Some actual progress. The trick was to prevent Open Firmware to provide the framebuffer for us (??does that even make sense??).
Before; [ 0.740726] Using unsupported 800x600 ATY,RockHopper2_A at 9c008000, depth=8, pitch=1024 [ 0.750458] Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 100x37 [ 0.759850] fb0: Open Firmware frame buffer device on /pci@f0000000/ATY,RockHopper2Parent@10/ATY,RockHopper2_A@0 Change: # echo 'append="nomodeset video=offb:off"' >> /etc/yaboot.conf # reboot At this point should have nothing associated with framebuffer. Then simply `modprobe radeonfb`: [ 86.282273] radeonfb 0000:00:10.0: enabling device (0006 -> 0007) [ 86.483645] radeonfb 0000:00:10.0: Invalid PCI ROM header signature: expecting 0xaa55, got 0x0000 [ 86.483671] radeonfb (0000:00:10.0): Invalid ROM signature 0 should be 0xaa55 [ 86.483681] radeonfb: Retrieved PLL infos from Open Firmware [ 86.483690] radeonfb: Reference=27.00 MHz (RefDiv=12) Memory=190.00 Mhz, System=250.00 MHz [ 86.483700] radeonfb: PLL min 12000 max 35000 [ 86.582586] i2c i2c-7: unable to read EDID block. [ 86.734169] i2c i2c-7: unable to read EDID block. [ 86.885653] i2c i2c-7: unable to read EDID block. [ 87.115918] radeonfb: Monitor 1 type CRT found [ 87.115932] radeonfb: EDID probed [ 87.115938] radeonfb: Monitor 2 type CRT found [ 87.115943] radeonfb: EDID probed [ 87.128299] Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 210x65 [ 87.144004] radeonfb (0000:00:10.0): ATI Radeon 5962 "Yb" Turns out: everything works as expected ! `fim` happily display a nice red or blue bmp image. dmesg output is still very nicely coloured. Maybe the issue is directly in d-i where PPC is setup with a different layout for some reason.
