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Suggestions for PPC Linux distro

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What Linux distro does /g/ recommend for the PPC architecture, particularly a powermac g4?

>inb4 gentoo

Looking for one that's still maintained regularly. Arch Linux PPC sounded cool, but was abandoned several years ago.
>>
Unironically gentoo
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lubuntu or lxle.
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>>59690125
not OP but I have an ibookg4 and I can't really do much with the maximum supported version of Mac OS
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>>59690132
yeah I have thought about this at least

It's just that with this being older hardware, compiling will take forever and just be an overall drag
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>>59690125
Gentoo, Lubuntu, Debian

>>59690134
>lxle
>powerpc
>>
I had a gentoo g5 running for a few years, without any real problems, other than yaboot being retarded.

Debian has a ppc port. Haven't tried it though
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>>59690169
Doesn't have to take that long for a lot of packages, and for the bigger ones, just run them overnight.
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>>59690125
Go for Debian
>>
NetBSD
>>
It's a good time to try LFS maybe.
>>
>>59690187
>>59691747
Went with Debian. Kinda slow, but I mean it's old hardware.

>>59691559
Might try Gentoo to see if it can get more out of the hardware
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>>59693129
Gentoo won't make you get more out of the hardware, but it might allow you to tweak away fluff you don't need.
>>
>>59690125
How about Yellow Dog?
Is that still a thing?
It's Red Hat in drag, meant for any PPC stuff.
>>
Debian (and Lubuntu) recently dropped PPC for future releases. Existing stable releases Debian Jessie will be supported until 2018 and lubuntu 16.04 until 2021
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Debian pre jessie on a iMac G4, debian anything on anything else.
Otherwise gentoo for that sweet compile time.
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>>59694489
Looks interesting. Yeah it looks like it's still a thing.
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>>59690125
If you're not particularly married to linux, maybe MorphOS is worth a shot.
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>>59690125
Dualboot OpenBSD and Mac OS X Tiger
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>>59690125
If it's a G4, honestly Jaguar/Panther/Tiger if you insist on OS X, and OS 9 otherwise. Just use that machine for tasks that don't necessitate 12-ton turbobloat webshit. Writing, IRC, etc. OS 9 will absolutely fly on that hardware.
>>
>>59697010
Browsing the web is still completely viable on a G4
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>>59697034
Depends on what part of the web you're talking about. Any site that requires even a moderate amount of JS will crawl
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>>59697081
There's this thing called NoScript
>>
Ubuntu or debian
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>>59697089
even with noscript and a good ad blocker a typical G4 can be borderline unbearable on most sites, DDR systems might be a different story though
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>>59697158
Yeah, I'm talking G4e era computers. Never really had an issue browsing on my 1.5GHz PowerBook G4.
>>
>>59690125
Gentoo is well maintained. Will take a while to compile all the shit but it doesnt break like arch will if you dont update it in a year.
>>
>>59690125
fuck these look comfy still... plus no x86 = no backdoor, right?

>install any unix like distro without systemd on ppc arc
>profit?
>>
>>59697834
>ARC
PowerPC Macs use Open Firmware.
>>
>>59697856
well shit nigga, even more of a plus plus, right?
>>
>>59697890
Definitely, Open Firmware's neat as fuck
>>
>>59690176
I thought they were discontinuing PPC support on Debian?
>>
>>59698261
nvm

>http://news.softpedia.com/news/debian-gnu-linux-9-stretch-to-drop-support-for-the-powerpc-ppc-architecture-509849.shtml
>>
>>59698278
Damn, I actually liked Debian.
>>
>>59698261
makes sense since systemd does not support fetch handling on non-hyper logarithmic chips...
>>
>>59698297
Jesus, like I needed more reasons to hate systemd
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>>59690125
I really wanted Apple to invest more in the PPC architecture. Instead, we have ARM SoC all with proprietary boot-loaders.
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>>59697185
my best G4 currently is a dual 1 GHz Quicksilver and it's pretty bad on the net in general, guess DDR does make a difference as I would expect

maybe I should get around to beheading my fucked up 1 GHz iMac and see how it works out
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>>59690169
Doesn't gentoo support cross compiling?
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>>59698347
They should have stick with IBM or Motorola, not the two.
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>>59698640
Browser and OS choice make a huge difference. Camino on Tiger runs a hell of a lot smoother to me than a recent Firefox under linux.
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>>59698845
by the time they switched there just really wasn't much of a point to sticking with PPC.

on the desktop it was pretty good for traditional workstation jobs with great floating-point performance, but even with the advent of OS X and the platform's general academic background that still wasn't typically something you bought a Mac to do, rather you usually bought one to do a lot of integer-heavy shit typical in general computing that PPC wasn't terrible at by any means but it wasn't the best for either

then in mobile systems... while waiting for IBM to churn out something suitable for a notebook they were stuck slapping four-figure price tags on systems powered by what was in most regards a Pentium III-class chip, even if it was just fine and still clocked high especially when accompanied with modern amenities like DDR/DDR2 memory and faster disks, that strategy was still hardly sustainable especially when x86 was by then a long shot from the low-end weapon of choice for fleet shitboxes it was in 1994

they were cool and exciting and moderately different (though when you really think about it, like a lot of later Sun/HP boxes they were pretty much PCs with a slightly less mainstream CPU grafted in) to experience, but I wouldn't say their decision to move to x86 was a mistake at all, amd64 was really the last big hurdle that completed the slow death of everything but x86 on the desktop
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>>59699047
camino's definitely nice, though it's JS support is a little dodgy, still good for most jobs if you combine it with TFF for shit it can't handle
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>>59699077
I know and I understand that. I'm only saying that they contributed to the demise of the PPC in their computers because they simply refused to pay the R&D part of their processors.
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Install Tiger and OS9. Then download Classilla and TenFourFox.
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>>59699088
>though it's JS support
>it's
why
please kill me
>>59699104
but honestly, I don't think that's really the full scope of the issue and of course you don't get a job done just by throwing cash at it until something happens. PPC was backed by a cartel of juggernauts with more than enough cash and interest in the chips, and it was not at all lagging behind the competition in most cases, but some things just couldn't be done, or at least couldn't be done reasonably. Motorola was dead, Freescale seemed more interested in the embedded market than personal computing and the current 970 was made by IBM for IBM first and foremost, and they had no interest in hobbling their shit with considerations for mobile usage

in the end when you're sitting there with fists full of millions and a need to deliver a product worth buying, are you going to throw those at hiring hundreds of engineers to fit an HPC chip into a laptop and /then/ go and make the damn things and deal with that clusterfuck or are you going to just go over to another vendor that's solved all of those problems in a way better suited to the intended use case of your product that would be more than happy to sell it to you at far better rates?

this sounds like a bunch of rambling bullshit at this point but hopefully it's relevant, all I'm trying to say is it sucks but it did happen for a reason, and at least you can still enjoy the tons of cheap systems that were built this way and still have enough in them to get something useful done
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>>59690125
I've had good luck with gentoo on my g5. I also ran debian on a g3 in 2014 and that worked ok.

On the other hand, ubuntu and openbsd were rough, though I hear ubuntu mate has a good ppc port
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Dual boot OS X and OS 9
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>>59690125
I just got MorphOS set up on my G5 last night. It's pretty nice, and it would probably be a fantastic linux/OSX alternative for these older machines if a full license didn't cost like 80 euro.
It works unregged, but after 30 minutes it slows down the entire system, so I guess I might try to find something else.
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>>59698823
Yes, and it's quite easy to setup. I got a cross compiling distcc setup for years (two ppc boxes compiling for themselves and for an even slower x86 machine
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are the powerpc apple laptops still useful for anything?
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>>59702219
Probably about the same as the desktops. Some shitposting and IRC will work just fine.
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>>59690134
>>59690176
>>59691747
Debian is ending on PPC.
>>59690132
Gentoo does not have nearly all the specific packages for old Apple hardware that Debian does, and compiling and installing Anything on these old boxes would take forever.
>>59694633
How is Lubuntu being supported until 2021 if Debian is not?
>>59694489
Yellow Dog ended like 5 years ago.

Gnu-Linux on PPC is fucked and BSD is not nearly as practical. This sucks because I have a lot of my family running Debian on PPC.
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>>59702438
i thought that gentoo has some distributed compiling thing? should be very fast with that.
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>>59702530
You'd still need to set up distCC on another (couple of) machines, though. But if you have a bunch of linux boxes at your disposal, that's not much of an issue, I imagine.
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>>59702438
Idea for instead of starting a DebianPPC fork: Maintain a fuckhuge wiki of how to compile things from source and install them in Debian properly for specific old PPC Macs, noting what changes need to be made, if any, for specific Macs.
I like my idea, anyway.
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>>59702438
Switch to OpenBSD, it has great PowerPC support. It's not nearly as impractical as you think.
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>>59702219
Mine would be my main laptop if the battery wasn't kill
Thread posts: 58
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