[WLUG] Mac G5 Black Screen after Linux Installs

Sat Apr 4 09:06:14 EDT 2015

>Ubuntu 12.04 works from the Live CD. 

This part is fascinating. It also makes be believe that you are not actually booting from the hard drive. Something is wrong with the boot loader? 

The troubleshooting steps are super sound. Can't wait to hear the results. 

Alan 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Josh Budde" <jbudde at med.umich.edu> 
To: "Washtenaw Linux Users Group (WLUG)" <washlug at washlug.org> 
Sent: Thursday, April 2, 2015 9:46:11 PM 
Subject: Re: [WLUG] Mac G5 Black Screen after Linux Installs 

A couple of things: 

1) Are you sure its actually booting after you complete the install? If you set a static IP during setup, can you ssh into the machine while the screen is blank? 
2) If you can’t get into it via SSH (or ping it) while its at the black screen, it may be failing to start out of the boot loader. Do you see the grub kernel selection/ubuntu splash screen at any stage? 

If you determine its the video driver crashing, what you’d want to do is determine which video driver is loaded by the live cd, mount the Ubuntu partition from the LiveCD, then manually configure X org to use the specified driver 

Josh 

On Apr 2, 2015, at 9:34 PM, Dave Coak < dave at davecoakaudio.com > wrote: 

I have a MAC PPC dual 2Ghz G5 processor desktop computer. I want 
it to dual boot into OS X as well as Linux. 
I have installed Ubuntu 10.04PPC without major problems. An 
attempt to install Ubuntu 12.04PPC resulted in a black screen on 
startup, as did Debian 7.8PPC 64 bit, Mint 11PPC 64 bit, and Kubuntu 
12.04 PPC 64bit. 
There is no prompt or blinking cursor at start up that would allow 
me to enter parameter or mode changes for the ATI 9600 graphics card 
in my G5. 
My reading has indicated that the Linux Kernel was changed before 
Ubuntu 12.04 that disabled the default driver that worked on my machine 
in Ubuntu 10.04. The Black screen after install is widely discussed 
with the MAC PPC G5 model with the ATI graphics card (there are driver 
problems with NVIDIA cards on my model as well). There are some fixes 
offered, but they require a command line or a start up prompt. Neither 
of which I have. 
I would like to have a newer OS installed on my G5, but I don't 
know how to make it work(my preference is Mint 11PPC 64 bit). 
Ubuntu 12.04 works from the Live CD. I have also tried Crux PPC 3.0 64 bit 
If anyone at WLUG has help and advice with this, please Help 
Thanks 
Dave Coak 
(new member) 
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