emulation mode... Which, as you and I well know, can cause a normally sane person to self-medicate in mass quantities. ;-)

The solution? Through the help of a post on the Debian wiki (https://wiki.debian.org/MacBook#Synaptics_Touchpad), I was able to edit my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to properly enable the features of the Synaptics Touchpad driver *and* (here's the most important part) DISABLE THE TOUCHPAD'S 'TAP AND CLICK' support. Here are the steps I took:

1.) Open a terminal window
2.) "su -" and enter root password
3.) "cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorgconf.org" (creating a backup of your X11 config file, just in case you screw something up)
4.) "gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf" (here's where you edit the file, referencing my edited xorg.conf file pasted below)
5.) Save your edited xorg.conf file in gedit, exit out of su mode, exit out of term, reboot (or reinit... I chose to reboot)

That's all there is to it. I've typed this entire post with ZERO 'phantom click issues' (e.g. no cursor jumping around unexpectedly, no unexpected selections/deletions of text, etc.) for the first time EVER (YAY!!!!). Here's my edited xorg.conf file, so you can replicate my own edits (NOTE: I simply REM'arked ("#") out the generic "mouse0" references/section and added the "Synaptics Touchpad" lines/section. I made no other edits to my file. Again, see below...):

# Tim N.'s edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to better support the Synaptics Touchpad on an Apple iBook G4
# File generated by Xautoconfig.
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "XFree86 Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
# InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
Option "OffTime" "10"
EndSection

Section "Files"
# RgbPath is the location of the RGB database. Note, this is the name of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db"). There is normally
# no need to change the default.

# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.

FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/korean:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/cyrillic:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-2/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-2/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-2/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-9/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-9/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-9/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/KOI8-R/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/KOI8-R/75dpi:unscaled"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
#Load "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
# Change "XkbModel" to "macintosh_old" if you are using
# the deprecated adb keycodes.
Option "XkbModel" "macintosh"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

# Section "InputDevice"
# Identifier "Mouse0"
# Driver "mouse"
# Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
# Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
# Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
# EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "SHMConfig" "true"
Option "MaxTapTime" "0"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
Option "VertScrollDelta" "30"
Option "TapButton1" "0"
Option "TapButton2" "0"
Option "TapButton3" "0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
ModelName "Monitor Model"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 30-70
VertRefresh 50-160

EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
#Option "ShadowFB" "true"
#Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb0"
Driver "fbdev"
#BusID "0:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 15
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Group 0
Mode 0666
EndSection
#End of TRNunes' edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf file

Enjoy!

~ TRNunes, 08/22/13
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Re: PowerBook G4, touch pad, suspend/hibernate

Postby trnunes » 16 Sep 2013, 21:00

All,

One caveat to my prior G4 touch pad fix... I've since discovered that said fix ceases to work after a suspend/resume. If you never suspend/resume, it's a non-issue. I believe the problem lies in a script (or scripts) related to suspend/resume, but haven't had time to further debug the problem. I've simply been avoiding suspending/resuming.

Sincerely,

~ T.R. Nunes, 09/16/13
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