MacPro and Wayland now!

Desktop Environments Gnome
1

Hello gnome fellows,
Here is my first participation, saying I have much to look for and to read in order to set up my newly install EndaevourOS MacPro 5.1 (2012).
First, here is my hardware:

[philippe@macpro ~]$ inxi -Fxxxx
System:    Host: macpro Kernel: 5.13.6-arch1-1 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0 Desktop: GNOME 40.3 tk: GTK 3.24.30 
           wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM 40.1 Distro: EndeavourOS base: Arch Linux 
Machine:   Type: Desktop System: Apple product: MacPro5,1 v: 0.0 serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 7 v: Mac-F221BEC8 
           serial: <superuser required> 
           Mobo: Apple model: Mac-F221BEC8 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Apple v: MP51.88Z.0089.B00.1806081708 
           date: 06/08/18 
CPU:       Info: Quad Core model: Intel Xeon W3530 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Nehalem rev: 5 cache: L2: 8 MiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 44699 
           Speed: 1596 MHz min/max: 1596/2926 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1596 2: 1953 3: 1646 4: 1596 5: 1596 
           6: 1596 7: 1600 8: 1925 
Graphics:  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Juniper XT [Radeon HD 5770] vendor: Apple MacPro5 1 driver: radeon 
           v: kernel bus-ID: 05:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:68b8 class-ID: 0300 
           Display: wayland server: X.org 1.20.13 compositor: gnome-shell driver: loaded: ati,radeon 
           unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa resolution: <missing: xdpyinfo> 
           Message: Unable to show advanced data. Required tool glxinfo missing. 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 82801JI HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:3a3e class-ID: 0403 
           Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Juniper HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 5700 Series] vendor: Apple 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 05:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:aa58 class-ID: 0403 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.13.6-arch1-1 running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.19 running: no 
           Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes 
           Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.32 running: no 
Network:   Device-1: Intel 82574L Gigabit Network driver: e1000e v: kernel port: 2000 bus-ID: 09:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:10f6 
           class-ID: 0200 
           IF: enp9s0 state: down mac: XXXX 
           Device-2: Intel 82574L Gigabit Network driver: e1000e v: kernel port: 1000 bus-ID: 0a:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:10f6 
           class-ID: 0200 
           Device-3: Broadcom BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN vendor: Apple AirPort Extreme driver: wl v: kernel port: 1000 
           bus-ID: 0d:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:432b class-ID: 0280 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: XXXX 
           IF-ID-1: enp10s0 state: down mac: XXXX
Bluetooth: Device-1: Apple Built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR HCI type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 5-1.1:3 chip-ID: 05ac:8215 
           class-ID: fe01 serial: 040CCEEDB205 
           Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: down bt-service: disabled rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes 
           address: see --recommends 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 223.57 GiB used: 10.07 GiB (4.5%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Crucial model: CT240BX500SSD1 size: 223.57 GiB speed: 3.0 Gb/s rotation: SSD 
           serial: 2106E4F3C851 rev: 041 scheme: GPT 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 126.6 GiB used: 10.05 GiB (7.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3 
           ID-2: /boot/efi size: 196.9 MiB used: 20.2 MiB (10.3%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1 
Swap:      Alert: No swap data was found. 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 39.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: radeon temp: 41.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 270 Uptime: 7h 17m wakeups: 2 Memory: 15.62 GiB used: 2.61 GiB (16.7%) Init: systemd v: 249 Compilers: 
           gcc: 11.1.0 Packages: pacman: 1010 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.8 running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.05 
[philippe@macpro ~]$

I guess I could not do everything at once, I plan to focus first on swap choice, Bluetooth driver and wayland compatible packages. Last one was a real surprise :astonished:

With 16 Go Ram, I hesitated between swapfile and systemd-swap, zram-generator, heard also about zram and consorts… For now OS only use 3 Go ram max. Choices to be made… and many web pages to read first here and at wiki.archlinux, as I’m just a happy linux beginner
Cheers

5 Likes
2

Welcome aboard. Nice vintage machine.

:+1: :clap:

3

:scream: love my 2011 macbook pro :innocent:

4

I mean it may struggle with contemporary patterns, but it will power the loom with nice Victorian style ornaments.

:heart_eyes:

PS: Rocking a mere two year older i7-4790 here, so no hard feelings. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

1 Like
5

555555 no hard feeling.

1 Like
6

Thank you, but “classic MacPro”, aka cMP, are kind of warhorse compared to what apple sells nowadays. Plus they can be upgraded easily :slightly_smiling_face:

7

I’m somewhat familiar, the last cheese grater I handled was a 2008 model.

Afair you have to have a graphic card with a Mac-compatible ROM if you wanted to upgrade the GPU. I assume with Linux any graphic card should do it, which should be a nice initial upgrade?

8

Don’t forget to avoid Nvidia, PIA for linux, and no driver ever for latest macOS. But I don’t care about macOS, my MacPro are just stuck with 10.13. I plan to migrate every mac I have on linux, and I’m no gamer, so no GPU upgrade for now. Some pages shows nice upgrade cMP despite all. My only concern with graphic acceleration would be OpenCL to work with darktable…

9

Probably you can hack it or forceload the kext (driver)

For MacOS Catalina any GCN amd card and up should work (7850 and up)

2 Likes
10

Looks totally brand new to me! :floppy_disk:+ :penguin_face:= :rocketa_purple:

11

Install zram-generator today along with zram-generator-defaults (discover w/ pamac-aur!). Pretty fine after reboot and swap file seems ok

[philippe@macpro ~]$ free -h
               total       utilisé      libre     partagé tamp/cache   disponible
Mem:            15Gi       1,2Gi        13Gi        99Mi       898Mi        13Gi
Partition d'Ă©change:      8,0Gi          0B       8,0Gi

It seems useless to go higher than 8G, even if my machine have 16G ram.
Return to sleep was a bit long before, I will have to check if it faster or not. Anyway, I fell safer with a swap file than none.
Edit: return to sleep is now faster and never fail, no hard reboot so far.

Inxi give now:

Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default)   cache-pressure: 100 (default)

Don’t know how to optimize these settings for zram ?

Next will be the bluetooth driver, have to check why it is not available

12

Bluetooth service is not enabled in EnOS by default. Please have a look at:

https://discovery.endeavouros.com/bluetooth/bluetooth/2021/03/

13

Thanks for the link, It’s quite convenient to enable bluetooth for single session use… I will read thru the all article pretty soon. For now I still have a wire mouse and keyboard :grin:

1 Like
14

I binned a Powermac G5 Quad just over a year ago :disappointed:.

15

I still have one in my cellar, the one with liquid cooling, bought in 2003. It’s not booting anymore and I plan to give it to a friend… :anguished:

16

Yup. I was always worried I was going to find a puddle under that thing one day. The firewire controller on mine fried.

17

I’m not a fan of the “but you could buy new hardware for a fraction of the price with double the performance and a quarter the energy consumption”-argument. But in case of a G5 it’s a probably valid reasoning. Also keeping a PowerPC linux setup maintained isn’t that straight forward anymore.

It hurts the soul, but it is what it is. :confused:

18

welcome at your purpled MAC endeavour :rocketa_purple:

1 Like
19

After reading the op I really ant to install EOS on my old 3.1 Mac Pro. :stuck_out_tongue:

20

Installing is a piece of cake, it is working at first reboot. I installed eOS aside from a fresh MacOS 10.13. If you still have the ATI GPU, give it a try!