8.10 - (G3 iBook rev 2.2) Gnome can not launch apps.

[Jwav3]

OK, xterm works. However, if I try to launch an app with it, I get the message "Illegal Instruction". What does this mean?

What app.. it means the program tried to execute an instruction set your processor does not understand. Probably Altivec. (G4 Optimized program, you will have to rebuild the program. btw what one is it because I don't get that.)

[Henry Higgins]

I get the "illegal instruction" message trying to launch any app: I've tried launching firefox, gedit, gnome-terminal, synaptic, gparted, vlc, rhythmbox, gucharmap and several others. These apps worked fine under 8.04.

[Jumpin Jack Flash]

I get the "illegal instruction" message trying to launch any app: I've tried launching firefox, gedit, gnome-terminal, synaptic, gparted, vlc, rhythmbox, gucharmap and several others. These apps worked fine under 8.04.

This is happening on my G3 iBook but the apps themselves are fine as they run in KDE, so it some app launcher that has been compiled with the altivec enabled in GNOME. I will log back in into GNOME in a few hours after I have rebuilt mplayer without altivec support (every distribution release it is the same ) and try running some apps from the command line. It is strange how I am able to run a terminal from a shortcut but nothing else works.

As a side note, KDE is very pretty and very slow. Maybe on a faster machine I would consider running 4.2 over GNOME.

[MemphisJones]

Same here. I have a G3 800 and none of my applications launch either. I am kind of new to all this, so I am just going to wait for smarter people than I to figure this one out.

[ubuntubrian]

I had posted on this issue about 1 month back and was told it was probably alpha release issues. However I have a full install on my G3 PowerBook and it's worse than the Beta version was. In the Beta Xfce would launch apps but now only KDE will launch apps (don't like the KDE4 much).
Same problem. "Illegal instruction-core dump".
also, the live CD won't boot at all even with "nosplash video=ofonly"
Sadly, the new totem youtube and BBC plugins works great in Intrepid as does gnash in firefox. They suck in Hardy.

[Jumpin Jack Flash]

Ok, so I got to run firefox through gdb and the stack trace is giving error in libpixman.so

I will try to find what package this is in and check for altivec and rebuild and report back

[Jumpin Jack Flash]

Ok, so I got to run firefox through gdb and the stack trace is giving error in libpixman.so

I will try to find what package this is in and check for altivec and rebuild and report back

Ok it was the libpixman package, in the configure.ac it was doing a check for altivec that passed on the G3 so I hardcoded the VMX flags to -mno-altivec and rebuilt. Now writing this from firefox inside of gnome.

I am attaching the deb os you can run sudo dpkg -i libpixman-1-0_0.12.0-1_powerpc.deb from a command prompt. This will leave the package manager reporting about update for libpixman which you will not want to update.
If you cannot get a command prompt, try dropping to a shell by ctl-alt-F1, run the command and best to reboot.

John

[ubuntubrian]

Thank you Jumpin'! It works perfectly and I'm using my brand new Intrepid Gnome Desktop!!! Woo hoo!

[ubuntubrian]

I have to add that that is the fastest hack I have ever experienced on these forums. Who are you? You need to be a developer....

[riban]

Well done that man. Installed on my son's old iMac G3 and he is now much happier. Next problem is to figure out why CodeBlocks fails to start. (I used your trick of running with gdb and found the problematic library to be /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0. I've just got to figure out what to do about it now!)

Cheers!