Display problems with Debian install on Imac G5 ppc64

roelwag · 04-30-2009, 10:16 AM

After upgrading a new install of debian on an 17" Imac-G5, the terminal output while booting freezes, the machine continues to boot and in the end is accessable with ssh, xorg however is not able to display anything.

The console display freezes after:

Apr 30 13:40:14 isight syslogd 1.5.0#5: restart.
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: klogd 1.5.0#5, log source = /proc/kmsg started.
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] DART table allocated at: c00000005f000000
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Using PowerMac machine description
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Page orders: linear mapping = 24, virtual = 12, io = 12, vmemmap = 24
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Found initrd at 0xc000000001c00000:0xc00000000256b400
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Found U4 memory controller & host bridge @ 0xf8000000 revision: 0x42
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Mapped at 0xd000080080000000
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Found a Shasta mac-io controller, rev: 0, mapped at 0xd000080080041000
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] PowerMac motherboard: iMac G5 (iSight)
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] DART IOMMU initialized for U4 type chipset
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] console [udbg0] enabled
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] CPU maps initialized for 1 thread per core
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] (thread shift is 0)
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Starting Linux PPC64 #1 SMP Sat Mar 14 07:05:27 UTC 2009
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] -----------------------------------------------------
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] ppc64_pft_size = 0x0
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] physicalMemorySize = 0x60000000
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] htab_address = 0xc00000005c000000
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] htab_hash_mask = 0x3ffff
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] -----------------------------------------------------
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Linux version 2.6.26-1-powerpc64 (Debian 2.6.26-13lenny2) (dannf@debian.org) (gcc version 4.1.3 20080704 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.2-25)) #1 SMP Sat Mar 14 07:05:27 UTC 2009
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] [boot]0012 Setup Arch
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Top of RAM: 0x60000000, Total RAM: 0x60000000
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Memory hole size: 0MB
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Entering add_active_range(0, 0, 393216) 0 entries of 256 used
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Found U4-PCIE PCI host bridge. Firmware bus number: 0->255
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] PCI host bridge /pci@0,f0000000 ranges:
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] MEM 0x00000000f1000000..0x00000000f1ffffff -> 0x00000000f1000000
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] IO 0x00000000f0000000..0x00000000f07fffff -> 0x0000000000000000
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] MEM 0x0000000090000000..0x000000009fffffff -> 0x0000000090000000
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Can't get bus-range for /ht@0,f2000000, assume bus 0
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Found U3-HT PCI host bridge. Firmware bus number: 0->239
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] PCI host bridge /ht@0,f2000000 (primary) ranges:
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] SMU: Driver 0.7 (c) 2005 Benjamin Herrenschmidt, IBM Corp.
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] nvram: Checking bank 0...
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] nvram: gen0=442, gen1=441
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] nvram: Active bank is: 0
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] nvram: OF partition at 0x410
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] nvram: XP partition at 0x1020
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] nvram: NR partition at 0x1120
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Zone PFN ranges:
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] DMA 0 -> 393216
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Normal 393216 -> 393216
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Movable zone start PFN for each node
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] early_node_map[1] active PFN ranges
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] 0: 0 -> 393216
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] On node 0 totalpages: 393216
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] DMA zone: 5376 pages used for memmap
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] DMA zone: 387840 pages, LIFO batch:31
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Normal zone: 0 pages used for memmap
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Movable zone: 0 pages used for memmap
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] [boot]0015 Setup Done
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Node order, mobility grouping on. Total pages: 387840
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Policy zone: DMA
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Kernel command line: root=/dev/sda3 ro
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] mpic: Setting up MPIC " MPIC 1 " version 1.2 at f8040000, max 4 CPUs
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] mpic: ISU size: 124, shift: 7, mask: 7f
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] mpic: Initializing for 124 sources
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] mpic: Setting up HT PICs workarounds for U3/U4
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] mpic: - HT:01.0 [0x90] vendor 106b device 0053 has 86 irqs
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] Failed to map cascade IRQ
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 12, 32768 bytes)
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] time_init: decrementer frequency = 33.333333 MHz
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] time_init: processor frequency = 1899.999996 MHz
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] clocksource: timebase mult[7800001] shift[22] registered
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000000] clockevent: decrementer mult[888] shift[16] cpu[0]
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.000988] Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Apr 30 13:40:14 isight kernel: [ 0.001814] console handover: boot [udbg0] -> real [tty0]

Anyone seen this problem?

Roel Wagenaar

Brains · 05-01-2009, 11:50 PM

According to Imac specs page, this computer should be using Nvidia graphics.
If you select the second kernel line at grub menu (the one that has "single user" in it), shortly after hitting enter you'll need to input your admin. password. Then have a look at the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file with command: less /etc/X11/xorg.conf, look to see what driver is being used in the "Device" section. It should be either vesa or nv, try editing this driver to use the other of these two as root, save the file and enter command: reboot. Let it reboot normally and see if you get graphics.