Getting Hardware to Do What You Want It to Do (Running Linux)

D.6. Getting Hardware to Do What You Want It to Do

Although the PowerMac does not present the variety of hardware--and therefore the variety of configuration problems--that come with Intel systems, there are some issues you may run into when running Linux on it.

D.6.1. Single-Button Mice

The fact that every Mac ships with a one-button mouse is a bit of a problem in a three-button mouse universe. To get around that, LinuxPPC's developers have used keyboard emulation of the other two buttons. On an ADB keyboard, Option-2 and Option-3 act as the middle and right mouse buttons, respectively. On the iMac and Blue G3 keyboards, the numeric keypad's Clear and Equal sign (=) act as the middle and right mouse buttons.

You can also buy inexpensive three-button mice and trackballs for both ADB and USB Macintoshes. LinuxPPC ships with a tiny program called mousemode, which lets you configure LinuxPPC for multibutton mice.

D.6.2. PowerBook Trackpads

Owners of Apple PowerBooks can use the trackpad to its fullest extent with versions 2.1.130 and higher of the Linux/PPC kernel. A tiny utility built into the system, called trackpad, lets you configure how the trackpad functions under LinuxPPC. The trackpad program can be run only by root.

To enable tapping, dragging, and drag lock, type trackpad drag lock. To turn off everything but tapping, type trackpad tap. And if you want the trackpad completely disabled, except for being able to move the pointer, type trackpad notap.

D.6.3. LinuxPPC 4.0 and 4.1 Video Issues

You have to use LinuxPPC for only a few minutes to notice that the video is rather slow, especially on the newer Apple G3 computers. The reasons for this are twofold. First, the portion of X Window System software that draws the GUI has no video acceleration. The second is that the version of KDE that shipped with R4 and 4.1 is also very slow, especially compared to KDE 1.1 and later versions. To improve the situation, you can do a few things:

Upgrade to Version 2.2.4 or higher of the Linux/PPC kernel. Graphics are noticeably faster in the 2.2.4 kernel and will continue to improve in subsequent versions. The newest version of the kernel is available from ftp://ftp.linuxppc.org/linuxppc/kernel/.

Install KDE 1.1 or use a different window manager.

LinuxPPC 4.x shipped with the KDE, AfterStep, twm, and fvwm2 window managers. Release 5.0 has GNOME and WindowMaker, as well as a new version of KDE. (GNOME and WindowMaker are also available for Release 4.0.)

Upgrade to Release 5.0 if you're using LinuxPPC Feb98, 4.0 or 4.1. The new release has accelerated X servers built in. If you don't want to upgrade to R5, you can install the Xpmac_mga X server. The Xpmac_mga server runs on Power Macintoshes with IxMicro TwinTurbo cards, most ATI video cards, and Matrox MGAxx64 cards. Instructions for installing the Xpmac_mga server are at http://www.linuxppc.org/userguide/xpmac_mga.shtml.