Moving powerpc to Debian Ports

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Hello!

Since Debian powerpc was recently announced to be removed as a release 
architecture,
I would like to formally request to move the port to Debian Ports as there 
still seems
to be quite some demand among users [1].

My suggestion would be to set up some instances on IBM's POWER cloud (hence 
CC'ing Breno
who has been so kind to provide cloud instances to support the ppc64 port with 
the
hope that he'd be willing to do the same for powerpc). I'm also CC'ing James 
Clarke
who's maintaining a fork of DSA's puppet configuration for the buildds and who 
can help
setting up the new buildd instances for Debian powerpc as a Debian Ports 
architecture.

As with the other architectures in Debian Ports, I suggest providing shared 
wanna-build
access among all Debian Ports maintainers (CC'ing everyone involved).

I really want to keep Debian powerpc maintained for the foreseeable future 
because I
don't want to disappoint our users who are still using PowerPC hardware.

Thanks,

Adrian

> [1] 
> https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5acfj4/debian_drops_support_for_powerpc/

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer - glaub...@debian.org
`. `'   Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de
  `-GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546  0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Herminio Hernandez, Jr.]

There is some hope then...

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 4:56 PM, Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo <
casca...@minaslivre.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 04:34:15PM -0700, Herminio Hernandez, Jr. wrote:
> > I have they in the past kept and architecture that was dropped as a
> release
> > arch?
>
> GNU/kFreeBSD was released as a technology preview for squeeze, kept as
> TP in wheezy, then not made part of the jessie. I can't find it in
> testing, but I see it in sid. So, it doesn't have any chance of being
> part of a new release, as far as I understand, but it's still kept in
> the archive.
>
> Cascardo.
>

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo]

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 04:34:15PM -0700, Herminio Hernandez, Jr. wrote:
> I have they in the past kept and architecture that was dropped as a release
> arch?

GNU/kFreeBSD was released as a technology preview for squeeze, kept as
TP in wheezy, then not made part of the jessie. I can't find it in
testing, but I see it in sid. So, it doesn't have any chance of being
part of a new release, as far as I understand, but it's still kept in
the archive.

Cascardo.


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Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Herminio Hernandez, Jr.]

No there is no lts for ppc only i386, amd64, and arm

https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/


On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 4:13 PM, Rick Thomas  wrote:

>
> Will there be an LTS (long-term-support) release for powerpc — best would
> be one based on Jessie?
>
>
> On Oct 31, 2016, at 6:42 AM, Mathieu Malaterre  wrote:
>
> > Anyone has a summary of the powerpc specific discussion ?
> >
> >
> > -- Forwarded message --
> > [...]
> > The only change from Jessie is the removal of powerpc as a release
> > architecture. We discussed this at length, and eventually took
> > the view that the least disservice to users of that port is to provide
> > reasonable notice of its discontinuation. We recognise and acknowledge
> > that discontinuing any port is unavoidably disruptive.
> >
> > The question of whether powerpc remains an architecture in the main
> archive
> > or moves to ports is one for FTP masters, not the release team.
> > [...]
> >
>
>

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Herminio Hernandez, Jr.]

I have they in the past kept and architecture that was dropped as a release
arch?

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 4:17 PM, Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo <
casca...@minaslivre.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 11:58:31PM +0100, Riccardo Mottola wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> > On 31/10/2016 18:44, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> > > I am not a DD, or a DM, but I have certainly helped fix problems for
> > > powerpc, including in language runtimes for languages I don't use.
> > > Unfortunately it seems the upstream for most things don't care much for
> > > anything other than x86 and arm these days which makes it harder for
> > > other architectures to stay working.
> >
> > since I am "upstream" for certain software I assure that I do care.
> Actually
> > I am one of the persons who tested GNUstep stuff on PPC. I know of other
> > people happily using GNUstep on PPC. To do that, I need a usable
> operating
> > system of course... up to know it was debian. What could it be int he
> > future?
> > Perhaps not all upstream counts and we don't even need al possible
> packages
> > on PPC. But it is still possible today to have a ncie usable desktop
> setup.
> >
> > This Debian decision will make a dim future for PowerPC developers, not
> just
> > users: a chicken-egg problem.
> >
> > Riccardo
> >
>
> Well, as I understand, the release team decided there is not going to be
> a Debian Stretch release for PowerPC. We can still ask the ftp-masters
> and DSA to keep powerpc for testing and sid, and we will have to do our
> own release. It's harder without all the infrastructure and work the
> release team puts into a release. But it's still something we could do.
> In the worst case, we can try to publish some install media and use the
> debian-ports infrastructure that is going to use a rolling release,
> based on sid.
>
> The only powerpc I had until now was a Nintendo Wii, and though there
> are patches around that would make D-I usable, I was still playing with
> some other hacks before I could try to push for them in Debian proper,
> and it was not on my top priority. Too bad I couldn't foresee that if I
> got much more involved long before, I could say to the release team I
> was already doing porter work. But since I was not, it looked like any
> volunteering from my part would have made no difference at all.
>
> However, I just ordered and old iBook G4, and I hope I can at least test
> D-I images I could maybe help prepare. Would that help you keep testing
> your code on PPC?  :-)
>
> By the way, thanks a lot for helping all these years with the ppc port.
> I have watched from a distance, which was a mistake. Hope I can help
> with keeping up the port alive somehow.
>
> Best regards.
> Cascardo.
>

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo]

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 11:58:31PM +0100, Riccardo Mottola wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
> On 31/10/2016 18:44, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> > I am not a DD, or a DM, but I have certainly helped fix problems for
> > powerpc, including in language runtimes for languages I don't use.
> > Unfortunately it seems the upstream for most things don't care much for
> > anything other than x86 and arm these days which makes it harder for
> > other architectures to stay working.
> 
> since I am "upstream" for certain software I assure that I do care. Actually
> I am one of the persons who tested GNUstep stuff on PPC. I know of other
> people happily using GNUstep on PPC. To do that, I need a usable operating
> system of course... up to know it was debian. What could it be int he
> future?
> Perhaps not all upstream counts and we don't even need al possible packages
> on PPC. But it is still possible today to have a ncie usable desktop setup.
> 
> This Debian decision will make a dim future for PowerPC developers, not just
> users: a chicken-egg problem.
> 
> Riccardo
> 

Well, as I understand, the release team decided there is not going to be
a Debian Stretch release for PowerPC. We can still ask the ftp-masters
and DSA to keep powerpc for testing and sid, and we will have to do our
own release. It's harder without all the infrastructure and work the
release team puts into a release. But it's still something we could do.
In the worst case, we can try to publish some install media and use the
debian-ports infrastructure that is going to use a rolling release,
based on sid.

The only powerpc I had until now was a Nintendo Wii, and though there
are patches around that would make D-I usable, I was still playing with
some other hacks before I could try to push for them in Debian proper,
and it was not on my top priority. Too bad I couldn't foresee that if I
got much more involved long before, I could say to the release team I
was already doing porter work. But since I was not, it looked like any
volunteering from my part would have made no difference at all.

However, I just ordered and old iBook G4, and I hope I can at least test
D-I images I could maybe help prepare. Would that help you keep testing
your code on PPC?  :-)

By the way, thanks a lot for helping all these years with the ppc port.
I have watched from a distance, which was a mistake. Hope I can help
with keeping up the port alive somehow.

Best regards.
Cascardo.


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Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Rick Thomas]

Will there be an LTS (long-term-support) release for powerpc — best would be 
one based on Jessie?


On Oct 31, 2016, at 6:42 AM, Mathieu Malaterre  wrote:

> Anyone has a summary of the powerpc specific discussion ?
> 
> 
> -- Forwarded message --
> [...]
> The only change from Jessie is the removal of powerpc as a release
> architecture. We discussed this at length, and eventually took
> the view that the least disservice to users of that port is to provide
> reasonable notice of its discontinuation. We recognise and acknowledge
> that discontinuing any port is unavoidably disruptive.
> 
> The question of whether powerpc remains an architecture in the main archive
> or moves to ports is one for FTP masters, not the release team.
> [...]
> 

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,


On 31/10/2016 18:44, Lennart Sorensen wrote:

I am not a DD, or a DM, but I have certainly helped fix problems for
powerpc, including in language runtimes for languages I don't use.
Unfortunately it seems the upstream for most things don't care much for
anything other than x86 and arm these days which makes it harder for
other architectures to stay working.


since I am "upstream" for certain software I assure that I do care. 
Actually I am one of the persons who tested GNUstep stuff on PPC. I know 
of other people happily using GNUstep on PPC. To do that, I need a 
usable operating system of course... up to know it was debian. What 
could it be int he future?
Perhaps not all upstream counts and we don't even need al possible 
packages on PPC. But it is still possible today to have a ncie usable 
desktop setup.


This Debian decision will make a dim future for PowerPC developers, not 
just users: a chicken-egg problem.


Riccardo

Re: Bug#842513: vlc: immediate crash on launch on powerpc

[Adrian Bunk]

Control: retitle -1 vlc: configure.ac altivec setting broken

On Sun, Oct 30, 2016 at 11:40:50AM +, James Cowgill wrote:
>...
> On 30/10/16 00:16, Robert Ou wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 3:43 PM, James Cowgill  wrote:
> >> Control: tags -1 help
> >> Control: severity -1 grave
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> On 29/10/16 23:00, Robert Ou wrote:
> >>> Package: src:vlc
> >>> Version: 2.2.4-7
> >>> Severity: normal
> >>>
> >>> Dear Maintainer,
> >>>
> >>> I decided I wanted to test the performance of Debian PowerPC on my
> >>> ancient iMac, and I discovered that vlc will immediately crash with an
> >>> illegal instruction right after showing the "Privacy and Network Access
> >>> Policy" window and before showing the main window. The crashes look like
> >>> the following:
> >>>
> >>> [ 1560.952016] vlc[997]: unhandled signal 4 at 0ea48f58 nip 0ea48f58 lr 
> >>> 0ea48f4c code 30001
> >>
> >> As powerpc is a release architecture, this bug is RC.
> >>
> >> I tried running vlc on partch. It managed to get further, but then
> >> segfaulted inside QT so it's probably a separate issue. I also had to
> >> run it in xvfb so it probably gets different results.
> >>
> >> Specifically what powerpc hardware do you have? Could you run vlc within
> >> gdb to determine which instruction it SIGILLs on (try 'layout asm')?
> > 
> > I was testing on a first-generation iMac with a 333 MHz PowerPC 750
> > (G3). Running vlc under gdb shows that the crash occurs in
> > libqt4_plugin.so in QRect::adjusted. The crash occurs on a "lvx
> > v0,r10,r5" opcode, which is an Altivec opcode. The G3 however does not
> > support Altivec. Here is a backtrace and some more debug information:
> 
> This explains it. From the PowerPC FAQ:
> https://wiki.debian.org/PowerPC/FAQ#VLC_crashes_on_startup._What.27s_up_with_that.3F
> 
> "
> If VLC immediately crashes, it's probably because you're on a G3 and
> VLC was compiled with Altivec instructions. To use VLC on a G3, you
> must compile it with the configure option --disable-altivec.
> "
> 
> Having said that, I think adding something to vlc's preinst to prevent
> installation on systems without altivec would be a good idea here.
>...

This actually looks like a bug in upstream configure.ac to me:
VLC_ADD_CFLAGS([libvlccore],[${ac_cv_c_altivec}])
ALTIVEC_CFLAGS="$ALTIVEC_FLAGS ${ac_cv_c_altivec} ${ac_cv_c_altivec_abi}"
VLC_ADD_CFLAGS([deinterlace],[${ac_cv_c_altivec} ${ac_cv_c_altivec_abi}])

It is correct that this adds -maltivec to AltiVec-specific code,
and vlc has proper autodetection to run this only when AltiVec
is actually present.

The VLC_ADD_CFLAGS here look just wrong - it is not the job of 
configure.ac to add such flags to generic code (whatever march
and hardware features are present is defined through compiler
defaults and the CFLAGS passed by the user).

> Thanks,
> James

cu
Adrian

-- 

   "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
   "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
   Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[luigi burdo]

i can understand about old powermac but what i dont understand is

why not made a standard ppc32 604/G3 base code compatible with all ppc systems 
64 too

leave is a really bad way.


yes SPE is another thing, but i think Adrian is working hard for this port .


Luigi




Da: Lennart Sorensen 
Inviato: lunedì 31 ottobre 2016 18.49
A: luigi burdo
Cc: PowerPC List Debian
Oggetto: Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 05:00:35PM +, luigi burdo wrote:
> and not only Riccardo,
> if we count amcc 44x , chrp, Xe and e500,e600 in addition to 32bit and 
> G5,Power5,6,7 and e5500,e6500 and P6T...
> read about this news is a really punch in the stomac for all user,dev and 
> factory who belive in BE ppc.

e500 doesn't count.  e500mc is the only e500* that can run powerpc
properly without FPU emulation.

But there are a lot of other ones.

Focusing on old powermacs is a useless distraction.  That's not what
powerpc is these days (and powermac was a drop in the bucket for the
powerpc market in the past too).

At least powerpc has multiple vendors that care if the tool chains work,
unlike sparc where there pretty much was just one vendor behind it and
they had their own OS to worry about.  Linux was not their primary
concern.

--
Len Sorensen

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 05:00:35PM +, luigi burdo wrote:
> and not only Riccardo,
> if we count amcc 44x , chrp, Xe and e500,e600 in addition to 32bit and 
> G5,Power5,6,7 and e5500,e6500 and P6T...
> read about this news is a really punch in the stomac for all user,dev and 
> factory who belive in BE ppc.

e500 doesn't count.  e500mc is the only e500* that can run powerpc
properly without FPU emulation.

But there are a lot of other ones.

Focusing on old powermacs is a useless distraction.  That's not what
powerpc is these days (and powermac was a drop in the bucket for the
powerpc market in the past too).

At least powerpc has multiple vendors that care if the tool chains work,
unlike sparc where there pretty much was just one vendor behind it and
they had their own OS to worry about.  Linux was not their primary
concern.

-- 
Len Sorensen

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 05:45:30PM +0100, Riccardo Mottola wrote:
> I think nobody ever got back.. we got dropped. Are we "dead" ? I don't feel
> dead bu apparently we just got declared so. All the nice G3 and G4
> hardware...

I am more concerned with the embedded systems still being produced,
and the nice IBM servers.

Some people think ppc64 is a useful option, but most of us are perfectly
happy with powerpc with a 64bit kernel.

Not that ppc64 appears to be getting to be a release architecture any
time soon.

I am not a DD, or a DM, but I have certainly helped fix problems for
powerpc, including in language runtimes for languages I don't use.
Unfortunately it seems the upstream for most things don't care much for
anything other than x86 and arm these days which makes it harder for
other architectures to stay working.

-- 
Len Sorensen

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[luigi burdo]

and not only Riccardo,
if we count amcc 44x , chrp, Xe and e500,e600 in addition to 32bit and 
G5,Power5,6,7 and e5500,e6500 and P6T...
read about this news is a really punch in the stomac for all user,dev and 
factory who belive in BE ppc.

luigi

Inviato da iPad

> Il giorno 31 ott 2016, alle ore 17:43, Riccardo Mottola 
>  ha scritto:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Lennart Sorensen wrote:
>> Well as pointed out in the meeting, it does not seem any architecture
>> has ever done so.  No rule against it, but the standards for getting in
>> are higher than for staying in.
> 
> I think nobody ever got back.. we got dropped. Are we "dead" ? I don't feel 
> dead bu apparently we just got declared so. All the nice G3 and G4 hardware...
> 
> Riccardo

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,

Lennart Sorensen wrote:

Well as pointed out in the meeting, it does not seem any architecture
has ever done so.  No rule against it, but the standards for getting in
are higher than for staying in.


I think nobody ever got back.. we got dropped. Are we "dead" ? I don't 
feel dead bu apparently we just got declared so. All the nice G3 and G4 
hardware...


Riccardo

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Herminio Hernandez Jr.]

I saw that after I asked the question. It just really stinks. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 31, 2016, at 9:18 AM, Lennart Sorensen  
> wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 09:09:56AM -0700, Herminio Hernandez Jr.  wrote:
>> Is there even a chance for PowerPC to return as a release architecture for 
>> Debian 10 or is that just wishful thinking. 
> 
> Well as pointed out in the meeting, it does not seem any architecture
> has ever done so.  No rule against it, but the standards for getting in
> are higher than for staying in.
> 
> -- 
> Len Sorensen

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 09:09:56AM -0700, Herminio Hernandez Jr.  wrote:
> Is there even a chance for PowerPC to return as a release architecture for 
> Debian 10 or is that just wishful thinking. 

Well as pointed out in the meeting, it does not seem any architecture
has ever done so.  No rule against it, but the standards for getting in
are higher than for staying in.

-- 
Len Sorensen

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Herminio Hernandez Jr.]

Is there even a chance for PowerPC to return as a release architecture for 
Debian 10 or is that just wishful thinking. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 31, 2016, at 8:54 AM, Lennart Sorensen  
> wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 03:33:32PM +, luigi burdo wrote:
>> Really Bad news for all us who have a ppc64 hardware, server or emb too.
> 
> No kidding.  My impression from just being on the mailing list was
> that anyone that tried to step up was told they weren't qualified for
> some reason.
> 
> -- 
> Len Sorensen
> 

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 03:33:32PM +, luigi burdo wrote:
> Really Bad news for all us who have a ppc64 hardware, server or emb too.

No kidding.  My impression from just being on the mailing list was
that anyone that tried to step up was told they weren't qualified for
some reason.

-- 
Len Sorensen

Re: Fwd: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Steve McIntyre]

ma...@debian.org wrote:
>Anyone has a summary of the powerpc specific discussion ?

The meeting log is at 
http://meetbot.debian.net/debian-release/2016/debian-release.2016-10-30-20.00.log.html

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com
  Armed with "Valor": "Centurion" represents quality of Discipline,
  Honor, Integrity and Loyalty. Now you don't have to be a Caesar to
  concord the digital world while feeling safe and proud.

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[luigi burdo]

Really Bad news for all us who have a ppc64 hardware, server or emb too.

Luigi



Da: mathieu.malate...@gmail.com  per conto di 
Mathieu Malaterre 
Inviato: lunedì 31 ottobre 2016 14.42
A: PowerPC List Debian
Oggetto: Fwd: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

Anyone has a summary of the powerpc specific discussion ?


-- Forwarded message --
[...]
The only change from Jessie is the removal of powerpc as a release
architecture. We discussed this at length, and eventually took
the view that the least disservice to users of that port is to provide
reasonable notice of its discontinuation. We recognise and acknowledge
that discontinuing any port is unavoidably disruptive.

The question of whether powerpc remains an architecture in the main archive
or moves to ports is one for FTP masters, not the release team.
[...]

Re: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Jonathan Wiltshire]

On 2016-10-31 13:31, Jonathan Wiltshire wrote:

The only change from Jessie is the removal of powerpc as a release
architecture.


...and adding of mips64el. Oops.


--
Jonathan Wiltshire  j...@debian.org
Debian Developer http://people.debian.org/~jmw

4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC  74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51

 i have six years of solaris sysadmin experience, from
8->10. i am well qualified to say it is made from bonghits
layered on top of bonghits

Fwd: Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Mathieu Malaterre]

Anyone has a summary of the powerpc specific discussion ?


-- Forwarded message --
[...]
The only change from Jessie is the removal of powerpc as a release
architecture. We discussed this at length, and eventually took
the view that the least disservice to users of that port is to provide
reasonable notice of its discontinuation. We recognise and acknowledge
that discontinuing any port is unavoidably disruptive.

The question of whether powerpc remains an architecture in the main archive
or moves to ports is one for FTP masters, not the release team.
[...]

Release Architectures for Debian 9 'Stretch'

[Jonathan Wiltshire]

Release architectures for Stretch will be as follows:

  * amd64
  * arm64
  * armel
  * armhf
  * i386
  * mips
  * mips64el
  * mipsel
  * ppc64el
  * s390x

The only change from Jessie is the removal of powerpc as a release
architecture. We discussed this at length, and eventually took
the view that the least disservice to users of that port is to provide
reasonable notice of its discontinuation. We recognise and acknowledge
that discontinuing any port is unavoidably disruptive.

The question of whether powerpc remains an architecture in the main archive
or moves to ports is one for FTP masters, not the release team.

For the release team:
-- 
Jonathan Wiltshire  j...@debian.org
Debian Developer http://people.debian.org/~jmw

4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC  74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51



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Description: Digital signature

Re: system frozen and mouse problem

[Mathieu Malaterre]

On Sun, Oct 30, 2016 at 8:14 PM, Klaus Becker  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have new passwords and new problems:
>
> - I updated Debian 8 without any problem, but:
>
> - the mouse and the mousepad of the iBook G4 will not work. Sometimes after
> system start they work some seconds, than the computer is completely frozen, I
> can only restart it.
>
> - how to write a pipe "|", for ex. "dmesg | grep firewire"? (I saw boot hang
> some time with a message about firewire)
>
> - I suppose there is a hardware problem, but I am not sure. I tried another
> (usb) mouse and I had the same problem. I also tried the 2 usb connections.

I am guessing you have an ATI card, try:

$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/radeon-agpmode.conf
options radeon agpmode=-1

You may want to do that from one of the virtual tty (Ctrl+Alt+1), then
simply reboot.

Some people prefer setting this param using yaboot:

https://wiki.debian.org/PowerPC/FAQ#How_do_I_get_graphics_working.3F

HTH