Pretty much all my Linux experience is on PPC and it is a wonderful platform to work on. There are a number of things that still need work (that StarOffice port being one of them) but it is very quickly making significant progress.
You probably want to search the linuxppc-user list archives from here and check out penguinppc.org for other useful resources and info.
As for the iBook, the archives indicate that it does work quite well. There doesn't appear to be support for Firewire though (or at least not good support).
The cube also seems to run LinuxPPC just fine as does those new dual processor G4s (drool). Though the multiprocessor support is in early stages. Did this just not port well from Intel or does multiprocessor support generally suck in Linux?
Aside from LinuxPPC, you may also want to check out YellowDog which is a very similar distro to LinuxPPC but apparently has an auto-update feature similar to apt-get as well as rpm support. Then of course there's SUSE.
Personally, I'd strongly recommend buying a PPC for Linux - the computers are substantially faster than Intels (despite the Mhz ratings, look at the benchmarks). I'm also looking at buying an iBook to go with my G3 desktop so I'd like to hear your experiences with it. Oh, and yes you can buy multi-button mice for Macs. Get one.:)
This is precisely the system that's in use in Australia and we still only have two parties with any chance of forming government. Sigh. Perhaps the voting system isn't what's causing the two party duopolies. Perhaps it's the fact that noone can consistently come up with a third view - they just alternate who they agree with.
It intrigues me why so many apparently sane people would go around condoning cracking just because they told the site owners how they did it. The fact still remains that these crackers have inconvienced every user of slashdot who now have to change their password, and caused the/. team to expend large amounts of effort and money checking the system to see that what the crackers were honest about what they'd done.
I fail to see how any crack can be considered "nice". Relatively nice I'll give you, but this behaviour is still highly unethical, illegal and a real problem that exists on the internet. I thought/. readers were interested in bettering the IT profession, not supporting the actions that give it a bad name and make us all look bad.
Sigh, I guess the standards have changed again - now you can hack a site as long as you don't kill the system and you tell the owners. How long before it becomes OK to rm -rf/?
The part that interests me about this article was the fact that it began with the claim: Run Macintosh software at full Power Macintosh G4 speeds on your PC. And from there it went downhill.
Perhaps though we should look at one of the more common complaints that the author has brought up apart from the anti-Apple comments which are being refuted time and time again.
Lets look at his views on computers becoming obsolete. If you buy a computer in 1995 and it does what you want, why does it not do you want in 1997?
Does the fact that you can't run the latest OS mean that your computer is obsolete? Surely not.
Is the computer getting slow in it's old age? Probably not.
Perhaps then, the problem isn't actually with the computer, but with the user. Perhaps, the user has discovered the joys of MP3s, multiprocessing, surfing the web and running the Java applets and Flash animations etc. Perhaps, the user wants to do more with their computer than they ever conceived possible before.
Can we reasonably expect that if we buy a computer now we will be able to use it to do everything computers can do in 10 years time? 5 years time? 1 years time? No, and I for one am thrilled because of this.
The fact that computers become obsolete so often indicates that we're finding more ways to use comptuers and integrating them into the average user's computing experience. Notice the price of computers is the same as or cheaper than 2-5 years ago? Anyone stopped to think that we're getting more for our money now than before?
Sure code these days isn't as efficient as it was when RAM and CPU power was exceptional limited, but that has resulted in software reaching the market faster and the benefits of it being acheived sooner - and in most cases, has made new software applications economically feasible.
Lets not complain because PCs keep getting faster and because there's software which uses that extra speed, lets be happy that our computers keep running and do what they could when we bought them and upgrade when we want to do something new and exciting.
If you really think your old computer is outdated, try taking it to your local school and see what they can do with it - in many schools it's likely to nestle in amoung a range of computers from 386s and Mac classics to the latest G4s and PIIIs and all of them are still have undiscovered potential.
A computer which can't run OSX isn't obsolete or useless, it's just not going to run OSX.
I would suggest that the main reason for removing from a public beta would be to reduce the amount of piracy. Remember that the public beta is likely to be substantially cheaper than the final product so if you purchased the beta and it had full functionality, you'd be fairly likely to stick with it unless you had some good reason to upgrade (or ethics and a believe in supporting developers and upholding the law etc...).
I guess this is what the computing community gets for allowing pirating to become so socially acceptable. Had to be a backlash sometime now we have a restricted OSX beta and Windows.NET...
While I agree that the "smart menus" feature of Office is a really bad idea and extremely annoying, I would disagree that users should learn everything about their computers. My parents can't program their VCR, but they don't care, they hit record and go to bed. If a time comes when they need to program the VCR, they'll ring me and get me to teach them.:)
This same theory applies to computing. Why should I care what my computer has to do to startup? As long as it starts up, that's fine. When I wanted to dual boot with Linux, then I learnt what my computer does when it boots. As long as I can do what I need to do, why should I learn stuff I don't need?
The obvious answer here is that I may be doing things the hard way. If I find my way so hard that I want to find an easier way, I can start to head down the learn how things work path. I shouldn't be forced to learn everything before I can start work though.
So, ease-of-use of productivity? Both. GUIs should be easy enough so that any user can immediately achieve results (unrealistic but something to head towards), but then the user should have the opportunity to learn about their computer and become more productive. The two aims are not in opposition with each other.
While I would tend to agree that Linux could well become more popular than MacOS if MacOS stuck with their usual approach (sans OS9). However, Apple haven't stuck to their usual plan.
OSX comes with a complete BSD layer - there is absolutely no reason why BSD apps shouldn't run on MacOS with a pure recompile. OSX is POSIX compatible (I beleive). That puts a whole new view on the situation. In fact, Apple predicts that most of the Linux/BSD users will start using OSX.
I think Apple has seen this market and will push hard to win it over. Who did you think the cube was marketed at? It's purely designed to look cool and grab the attention of geeks.
Then wonder what MicroSoft is likely to come out with to counter this movement. What will.NET do to the face of computing?
Interesting times ahead, stay tuned...
Slashdot Mirror
You probably want to search the linuxppc-user list archives from here and check out penguinppc.org for other useful resources and info.
As for the iBook, the archives indicate that it does work quite well. There doesn't appear to be support for Firewire though (or at least not good support).
The cube also seems to run LinuxPPC just fine as does those new dual processor G4s (drool). Though the multiprocessor support is in early stages. Did this just not port well from Intel or does multiprocessor support generally suck in Linux?
Aside from LinuxPPC, you may also want to check out YellowDog which is a very similar distro to LinuxPPC but apparently has an auto-update feature similar to apt-get as well as rpm support. Then of course there's SUSE.
Personally, I'd strongly recommend buying a PPC for Linux - the computers are substantially faster than Intels (despite the Mhz ratings, look at the benchmarks). I'm also looking at buying an iBook to go with my G3 desktop so I'd like to hear your experiences with it. Oh, and yes you can buy multi-button mice for Macs. Get one. :)
Adrian Sutton.
This is precisely the system that's in use in Australia and we still only have two parties with any chance of forming government. Sigh. Perhaps the voting system isn't what's causing the two party duopolies. Perhaps it's the fact that noone can consistently come up with a third view - they just alternate who they agree with.
Just a thought.
Adrian Sutton
This space intentionally left blank.
It intrigues me why so many apparently sane people would go around condoning cracking just because they told the site owners how they did it. The fact still remains that these crackers have inconvienced every user of slashdot who now have to change their password, and caused the /. team to expend large amounts of effort and money checking the system to see that what the crackers were honest about what they'd done.
/. readers were interested in bettering the IT profession, not supporting the actions that give it a bad name and make us all look bad.
/?
I fail to see how any crack can be considered "nice". Relatively nice I'll give you, but this behaviour is still highly unethical, illegal and a real problem that exists on the internet. I thought
Sigh, I guess the standards have changed again - now you can hack a site as long as you don't kill the system and you tell the owners. How long before it becomes OK to rm -rf
Adrian Sutton
Run Macintosh software at full Power Macintosh G4 speeds on your PC.
And from there it went downhill.
Perhaps though we should look at one of the more common complaints that the author has brought up apart from the anti-Apple comments which are being refuted time and time again.
Lets look at his views on computers becoming obsolete. If you buy a computer in 1995 and it does what you want, why does it not do you want in 1997? Does the fact that you can't run the latest OS mean that your computer is obsolete? Surely not. Is the computer getting slow in it's old age? Probably not. Perhaps then, the problem isn't actually with the computer, but with the user. Perhaps, the user has discovered the joys of MP3s, multiprocessing, surfing the web and running the Java applets and Flash animations etc. Perhaps, the user wants to do more with their computer than they ever conceived possible before. Can we reasonably expect that if we buy a computer now we will be able to use it to do everything computers can do in 10 years time? 5 years time? 1 years time? No, and I for one am thrilled because of this.
The fact that computers become obsolete so often indicates that we're finding more ways to use comptuers and integrating them into the average user's computing experience. Notice the price of computers is the same as or cheaper than 2-5 years ago? Anyone stopped to think that we're getting more for our money now than before?
Sure code these days isn't as efficient as it was when RAM and CPU power was exceptional limited, but that has resulted in software reaching the market faster and the benefits of it being acheived sooner - and in most cases, has made new software applications economically feasible.
Lets not complain because PCs keep getting faster and because there's software which uses that extra speed, lets be happy that our computers keep running and do what they could when we bought them and upgrade when we want to do something new and exciting.
If you really think your old computer is outdated, try taking it to your local school and see what they can do with it - in many schools it's likely to nestle in amoung a range of computers from 386s and Mac classics to the latest G4s and PIIIs and all of them are still have undiscovered potential.
A computer which can't run OSX isn't obsolete or useless, it's just not going to run OSX.
Adrian Sutton.
I would suggest that the main reason for removing from a public beta would be to reduce the amount of piracy. Remember that the public beta is likely to be substantially cheaper than the final product so if you purchased the beta and it had full functionality, you'd be fairly likely to stick with it unless you had some good reason to upgrade (or ethics and a believe in supporting developers and upholding the law etc...).
I guess this is what the computing community gets for allowing pirating to become so socially acceptable. Had to be a backlash sometime now we have a restricted OSX beta and Windows.NET...
Adrian Sutton.
While I agree that the "smart menus" feature of Office is a really bad idea and extremely annoying, I would disagree that users should learn everything about their computers. My parents can't program their VCR, but they don't care, they hit record and go to bed. If a time comes when they need to program the VCR, they'll ring me and get me to teach them. :)
This same theory applies to computing. Why should I care what my computer has to do to startup? As long as it starts up, that's fine. When I wanted to dual boot with Linux, then I learnt what my computer does when it boots. As long as I can do what I need to do, why should I learn stuff I don't need?
The obvious answer here is that I may be doing things the hard way. If I find my way so hard that I want to find an easier way, I can start to head down the learn how things work path. I shouldn't be forced to learn everything before I can start work though.
So, ease-of-use of productivity? Both. GUIs should be easy enough so that any user can immediately achieve results (unrealistic but something to head towards), but then the user should have the opportunity to learn about their computer and become more productive. The two aims are not in opposition with each other.
Adrian Sutton.
While I would tend to agree that Linux could well become more popular than MacOS if MacOS stuck with their usual approach (sans OS9). However, Apple haven't stuck to their usual plan. OSX comes with a complete BSD layer - there is absolutely no reason why BSD apps shouldn't run on MacOS with a pure recompile. OSX is POSIX compatible (I beleive). That puts a whole new view on the situation. In fact, Apple predicts that most of the Linux/BSD users will start using OSX. I think Apple has seen this market and will push hard to win it over. Who did you think the cube was marketed at? It's purely designed to look cool and grab the attention of geeks. Then wonder what MicroSoft is likely to come out with to counter this movement. What will .NET do to the face of computing?
Interesting times ahead, stay tuned...