Hi all,
Whilst I don't use Debian on my PowerBook G4 (I use Gentoo), I'll still post my
experiences as they are essentially generic across all distros :) Be warned,
some of this info may be a bit out of date - they are from my experiences a
month ago (deleted linux when I sent it in for white spot repair and I'm
reinstalling it right now as I type :)..
First, 2.4.x doesn't work too nicely (obvious) but 2.6.0-testX works fine
(brightness buttons, volume control etc). I got the eject key to work by
changing the value of the keycode in the pbbuttonsd config to the value shown
by "showkey". Eject worked fine after that. I have a feeling that the maximum
brightness in Linux isn't as bright as it is in Mac OS X - any ideas?
About headphones, they don't work brilliantly. Yes, when I plug in the
headphones the internal speakers mute and the audio is sent to the headphones,
but if I change the volume with the volume keys with the headphones plugged in,
the audio comes out the internal speakers again. No idea if this is a
pbbuttonsd/kernel/powerbook issue, but I seem to remember I didn't have the
trouble if I used kmix instead of the volume keys. Haven't tested line in..
FireWire 400 worked fine with my external hard disc. Like the previous poster,
I don't have any 800 devices to test..
Graphics worked fine with 2.6.0 and XFree86 from CVS. Wouldn't work with one or
the other - I needed both on for it to work. 3D accel didn't work (as expected)
and I got about 120fps in glxgears iirc..
Clock slewing not sorted out yet - machine runs at 765MHz with a FSB clock of
102MHz. /proc/cpuinfo lies about it being 1250MHz :) You can tell this because
the bogomips rating is way down in the ~750 region, when it should be up in the
~1200 (I believe). The kernel needs a driver written for cpufreq that will work
with this machine. Until then I'm using distcc between my tibook and albook :)
Keyboard seems to work fine with all the keys... Backlighting doesn't work.
Trackpad etc works..
Haven't tested PCMCIA, but I presume it works as it seems to be the same as on
the tibook? Haven't tested DVI out either, and I don't expect it to work.
USB/USB2 seems to work fine (OHCI for USB and EHCI for USB2 afaict)..
SuperDrive should have no trouble working with scsi emulation. Haven't tried it
yet, but I don't see why it shouldn't work..
Ethernet works and AirPort Extreme doesn't (bloody broadcom!).
Bluetooth is recognised as an "unrecognised USB device" according to dmesg, but
I don't have any bluetooth stuff so I don't care :)
Sorry if any of this information has already been mentioned..
Regards,
George
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