Running Linux, Third Edition

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.

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.

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.

LinuxPPC 4.0 and 4.1 Video Issues

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