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MorphOS 3.0 Released: Refusing To Let the PPC Desktop OS Die Gracefully

Posted by timothy on from the ultimate-nagware dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Version 3.0 of MorphOS has been released. It's the independent PPC OS designed for outdated Apple systems like G4 PowerBooks (5,6; 5,7; 5,8; or 5,9) and eMacs (1.25 GHz/1.42 GHz) and PPC Mac Minis, and some G4 PowerMac models (depends on graphics hardware). It further runs on discontinued and niche Genesi desktop systems (Pegasos) and the stunted 128-megabyte-of-RAM tiny Efika. MorphOS is a nice-looking, low-resource, and nimble OS that can't match the capabilities of current Windows, Mac, and Linux. Its installation/live CD is free without caveat, and runs for 30 minutes at a time, as many times as you like. You may purchase MorphOS to remove the time limit. A particular weakness of MorphOS is its lack of support for wireless networking."

24 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Another weakness by twilight30 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... might be the price. Good luck, I guess.

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    1. Re:Another weakness by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Just for reader enjoyment, prices range from 49€ (Efika) to 111.11€ for PowerPC. That seems like a lot for an OS that can't even do wireless.

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    2. Re:Another weakness by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 5, Insightful

      2 words - Why bother? Alternatively just one word - Why?

    3. Re:Another weakness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      pay more for the OS than the obsolete computer is worth.

      what's wrong with running debian on these things?

    4. Re:Another weakness by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously. I have an old PowerBook G4 that I still use on a weekly basis to run a particular piece of old software, but I thought it might be fun to fool around with a different OS for a few bucks. At €111.11, it's well beyond the "let's have some fun with something different" range.

    5. Re:Another weakness by Bert64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, if it was free or at least very cheap people might consider using it, but at 111 euros? That's more than the price of OSX or many versions of Windows...
      And being such a niche product, i doubt it will even tempt anyone to release a cracked version.

      Creating a niche OS that only runs on obsolete hardware, and costs more than that hardware itself does? That seems to be an extremely poor business model...

      If it was free or dirt cheap, people might be tempted in it to breathe new life into old hardware... But at that price, you might as well just buy some newer more capable hardware.

      As for the lack of wireless support, the changelog for 3.0 cites one of the biggest new features as "PowerBook support for 1.67GHz models"... So a laptop with built in wifi, but you can't use wireless on it?

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    6. Re:Another weakness by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

      What the summary fails to mention is that MorphOS grew out of AmigaOS and can run a lot of Amiga software. People who like Amiga software find it useful to continue running it on hardware that can still be maintained to some degree, which has built in ethernet and USB ports - all stuff the original Amigas lacked.

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    7. Re:Another weakness by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

      If most PPC systems still in use are desktops with no WiFi,

      My wife has a G4 MacBook Pro (maybe a Powerbook?) that was the last PPC laptop Apple made. She won't throw the thing out. It's got 10.5.8 I believe.

      She runs Octave and AUTO on it for wave simulations and other PDE shit I don't understand (she's a mathematician). Python and believe it or not, Fortran (I guess a lot of fluid dynamics types use Fortran still for some reason).

      I keep wanting to buy her a new laptop, but she always says she paid more than $5000 for that thing and won't give it up until it dies. I practically could have bought her a i7 gaming laptop for the price of all the new batteries I bought for that thing. Put Linux on it and she's got a numerical math monster. Maybe I'll go buy her a brand new Macbook Pro and switch them and hope she doesn't notice.

      I am SO sick of having to look for old versions of XCODE and other software for PPC.

      I have to admit though, the thing was built like a tank. It just keeps working and working and after a few hours you can grill a bratwurst on the keyboard, it gets so hot. It looks almost exactly like the new 17" Macbook Pro.

      So my question: is this grounds for divorce? (just kidding hon'). I don't even think she likes OSX all that much. It's just because the thing was so expensive and it has worked and worked. How do I convince her to give it up without actually smashing it to bits?

      Wait, I know. I'll tell her that new machines will let her watch Netflix.

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    8. Re:Another weakness by dreamchaser · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yep. It's as I thought. Troll. I never said I need wifi, I said I expected it as a feature of any OS that costs money. I use it on the old G4 out of convenience. Most of my boxen are connected via gig-ethernet. A very subtle troll though, so hats off to you for that.

      Your attempt at using windows from bygone years as an example was weak though. This is 2012. Any OS that costs money should have wifi support. If it is beta that's fine. They shouldn't be charging for it then.

    9. Re:Another weakness by semi-extrinsic · · Score: 4, Informative

      Python and believe it or not, Fortran (I guess a lot of fluid dynamics types use Fortran still for some reason).

      There are three reasons we still use Fortran in the CFD business. First, a lot of good old numerics code is written in Fortran, and interfacing between languages means overhead. (You see, we're the types that define and use onethird=1.0/3.0 if we have to divide by 3 more than 10 times in a tight loop since multiplication is faster than division, or loop over j in the outer and i in the inner loop because that's how arrays are stored...)

      Second, for the type of stuff we normally do, Fortran is 10-20% faster than C and orders of magnitude faster than other languages. (C is faster at file I/O.) This is important when you measure runtimes in weeks. (With Python, the simulations I did for my thesis would literally take years.)

      Third, there is still significant work by large companies to create even more efficient Fortran compilers (see Intel, PGI, NAG).

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    10. Re:Another weakness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is 2012. Any OS that costs money should have wifi support.

      How nice that you think so...

      http://drdos.com/products/dr-dos/

      http://www.ecomstation.com/ does have limited WiFi support -- there's a number of old 802.11b chipsets supported. So maybe that doesn't count, but I'd hardly call that acceptable in 2012 -- FOR GENERAL-PURPOSE OSES FOR NEW HARDWARE.

      Unfortunately for you, your thoughts != reality. Y'know, reality, where real businesses need to (or find it cheaper to) run real legacy apps from pre-WiFi times, in the same non-WiFi use cases for which the apps were originally developed. Where "OS for legacy apps" is a real thing, and has different requirements than for new desktop OSes.

      Can you not conceive that the OS market is not one giant mass of identical requirements? If you can, why do you think WiFi should be the one thing that transcends such divisions? And no "because I say so", which is all I've heard from you so far, isn't a good answer.

    11. Re:Another weakness by jythie · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ah FORTRAN.. the cockroach of computer languages... runs anywhere.. just can't be killed off.... and great for calculating radiation.

    12. Re:Another weakness by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Hold on... your wife is geeky; has an eastern European accent; and multiple HP workstations in her "sewing room" amongst other computers?

      The funny part is she's not really that geeky. She's got all the computers and stuff, but she's a mathematician, so she knows how to write programs to do fluid dynamics simulations but calls me to come install Adobe Reader. Or maybe she's just giving me some little menial task to make me feel a little bit useful.

      And get this (I swear it's true) when I met her, she was a stewardess for a European airline, back when stewardesses had to be hot.

      I am an unexceptional person. But I hit all five numbers and the powerball when it comes to finding a wife. It is by far the luckiest break I ever got in life.

      --
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  2. They seem to use that word a lot. by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Interesting

    free without caveat, and runs for 30 minutes at a time

    Either "free without caveat" or "runs for 30 minutes at a time" does not mean what I think it means.

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    1. Re:They seem to use that word a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      free without caveat, and runs for 30 minutes at a time

      Either "free without caveat" or "runs for 30 minutes at a time" does not mean what I think it means.

      Let me translate that for you: its like windows but free

  3. Debian/Ubuntu PPC are alive and well by David+Gerard · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Debian and Ubuntu PowerPC ports are alive and well. Main lack for modern use is Flash. But I long dual-booted Ubuntu PPC on a G3/G4. A more reliable DVD burner than Mac OS X 10.4, and wider hardware support.

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  4. Miss Amiga? Try DragonFly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Miss Amiga? Try DragonFly!

  5. What is the market for this? by Jeremi · · Score: 4, Funny

    It seems to be aimed at Amiga enthusiasts/nostalgists who no longer have any actual Amiga hardware, but do happen to have some old PowerPC Mac hardware around, and want to run their old Amiga software on that rather than under UAE, and are willing to shell out a fair amount of cash to do so.

    Seems likely to be a rather small market.

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  6. I would say.. by gallondr00nk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    free without caveat

    only being able to use the free version for 30 minutes at a time is a pretty fucking large caveat.

  7. Facepalm by jones_supa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Again one of those websites which are sprinkled with links having only the text "here" or "this page". Go there, see here, this, that, everywhere. You don't as quickly see where the links are pointing, and it kind of feels like pushing the reader around. Just for a comparison...

    For installation instructions, please go here. The free trial version is available for download on this page.

    To get started, please view the installation instructions. The free trial version is available for download.

    So much nicer to read.

    1. Re:Facepalm by pegasustonans · · Score: 4, Funny

      Again one of those websites which are sprinkled with links having only the text "here" or "this page". Go there, see here, this, that, everywhere. You don't as quickly see where the links are pointing, and it kind of feels like pushing the reader around. Just for a comparison...

      Website wording aside...

      Why not just go here?

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      And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
  8. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  9. Re:FreeBSD by damnbunni · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In my experience as a Certified Amiga Nut, most users of MorphOS are Amiga nuts who are pissed off with Amiga, Inc's mishandling of the IP, or are pissed at Hyperion Entertainment, so they won't use AmigaOS 4.1, or else they really want a PPC Amiga laptop (as opposed to just running WinUAE on a PC laptop, and getting excellent 68040-based Amiga compatibility.)

    It's a niche of a niche.

  10. Pessimistic subject much? by cgenman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is the most unnecessarily pessimistic summary that I've ever seen. It should be: "Oh look, this experimental Amiga based OS has just updated! Isn't that kitchy and fun?"

    Why focus on the lack of wireless networking, running on Power PC (Which still deserves respect as an amazing processor you witless bastard kids), or having a cost of about 1/20th of a computer? It's a custom kernel underdog operating system written for unique and impressive platform. If that doesn't get your juices rolling, turn in your geek card.

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