First Graphical LiveCD For The PowerPC By Gentoo

nberardi writes "The PPC team has prototyped the first completely graphical LiveCD for the PowerPC platform featuring a 3D multiplayer OpenGL/SDL game called Cube. Designed for the PegasosPPC, a CD variant to run on Macintosh hardware is already in the works. While the 198 MB GameCD is already available for download from the mirrors (in the experimental/ppc/livecd directory), a whole cluster of ODWs running Cube will be part of the presentations in the Gentoo developer room at FOSDEM in Brussels, 26-27 February 2005." Finding this ISO is a bit of a chore; first, go to one of the download mirrors, then follow the experimental/ppc/livecd chain. However, note that until the Macintosh version is ready, only people with Pegasos hardware will benefit.

Comments

Can you say...

[BlueCodeWarrior]

...hello Mac Mini?

3D Acceleration

[Digital Pizza]

Since it's a 3D game, will there be any 3D acceleration, and if so, which Macs and how? As far as I know, there's no PPC version of NVidia's driver for Linux, which is the only one that has 3D acceleration. I'm under the impression that the same problem exists for all of the relatively recent ATI chips as well.

Unless your mac still has an old RAGE128 in it, the game might be kind of sucky, performance-wise.

Re:3D Acceleration

[CactusInvasion]

Well, it's gentoo. So software rendering will be SUPER SUPER optimized.

Re:3D Acceleration

[Digital Pizza]

LOL!

Re:3D Acceleration

[Excelsior]

Cue the lame jokes on optimizations and compile times that go with every single Gentoo story.

And I forgot to buy a card!

[Otter]

Is today Linux LiveCD Day or something like that? At least this is a change of pace from beta-release Ubuntu CDs -- I was wondering how many more times we were going to be hearing about Hairy Warthog.

Re:And I forgot to buy a card!

[cipher uk]

don't worry about hoary hedgehog too much. perky penguin is only 8 months away.

PegasosPPC

[BrookHarty]

I've been wanting to buy a PPC board for awhile, the problem boards where expensive. Now that systems are cheap with upgradeable CPU slots, I've tempted to pick one up. Ultraspec.us has a systems for 1495, and it runs MorphOS, Amiga OS4, all the PPC versions of Linux and BSD. I hear there are cracks for OSX, but I cant seem to find any proof. There is MacOnLinux which runs OSX under Linux but I found it slow on my dual g4, but useable. There is also a dual G4 cpu card for the board, I've seen on the MorphOS website in development. So a nice upgrade later.

MorphOS looks rather nice, my friends who seen the demo in Germany says it boots in seconds, and multitasks quicker than anything they have seen. Made to run in 128megs of ram, its very stable and quick OS. But it looks like most applications are GNU Applications converted and Amiga applications for PPC recompiled. But since most people are using Linux and GNU applications, or OSX and GNU Applications, its might make a better desktop workstation than KDE. (Hint, someone do an article!)

There are some desktop screenshots of MorphOS at Morphzone.org which shows some eye-candy.

Having used an Amiga, (which the networking started my migration onto linux by way of amitcp and sockets...) I'd like to see what the current status of the whole PPC desktop scene is like. A few friends who got Pegasos boards love it, even the early g3 boards are stable and great little development boxes. Some people still love CygnusEd for coding. (Some moved to Emacs, but I forgive them...)

Good to see Gentoo on the PPC front supporting the pegasos board. I wonder what Gentoo does beyond bring the Gentoo base to PPC, do they have developers working on PPC specifics drivers, etc? More detail than just taking the linux PPC kernel and add Gentoo's features and package support.

I wish there was more detailed news, other than Gentoo releaseing PPC LiveCD's. (Which is still good news)

Re:PegasosPPC

[Anonymous Coward]

PegasosPPC is a bit of a rip now that Mac Mini is here. A PegasosPPC costs $750 bare bones (mobo and proc). A Mac Mini costs $570 shipped with 512 mb ram, hard drive, video card, case and power supply. Even if you were going to wipe the drive and use Linux, the hardware alone is a better deal.

PegasosPPC needs to go Power4/G5, Power4+, or Power5 for little extra money to be a competitive lost cost PowerPC platform now. Otherwise what's the point?

Re:PegasosPPC

[Seehund]

[the Pegasos] runs MorphOS, Amiga OS4, all the PPC versions of Linux and BSD.

Unfortunately for AmigaOS, that's not true. Not because the Pegasos couldn't run AmigaOS4 (meant to run on 3rd party PPC hardware), but because the company/companies controlling AmigaOS4 (Amiga, Inc./KMOS) have decided to let AmigaOS4 die by only letting it be sold bundled with hardware. The hardware and the hardware vendor must buy a licence from AInc/KMOS to do so, "dongle" their hardware with a hardware-market control mechanism (aka. "anti-piracy measures"), provide end-user support for AmigaOS, et c.
The Amiga died a decade ago, and there's finally a chance for AmigaOS and its users to take advantage of a third party hardware market, but despite this we still have to pretend that there are "new Amigas" that we should have to buy on an artificially constructed "Amiga market".

The only vendor that has acquired a licence is the company that suggested the scheme to AInc: Eyetech. They're now offering Mai Logic's Teron series motherboards as "AmigaOnes", 60% more expensive than when they're sold as Terons.

See my homepage and the link in my sig for more on this.

Re:PegasosPPC

[Seehund]

Freescale (ex-Motorola) sell them for $649, and Gentoo sell complete systems for $999 (of which $100 is donated to the Gentoo foundation). Genesi advertise the mobos+CPU at $600-615, depending on CPU.

But yeah, they're still beaten in price by the Mac Mini.

Mini Mac?

[NEOtaku17]

Actually if you check the mirrors it only has a G5 version. The Mini Mac comes in 1.25GHz, and and 1.42GHz G4 models.

Re:Mini Mac?

[niXcamiC]

Where does one get a G5 pegasos from? unless you mean its only ported to G5 macintoshes, it does run on G4 pegasos boards though. From what Ive heard there are still some problems with linux on the mini mac anyways.

not so fast

[i_should_be_working]

If you don't care about the games it was announced on slashdot 5 days ago that Ubuntu has a graphical live ppc cd, so there's more than one option. Actaully since it says a mac verstion of this Gentoo one is 'in the works' it looks like Ubuntu is the only option

I wonder how they do on oldworld macs?

Besides that, those screenies of cube look great. Anyone played it?

Re:not so fast

[shumacher]

I'm trying it on a friend's 603e based machine this weekend - if he doesn't beat me to it. I couldn't find system requirements on Ubuntu's site.

It's the bees knees on my 1Ghz Celeron though.

Re:not so fast

[UltraJustin]

I've played cube. It's alot of fun and runs very fast, but it's kind of simple. It's mainly just for playing deathmatches. It's still alot of fun, though.

Finding this ISO is a bit of a chore

[snuf23]

That's funny finding a non-Mac PPC system to run it on is a bit of a chore too!

PPC is not an architecture

[mnmn]

PowerPC is a CPU. The liveCD no doubt will run only on one architecture, namely the mac-ppc. I have been looking for a livecd for my RS6000 7043-140, and cant find one. I jump at such mentions only to read 'mac' in the text.

x86 is a chip and an architecture, I havent heard of any major system using the x86 chip but not architecture, except the PIX 501. The only reason anyone would use the damned x86 CPU is binary compatibility which also relies on the chipset, therefore the architecture. But this is certainly not true of PPC, MIPS, ARM, 68000 and others.

Rants aside, is it possible to have a single kernel and bootloader boot on the prep/chrp platform (whichever had both rs6000 and mac, i forgot)?? Would be cool to have say a bootable livecd boot and run quakeII on both apple macs and rs6000 machines, containing graphics card drivers for both systems in the kernel. Is it easier to do all this in NetBSD?

Re:PPC is not an architecture

[antime]

Didn't read very cerfully then? The livecd is currently supported only for the Pegasos, the Mac version is still "in the works".

This wasn't the first...

[wolf31o2]

This wasn't even the first Gentoo X-based LiveCD for PPC. There was one back in June of 2003!

Re:This wasn't the first...

[Leroy_Brown242]

Details, details . . . . :)

News for Nerds that aren't paying attention, stuff you've probably seen already.

Well then...

[BlueCodeWarrior]

I guess it's going to be 'Hello G5 Mac Mini!' in about 2 years...

Re:Well then...

[lakerdonald]

Or maybe the Gentoo devels will develop a g4 version?

Fun

[Leroy_Brown242]

It's really fun to see Live CDs really catching on.

Re:Fun

[djdavetrouble]

It's really fun to see Live CDs really catching on.

On a sad note, I helped one of our desktop support guys yesterday with regular ole Knoppix. He was trying to get at someones data on a non booting xp system. Booted up, started samba server, went to said support guys PC and showed him how to connect. His first question was "what is a Live CD?". He was happy to have one more bullet in his clip though.

Im excited to try Cube, couldn't get it running on my G4 even after installing all of the SDL crap.

Aren't they all PPC's?

[Knights who say 'INT]

What are the differences between PPC boxen by Pegaos and IBM, and Macs?

Re:Aren't they all PPC's?

[gorim]

About the same difference as x86 boxen made by Via, Dell, and Sony.

The first is oriented towards the embedded space. The middle is the big corporate mass-producer, while the latter focuses on cool-looking eye-candy.

For every case, Linux can run as an operating system. However, IBM and Apple designs their own UNIX-based operating systems to run only on their own hardware, although with some minor effort they each could extend compatibility to other manufacturer's boards.

For example, it is technically possible to run Max OSX on an IBM PowerPC based RISC6000 workstation. It is technically possible to run AIX (PPC arch) on Apple hardware. But it is terribly unlikely that either company will make any effort to develop the necessary hardware drivers and loaders in their respective OS' to make it happen in reality.

Re:Aren't they all PPC's?

[Anonymous Coward]

There already were Apple machines that ran AIX, though technically they were not Macs since they couldn't boot the Mac OS because they lacked a Apple Rom. I think it was based on a modified 9500 board

IBM says PowerPC **is** an architecture

[AHumbleOpinion]

IBM says PowerPC is an architecture: http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardw are/whitepapers/power/ppc_arch.html.

IIRC RS6000s have shipped with using both the POWER architecture and the PowerPC architecture.

PPC *IS* an Architecture

[gorim]

And it has been since inception.

Multiple companies make CPUs based on the architecture.

There are many generations to the architecture.

The architecture is implemented for general purpose CPU's as well as embedded devices.

And finally, most chips based on PPC are sold outside of the Apples and RISC6000 lines. Oh, I already mentioned embedded...

Why?

[drmarcj]

As a Linux and Mac user, I have to know: what is the appeal of running Linux on your Mac? The only thing I miss in OS X is seamless X11 integration (Mac you have to run X apps from within an annoying X11 server). So, what's the appeal?

Re:Why?

[MemoryDragon]

The X integration is the main problem.... See, I usually run FreeNX to get remote acces to my homeserver from work, but the home server is loud and sucks energy. But I am constantly connected to it. The main problem now is, due to noise and energy reasons I want to move to a Mac Mini, but there is no FreeNX on OSX, nor there is any decent remote solution (VNC is not something I would call decent if you have to press it through 512 kbit) So I either have to dual boot to get the same results and run it mostly in Linux or I have to run a VM which runs Linux and FreeNX inside...

Re:Why?

[SeJo]

because it's all about choice. I choose to use opensource software, and choose to support the opensource foundation. that's why. :-) at least for me. Mac osX is an excellent operating system, but it doesn't provide the functionality i like to find in Gentoo even when not everything is supported. As allways taste and flavours are not really discussable, in my eyes that counts also for distributions :-) greetings

Re:Why?

[Dot.Com.CEO]

www.nomachine.com have an OSX nx client.

Re:Why?

[some_random_person]

Flexibility and the same responses you would get to "What is the appeal of running Linux on your Dell/IBM/HP/Sony/Whatever?".

I used OS X for about a week before I repartitioned my iBook and put gentoo on it. I haven't put OS X back on there since, and I probably wont.

Re:Why?

[MemoryDragon]

Client yes... but I am talking about the server...

w00t

[sbszine]

I would post a lame Gentoo joke here, but I'm waiting for Firefox to finish compiling.

Cool

[White Roses]

I've tried a couple of Linux Live CDs on some Macs I have lying around. This sounds like it not only loads, but does interesting things once it's up.

For the most part, I'm pretty happy with OS X, though, so I am not planning on a dual boot system any time soon. So . . . yeah, I guess Live CDs are the way to go for me.

Re:Wake me up...

[Anonymous Coward]

*wake up*
It works fine with DRI and Radeon here.