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PowerPC w/ Debian 8, fonts not rendering

Graphical Environments, Managers, Multimedia & Desktop questions.
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xepan
Posts: 89
Joined: 2018-11-28 06:38

Re: PowerPC w/ Debian 8, fonts not rendering

#21 Post by xepan »

I am with GarryRicketson as far Sid is concerned. I think you said you run openbox, so no full DE, which makes it even less likely to break.
Thing is: it can break. If someone wants to avoid that at all cost, then Sid is not the right choice.
I for one avoid Sid on the ppc (as of yet), as i am really not good with how i would do most basic troubleshooting on the powerpc (say reinstall the bootloader, yaboot?, how to chroot it, main problem here would be to find a working live CD, and re-installing and configuring can take quite some time. On a PC i do it in what? half an hour? like that).

But ! : as you only have the choice between old-stable/jessie, which very soon won't be even old-stable anymore (but what? stoneage-old-stable? :-) ) or Sid i think it is worth a shot.
Or, as many have already said, switch to OpenBSD right away (i guess that is what i will do in the future).
If people will complain: oh, ah, uh, why the heck you running Sid, you can answer: i go no choice.

Sid: install apt-listbugs, install apt-changelog (?), run updates really often, once a day won't hurt, once a week i would consider the absolute minimum.

My two cents, good luck with your original problem (fonts), of which i have no clue.
You sure you are running the correct graphics driver? (i guess yes, but enter the graphic card model as a searchterm at wiki.debian.org anyway. Perhaps it will show a minor detail you are missing regarding that card when using it on a powerpc. There are quite some pages, but they are not easy to find).

for your lulz: for me jessie makes pretty much all web-browsers segfault. Firefox doesn't, but it is way too slow to be usable, netsurf and dillo both work (but ... well ... i got used to it). No sound before days of searching and fiddling, etc. It sure is a challenge to use a ppc ... :-) , but the good thing: you are not alone, and it sure isn't you who adds problems, which others won't easily understand :-) Anyone who makes the OS boot at all is a winner in my book

hirek
Posts: 11
Joined: 2018-12-24 07:56

Re: PowerPC w/ Debian 8, fonts not rendering

#22 Post by hirek »

Hi, thanks for your detailed opinion, yes! So the purpose of this ancient machine is for me to compile and test my self-written executables in light mode (meaning a low number of Monte Carlo reps) before I run jobs on a Debian-based cluster while my dad likes to check email and navigate to the occasional website, maybe once every 2 weeks, hence the lightweight ambitions.

And the G4 is not fast, Lubuntu was crawling along, despite 1GB of RAM. It also seems overly stuffed for being 'lightware.' Tbh I don't see the point of having excessively many utilities with GUIs if one has to resort to terminal anyway at the slightest indication of something breaking. Case in point: Lubuntu capped the resolution at 1024x768 although my hardware can do more (1920x1080) and the resolution was an epic thread https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1743535 of command lining, so I headed straight back to a DIY Debian.

When you said
run updates often
, does that mean that Sid, even for PowerPC, is still being developed? The thing with Jessie is that it seems the admins are currently looking for companies or any private and qualified entity to keep maintaining it as they have already stopped with security updates, not sure if they find someone but there may be Jessie servers out there that do what they do well and just need attention if a hole is discovered, which is what I think they mean. (E.g. security.debian.org is no longer available for Jessie, all that IPv6 deactivation for nought...)

And thank you for the hint, so my next steps shall be to create the config file and try this here https://wiki.debian.org/ATIProprietary# ... 2Jessie.22 which seems to go a bit beyond what PPC Luddite recommends to do in order to deal with Radeons. Without any 'non-free' driver Xorg won't even start but with it did. I find it difficult to see that it would be a graphics card issue when everything goes ok save the fonts in particular system menus, especially where the phenomenon would only pop up on a subset of the apps installed. So I am not expecting loads from taking care of the driver though playing by Debian's rules won't hurt I am sure. Next branch of the tree is to strong-arm the fonts by using non-compatible ones which has worked before but this time with Openbox not XFCE. If those two avenues fail, I shall go with OpenBSD and hopefully not look back if it came to that.


Thanks so much, you guys are awesome!

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Head_on_a_Stick
Posts: 14114
Joined: 2014-06-01 17:46
Location: London, England
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Re: PowerPC w/ Debian 8, fonts not rendering

#23 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

hirek wrote:Without any 'non-free' driver Xorg won't even start but with it did
Did you install the non-free firmware that is required by the open source AMD drivers for full performance?

Pro tip: check the Debian wiki rather than random blogs (and ask here if you're not sure).
deadbang

hirek
Posts: 11
Joined: 2018-12-24 07:56

Re: PowerPC w/ Debian 8, fonts not rendering

#24 Post by hirek »

Hah good point, ok by
Did you install the non-free firmware that is required by the open source AMD drivers for full performance
?
did you mean

Code: Select all

sudo aptitude install firmware-linux-nonfree
. Yes that was necessary for any kind of desktop.

And your point is very good, I just discovered this gem:
https://wiki.debian.org/PowerPC/FAQ#How ... working.3F which makes reference to garbled text..
Will report back!

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