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Terra Soft Reveals Linux/PPC Hardware Solution
Gentu writes "OSNews features an article revealing a new product from Terra Soft, makers of the popular PPC Linux distribution Yellow Dog Linux, which effectively enables YDL to run on its own platform. Terra Soft is offering a motherboard and a complete PC based on the 600MHz G3 (G4 is also planned). This is of course still PPC, but it ain't a Mac. However, the article hints that it might be technically possible to run Mac OS and Mac OS X via Mac-On-Linux." Prices start at about $500, with 1U rackmounts starting at $870.
In fact, probably even the new EPIA-M board is a better deal for many applications; the EPIA-M costs $160 with processor, uses a 933MHz C3 (Pentium compatible), is tiny, and uses comparatively little power. And if you buy one of those, you don't even give money to the other monopoly.
Macs are only expensive if you buy the Dual Processor models, or the UberCool G4 Titanium Powerbook (portable space heater). Recall the recent price drop on the iBooks? The low-end model is only $999. Add a bit for some extra RAM, and you have a nice, decent Mac OSX box for home. iBooks are inexpensive, and I believe, a good deal when compared to similar priced PC laptops.
I hate to nitpick... but it's "Mac", not "MAC".
Mac is short for Macintosh, a series of computers sold by Apple Computer Inc.
FreeBSD 5.0 will have a PPC port. I wonder if it will run on this hardware? I imagine the only requirement is an OpenFirmware BIOS for booting.
Interesting here that YDL are trying to "pimp" it as there platform, but with other PPC linux distros making there way along then it does give you a nice choice for a cheap linux desktop solution.
Yes it might be cheaper to buy x86, but what about these people who want to experiment on new platforms? Also the reason why x86 is cheaper is due to mass demand, i imagin that if they get a lot of sales of these PPC mobos then the prices will drop
I personally is very interested in getting one of these just to experiance PPC, strange as it may sound but ive never really touched a PPC based platform in my life! (dont ask me how to modify BIOS settings or whatever on a Mac :))
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
It's the IBM PowerPC 750CXe.
.18 micron process.
.13 micron with all of the buzzwords (silicon-on-insulator, etc).
This is the slightly older version of the PPC 750 "G3". This 750 CXe model has 256 KB of on-die L2 cache and is fabbed at a
The newer 750 FX model (as used in the current Apple iBooks) has 512 KB of on-die L2 cache and is fabbed at
I belive this board uses PC133 RAM. 133 MHz x 4.5
It's not mentioned in the story, but this board is the Teron CX, which is also distributed under the licensed trademark "AmigaOne G3-SE".
There's also a model with the CPU on an exchangeable module, called Teron PX (or "AmigaOne XE" when it's marketed to AmigaOS users). Hopefully we'll see Terrasoft and others selling Teron PX as well, which offers G4 and 750FX (a newer, faster G3 design) CPUs.
Due to a seriously fscked up compulsory licensing policy for AmigaOS, that OS will however not be sold separate from licensed hardware and be allowed to be installed on Teron boards from vendors who are not licensed by Amiga, Inc., like Terrasoft.
P.S. Why is this story under "Apple"? MOL runs fine on these, but come on!
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
$120 Logic Board
$80 Hard drive
$499 800 Mhz PowerPC daughtercard (2Mb DDR L3 cache!)
$130 Power Supply
$50 SDRAM
Total: $879
I hate Grammar Nazi's
Since it's a PPC, skr1pt k1dd1ez will have a whole lotta trouble trying to crack it with cut-and-paste x86 rootkits. Of course, it will not stop a knowledgeble attacker and is not at all a substitute for applying errata in a timely fashion, but it's still a significant plus in my book. And if you use YDL, it will be nearly identical in every feature to your x86 Red Hat Linux boxen.
I can totally see it running as a firewall/external webserver/DNS server box. Of course, granted that TerraSoft mobos aren't POS. Only time and wide use will tell.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
You DO know that MacOS no longer uses a hardware bootrom, right? And that you CAN copy the bootROM off of any MacOSX install.
MacOnLinux actually comes with documentation telling you how to do this, since some people can have trouble getting to bootrom to load off the OSX partition, so they copy it to their linux partition, then tell MOL to load it from there.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
And, by posting this comment, you voided any moderation you might have done to other comments for this story...
Reminder: find a new sig
And you don't have to wait until January for them to be released, either.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Because it would cost less.
Of course, that presumes your time and hacking effort is free, but for most /.ers, I suspect it is.
I ran OS 9 (Classic) under Mac-on-Linux for some time. Anything that didn't require direct hardware access worked pretty much flawlessly; MOL emulates the essential hardware (video, hard drive, input devices, NIC) pretty well. But you wouldn't be able to for example use OpenGL apps. Photoshop ran great but it would never talk to your USB scanner. In this regard it's just a little bit more limited than Classic mode under OS X, though. I never ran OS X under MOL but I assume the limitations are similar. The vast majority of things that run under OS 9 just worked.
I call bullshit. Show me where and what you got for $250.
Also note that your athlon system did not come with:
A) A nice 12 inch LCD display
B) 4 hours standard batery life
C) OS X
D) Firewire
E) Gigabit ethernet
F) An easy to carry portable form
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
In any case, I actually doubt that "G3 kicks the bejeezus out of the EPIA". I have both an iMac and an 800MHz EPIA, and I actually run compute-intensive stuff on them.. A 400MHz G3 is probably no faster than a 400MHz P3, and a 933MHz C3 probably is somewhere around a 300MHz P3 since the 800MHz C3 comes in at around the same speed or faster as a 250MHz P3 in the benchmarks I tried.
As for gcc maturity, the C3 is Pentium compatible. Linux just runs on it. If it's not as well optimized, that only means that there is more room for improvement over the above comparison; PPC optimization for gcc looks like a done deal--it won't get much better. What I do know from personal experience is that "porting" to the EPIA or any desktop PC is much easier than to the iMac/PPC: again, code just runs, while on PPC, you face byte order issues and x86 assembly doesn't work (e.g., for MPEG codecs).
But this solution is more expensive than the Apple hardware!
$495 is for MoBo and Processor. Add HD, Optical storage, video board, monitor, RAM, keyboard, and speakers, and you're the $799 iMac territory (which includes 600MHz PowerPC G3, 128MB SDRAM, 40GB Ultra ATA drive, Rage 128 graphics, 15" monitor, CD-ROM Drive, 10/100BASE-T Ethernet, 56K internal modem, optical mouse, quality keyboard, speakers, AppleWorks, iTunes, iMovie, and iPhoto.)