Q4OS Forum

Oconcal

Member

Registered: 2025-06-08

Posts: 38

Hello, new guy introduction

Linux desktop user since 2002, been around different distributions mostly Debain based.
I've installed the 32 bit OS on my MacPro 1,1. Runs nice but a few exceptions I'll help work out along with other stuff in the 32 bit branch and share with you all.
There was no crazy hoops to jump through to install it on the MacPro, just made the USB and it booted right up and installed.
I'll be working on this part time, but I will be working first on solving my hardware issues, however, if I see something stick out with the desktop I have solved in the past I don't mind passing that along.

Currently, the only bug issue I see was the classic intel ethernet driver not linking to 1Gb but will work this out.

The stock Nvidia graphics card has overlay issues, however Nvidia's 32 bit source is the issue so I swapped in a Nvidia GT710 which has a better 32 bit driver.
The only thing I will not be able to get working will be the CDROM SATA interface since this was specially built for apple and they don't share this source code.

Is there a dev mailing list subscribe link? or do I just send an introductory mail to the dev email address on the Q4OS site?

Is there a place where I can submit my github of code fixes or will that be just in the dev mailing list?

Interesting choice selection of the desktop as I would have expected more of a xfce/lightdm combo, but it was a nice surprise to see a
kubuntu style setup.

After I get the MacPro going 100% I will be putting in different network cards in and work out those drivers since that is my focused area of programming with Linux  (Linux Networking)

Nice to see a 32 bit OS in 2025, because its really hard to find them since its a pain for most distributions to maintain a 32 bit and 64 bit branch.

Thank you for providing a solution so our planet has less e-waste from people abandoning 32 bit only machines.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 5,007

Website

Re: Hello, new guy introduction

Is there a dev mailing list subscribe link? or do I just send an introductory mail to the dev email address on the Q4OS site? ... Is there a place where I can submit my github of code fixes or will that be just in the dev mailing list?

Please send a mail. If you are interested, we can make a Github project accessible on our repository based on the code you want to share.

crosscourt

Member

From: Wash DC

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 2,372

Re: Hello, new guy introduction

Not to mention the 64bit e-waste, due to Microsoft's stupid decision to drop Win10 users, who still own really good hardware.

Welcome to the site!

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Q4OS KDE 5.xx  Lenovo M73 Thinkcentre Tiny/Dell Inspiron 3670

Oconcal

Member

Registered: 2025-06-08

Posts: 38

Re: Hello, new guy introduction

I figured out he issue with the network on the mac pro, in my lab area I was using a cat7 patch which all the pins on the mac's network connector was not making contact. So now I transplanted it into my small office area so we can continue with things.

poking around, I noticed this is a bookworm core Which is ok, but what what is the current plan for the next step?

Also I think it's interesting that the iso I used, q4os-5.8-i386-instcd.r2.iso gives me 6.1.0-37AMD64 when executing uname -r. Which it must have swap out the kernel when I did the traditional apt update and apt upgrade after installing. Which is ok, because the only thing 32 bit I needed was the 32 bit EFI boot.  But  it's interesting the kernel update swapped the system to 64 bit. I should manually advance it to the real patched version of the 64 bit kernel, but I am going to make a disk image of this point to study the after effects of updating and the architecture swapped to 64 bit. Because I never seen that behaviour before.

At least this distro is not messed up with Redhat's Tuned which has been a disaster on everyone's distro who tried it. Its too new and there are pages of open bugs on its github because of it.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 5,007

Website

Re: Hello, new guy introduction

... the iso I used, q4os-5.8-i386-instcd.r2.iso gives me 6.1.0-37AMD64 when executing uname -r. Which it must have swap out the kernel when I did the traditional apt update and apt upgrade after installing.

We would say, it's just not possible. Are you able to reproduce that ?

Oconcal

Member

Registered: 2025-06-08

Posts: 38

Re: Hello, new guy introduction

... the iso I used, q4os-5.8-i386-instcd.r2.iso gives me 6.1.0-37AMD64 when executing uname -r. Which it must have swap out the kernel when I did the traditional apt update and apt upgrade after installing.

We would say, it's just not possible. Are you able to reproduce that ?

I'll grab another new sata ssd drive today and see if it will duplicate the same behaviour. I know it only needed 32 bit EFI in grub. But MacPro is an odd machine because you can preinstall a 64 bit os on a MBR partition and it will boot it once the efi firmware times out. Which I ran Win10 and server 2010 before on them like that.

I'll test it on other machines too, which one of them is one of those IBM POS touchscreen computers (pentium core 2 duo running Win95), a 32 bit machine and my testing server for IPFire development (Supermicro X10SLH-N6-ST031) which is a different 64 bit Xenon that can run both 32 bit and 64 bit EFI and IDE modes.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 5,007

Website

Re: Hello, new guy introduction

Please try to reproduce that on the same machine with exactly the same hardware and post back the result. We are really not able to reproduce such peculiar flaw on 64bit hardware, and we would even say it's impossible. There are no 64 arch on default 32bit Apt configuration of Q4OS.

Did you download the iso from our official site and did you check its md5sum https://www.q4os.org/downloads1.html ?

Oconcal

Member

Registered: 2025-06-08

Posts: 38

Re: Hello, new guy introduction

Please try to reproduce that on the same machine with exactly the same hardware and post back the result. We are really not able to reproduce such peculiar flaw on 64bit hardware, and we would even say it's impossible. There are no 64 arch on default 32bit Apt configuration of Q4OS.

Did you download the iso from our official site and did you check its md5sum https://www.q4os.org/downloads1.html ?

OK, I'll will stick to the MacPro, and yes, it's the 32 bit download from that page and this could be just machine specific. Since its a 64 bit architecture with 32 bit efi.

this time I will not install anything. Then look at uname -r before executing apt update and apt upgrade then run uname -r then after that, looking at logs.

This could be an after effect of kernel headers and order of depositories in the list.

Oconcal

Member

Registered: 2025-06-08

Posts: 38

Re: Hello, new guy introduction

update
I must of had loaded the 64 bit version on the drive, because when I exited setup and ran uname -r I got the 64 bit kernel. Because I did download both of them.
But I will try out the 32 bit because I want a good 32 bit I can refer to other people because a lot of people ask me about that all the time and I do recycle computers to give to disabled people as well.