Video Playback on PowerPC Linux

In my testing of Lubuntu and Ubuntu-MATE on my iBook G4 one things that I notice often is that when playing back video using mpv my overall CPU usage spike to the high 90s. The fan on my machine start spinning really loud and fast. I thought I would do a comparison of with Debian to see how they compare. Here are some of my findings.

Machine

iBook G4
1.42 GHz CPU
1.5 GB RAM

These findings are based on lxtask

LXDE and Openbox

Overal CPU average 50%-60%
MPV process 30%-40%
RAM 140MB

The fans not once came one and there only brief spikes to 80%-90% CPU usage.

XFCE

Overal CPU average 70%-80%
MPV process 30%-40%
RAM 240MB

Even with the higher numbers due to XFCE being a heavier desktop than LXDE, video playback did not cause my fans to run. As much as I love Ubuntu based distros Debian is by far the better performer. I believe a lot of it is due how I set up Debian. When I installed the system I manually chose what applications and services were installed on my machine. Ubuntu on the other hand chooses for you what comes with the desktop. The advantage to this is you get a compete working system pretty easily. The cost of this is have a performance hit. On newer machines this may not be a big deal but on older G3 and G4 PPC machines it is a great deal. You get no more than 2GB of RAM on some machines, and a single processor for the iBooks and PowerBooks. I would never say stop using Lubuntu or Ubuntu-MATE, however give Debian a try. Yes it will take some more work than Ubuntu, however the benefits of running it are great.

Compiz on Lubuntu 14.04

I reinstalled Lubuntu 14.04 on my iBook G4 to see if I can get compiz working on it. The first thing I did was install mesa packages that were patched to enable 3D acceleration on radeon r300 drivers. You can find them here. Then you will need to install the following:


rican-linux@ibookG4-lubuntu:~$ dpkg -l |grep compiz
ii  compiz                                  1:0.9.11.3+14.04.20150313-0ubuntu1    all          OpenGL window and compositing manager
ii  compiz-core                             1:0.9.11.3+14.04.20150313-0ubuntu1    powerpc      OpenGL window and compositing manager
ii  compiz-fusion-bcop                      0.8.4-1.1                             all          Compiz Fusion option code generator
ii  compiz-gnome                            1:0.9.11.3+14.04.20150313-0ubuntu1    powerpc      OpenGL window and compositing manager - GNOME window decorator
ii  compiz-plugins                          1:0.9.11.3+14.04.20150313-0ubuntu1    powerpc      OpenGL window and compositing manager - plugins
ii  compiz-plugins-default                  1:0.9.11.3+14.04.20150313-0ubuntu1    powerpc      OpenGL window and compositing manager - default plugins
ii  compiz-plugins-extra                    1:0.9.11.3+14.04.20150313-0ubuntu1    all          transitional dummy package.
ii  compiz-plugins-main                     1:0.9.11.3+14.04.20150313-0ubuntu1    all          transitional dummy package.
ii  compiz-plugins-main-default             1:0.9.11.3+14.04.20150313-0ubuntu1    all          transitional dummy package.
ii  compizconfig-settings-manager           1:0.9.11.3+14.04.20150313-0ubuntu1    all          Compiz configuration settings manager
ii  libcompizconfig0                        1:0.9.11.3+14.04.20150313-0ubuntu1    powerpc      Settings library for plugins - OpenCompositing Project
ii  python-compizconfig                     1:0.9.11.3+14.04.20150313-0ubuntu1    powerpc      Compizconfig bindings for python
rican-linux@ibookG4-lubuntu:~$

Once you have these installed open compizconfig and enable the following

1. composite
2. opengl
3. gnome compatibility
4. copy to texture
5. expose
6. desktop cube
7. rotate cube
8. animations
9. window decoration
10. application switcher
11. maxiumize
12. move window
13. resize window
14. place windows
15. ring switcher

After you have at least these settings then enter the following compiz --replace ccp &

You will also need to set these to get the cube working goto:

general options ->Desktop Size 
  Horizontal Virtual Size =4
  Vertical Vitual Size =1

Now you can hit super+s to see the expo and CTRL+ALT+L Click to rotate the cube. Most of the plugins work, wobbly windows, fire paint, and show mouse options work as well. I am still working change the default theme (If anyone has suggestions please share!)

Luigi does it again and new OS on my iBook

Luigi Burdo has done a great service in showing how the PowerPC platform is not dead but can still be used in 2015. The video he shared with the Mac Mini running Ubuntu MATE was fantastic. I called it at the time the best Linux on PowerPC video on the web. Well Luigi just raised the bar again with this latest one. In the following video he is displaying Lubuntu 14.04 on Powermac G5 Quad Core with a RadeonHD 6570 video card. Watch and enjoy!

Also I have been using my iBook G4 as a testing machine. Trying different distros and applications. Mostly I have been testing with Debian and Ubuntu, but i have been thinking about trying others as well. Luigi is reporting success with OpenSUSE 13.2 if anyone wants to try. I have decided to install Gentoo. I just got the GUI up and working and still doing more tests before I go into a full review. It is more work to get, but if you have any familiarity with Arch then it is a similar process. More on Gentoo to come!

Adventures in MATE, Lubuntu, and Debian Jessie

It has been a few weeks since I have posted anything and they have been busy ones! I have been putting the iBook to the test loading Lubuntu 14.04 and 15.04, Ubuntu-MATE 14.04 and 15.04, also Debian Jessie. So here is a quick run down of my thoughts on these distros.

14.04 Lubuntu and Ubuntu-MATE

The install of these distros was as expected. No real hiccups to report. I did notice that some web pages did not load correctly in firefox but they would fine on Iceweasel in Debian. There were not many but it was annoying. Also without some compositing (ie using compton) video playback was choppy. Now one thing that di1 d excite me was in the Ubuntu-MATE release notes there are patched .deb files for mesa and .deb files for Compiz. So obviously I installed them to see if I can get some sweet 3D compositing! Well it was a little buggy but I did get the cube up! (see screenshot below).

15.04 Lubuntu and Ubuntu-MATE

Beta1 of Ubuntu-MATE ran really well. I have posted a really nice screenshot of my desktop with Numix based themes and icons. However Beta2 was a total bust! When I upgraded MATE it crashed my system completely. Lubuntu would not even load the live iso and MATE would crash when I try. There is active bug report on Launch Pad detailing it. If you are similar issues please post them there.

Debian Jessie

I am huge fan of Debian. My PowerBook G4 is running stable due to its reliability. I first ran Jessie months ago and was caught by surprise with some of the issues I ran across. Now coming back to it with a lot more experience with Linux on PowerPC it was a much smoother experience. There have been some great improvements since the last time I ran Jessie. Getting KMS going is not the pain it once was due mostly to know what parameters to set on boot (see my previous post here). Video playback was great and overall there is not much negative to say. There two areas that got annoyed me. First was the sound. You need to enable the snd-aoa-i2sbus module to enable alsamixer, however even after I got that working there was no sound. I need to install the pauvcontrol package to finally enable sound. Second there has been a long standing javascript bug that broke GTK web browsers in Ubuntu and Debian Jessie. Finally there is a patch that fixed this issue! Hopefully will be making it to both the Debain and Ubuntu repos soon. Also it looks like Jessie is set for official release on April 25. I will be looking forward to it!