About a year ago I bought a cute blue iMac off eBay for $150 for my little girl. It has (I think - remembering not so good...) 350Mhz motorola ppc and 256meg SDram, the ppc processors are said to be much more efficient than the equivalent clock speed of same era pentiums (this would seem to be true in comparison to the older PC I used to have). It came to me loaded with MacOSX and 9.2 but OSX was a power-hog and 9.2 totally without support or available freeware (like media players, codecs - you know), so I sent for my free "shipit" ubuntu disks in PC and ppc flavours (version 5.04) and to my genuine surprise the little blue box woke up from its stupor and became a useful little machine. However - my little girl is only 2 and a half so she really only watches videos and plays music on the machine (with a little help from mummy) and the videos are sometimes a little crippled by the old iMacs lack of power.....
Sooooooo
How about a ppc version of Puppy for the old girl?
(just for interests sake - my equivalent P2 400Mhz/256meg could not handle video at all even with Icewm or XFCE and ubuntu, but managed about as well as the mac/ubuntu when it had win98
puppy for mac / ppc
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Lobster
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Not very feasible or likely - due to time, developers, hardware etc etc
Update:
With change to the T2 system for compiling this becomes feasible but still requires work - a Puppy T2 will be released
Update:
With change to the T2 system for compiling this becomes feasible but still requires work - a Puppy T2 will be released
Last edited by Lobster on Wed 11 Oct 2006, 01:18, edited 1 time in total.
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Nathan F
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It would be way too much work right now to compile the entire distro from source for ppc, but a person could create their own distro based on one already proted over, using the concepts that Puppy has developed and proven. I'd try a Slackware varient, cut it down, and start playing with squashfs and unionfs techniques.
Nathan
Nathan
Bring on the locusts ...
Would be fantastic.
At work we recently upgraded to new computers, and have several G3 or older Macs lying around. I hate to throw them out, but there's no way they can run Unbuntu, and I'm not sure about Yellow Dog Linux, but I doubt it would do well there, either.
I'm very much a noob to linux, so I don't know if I could figure out how to get puppy running on a PPC, and I don't know the first thing about autodetection, particularly on Macs. I can follow directions well enough to get gentoo running and stable on my main machine, and that's about the best I can say for my linux knowledge. It would be too much fun to get puppy linux working on a Mac, though. If anyone wants to try, let me know. The best I can probably offer is testing.
I just started using puppy on an old K6-2 400 MHz a few days ago. My eyes refused to accept what they were seeing. Responsive, modern software on a computer with 54 megs of RAM? I almost cried. I probably would have cried, had I not been laughing quietly to myself at the resurrection of this old computer I was about to throw out.
I'm very much a noob to linux, so I don't know if I could figure out how to get puppy running on a PPC, and I don't know the first thing about autodetection, particularly on Macs. I can follow directions well enough to get gentoo running and stable on my main machine, and that's about the best I can say for my linux knowledge. It would be too much fun to get puppy linux working on a Mac, though. If anyone wants to try, let me know. The best I can probably offer is testing.
I just started using puppy on an old K6-2 400 MHz a few days ago. My eyes refused to accept what they were seeing. Responsive, modern software on a computer with 54 megs of RAM? I almost cried. I probably would have cried, had I not been laughing quietly to myself at the resurrection of this old computer I was about to throw out.
i could try
That would be nice if we can get puppy on a PPC i own one myself and could i try though i know nothing about linux or programming
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Lobster
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You could start by learning something about Linux and programming. Without those skills you would have little chance.could i try though i know nothing about linux or programming
Last edited by Lobster on Sun 16 Nov 2008, 19:40, edited 1 time in total.
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darrelljon
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Install Debian 3.1 PPC and JWM.
Interesting tip, darrelljon
Would it be possible to run puppy ontop of this debian?
I have a macnut friend who has several old G3/G4 Macs
I even gave him an old P3 PC just so he could try it, but he keeps going back to the Mac, despite liking it
problem I find with G3/G4 PPCs is they are so slow - maybe stable, but slow
puppy would wake them up for sure
If Puppy can't be run, could the debian kernel be augmented into puppy, and then used?
just a thought....
Aitch
Would it be possible to run puppy ontop of this debian?
I have a macnut friend who has several old G3/G4 Macs
I even gave him an old P3 PC just so he could try it, but he keeps going back to the Mac, despite liking it
problem I find with G3/G4 PPCs is they are so slow - maybe stable, but slow
puppy would wake them up for sure
If Puppy can't be run, could the debian kernel be augmented into puppy, and then used?
just a thought....
Aitch
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technosaurus
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Option 1 - build from T2 using Barry's scripts and source on ibiblio
Option 2 - wait for woof and patch the code to use debian's ppc port instead of ubuntu
Option 3 - manually convert the key puppy scripts and sources to be debian compatible
Option 4 - adapt ubuntu-lite's script yourself to get PPC .deb packages used in Puppy from the debian repository (whatever you can't find you can get from Puppy's ibiblio page as source in the T2 directory)...get it the u-lite script here:
http://download.tuxfamily.org/ubuntulit ... te_nouveau
Option 2 - wait for woof and patch the code to use debian's ppc port instead of ubuntu
Option 3 - manually convert the key puppy scripts and sources to be debian compatible
Option 4 - adapt ubuntu-lite's script yourself to get PPC .deb packages used in Puppy from the debian repository (whatever you can't find you can get from Puppy's ibiblio page as source in the T2 directory)...get it the u-lite script here:
http://download.tuxfamily.org/ubuntulit ... te_nouveau
I have an old G3/4 iMac -first I tried installing yellowdog and some other large ppc distro but neither installer would work on the graphics board. So I installed a minimal set of slackintosh and then re-compiled my standard set of light-weight programs for my desktop. this was a snap using my src2pkg program -I only need to change 2-3 lines in the conf file and was off and running.
The last month or so I have been working on a new from-scratch distro which can use either kernel-2.4 or 2.6. I'm planning to compile it for ppc as well, using the same bootstrap method I used to produce the x86 version.
There has been some interest in using my system as the base for a new 'doggy-style' system. My concept involves having a very stable base with long-term support and long-term stable versions of certain key libraries. This means that developers/hackers can count on compatibility between versions. No more 'this used to work and now doesn't since I upgraded'.
As a better bet, I'd at least recommend that you install slackintosh -I'd go with version 11.0 instead of the latest as that would let you use many programs which were in earlier versions of Puppy -recompiled, of course, to run on ppc. Using debian will certainly give you acces to many thousands of pre-compiled programs, but the hacks to make it run like Puppy are gonna be more difficult on a debian system.
The last month or so I have been working on a new from-scratch distro which can use either kernel-2.4 or 2.6. I'm planning to compile it for ppc as well, using the same bootstrap method I used to produce the x86 version.
There has been some interest in using my system as the base for a new 'doggy-style' system. My concept involves having a very stable base with long-term support and long-term stable versions of certain key libraries. This means that developers/hackers can count on compatibility between versions. No more 'this used to work and now doesn't since I upgraded'.
As a better bet, I'd at least recommend that you install slackintosh -I'd go with version 11.0 instead of the latest as that would let you use many programs which were in earlier versions of Puppy -recompiled, of course, to run on ppc. Using debian will certainly give you acces to many thousands of pre-compiled programs, but the hacks to make it run like Puppy are gonna be more difficult on a debian system.
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technosaurus
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good point on slackintosh ...the 12.0 version may be fairly compatible with Puppy
I am making a .pet and a .sfs of all of the latest puppy scripts - I'll make a tgz as well so you can do it doggy style in the slack
I am making a .pet and a .sfs of all of the latest puppy scripts - I'll make a tgz as well so you can do it doggy style in the slack
ROFLMAO!!! 
ohmigawd! I love it! I haven't had this good a laugh here at the forum in a VERY long time! I mean---one of those laughs that straightened out my curved-back, got the blood flowing through my decrepid veins, old toxins outta my lungs... I even thought of checking in the mirror to see if my grey hair went black again!
Thanks for the laugh... I loved every guffaw, from the diaphrams on up!
muchos gracios/merci mille fois/thanks a million,
Eyes-Only
"L'Peau-Rouge"
technosaurus wrote:"...so you can do it doggy style in the slack"
ohmigawd! I love it! I haven't had this good a laugh here at the forum in a VERY long time! I mean---one of those laughs that straightened out my curved-back, got the blood flowing through my decrepid veins, old toxins outta my lungs... I even thought of checking in the mirror to see if my grey hair went black again! Thanks for the laugh... I loved every guffaw, from the diaphrams on up!
muchos gracios/merci mille fois/thanks a million,
Eyes-Only
"L'Peau-Rouge"
*~*~*~*~*~*
Proud user of LXpup and 3-Headed Dog.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Proud user of LXpup and 3-Headed Dog.
*~*~*~*~*~*
I agree that it is too bad there is no Puppy for PowerPC. I have several old iBook 300 and 366 Mhz units. They are really nice computers and I still use them. *Cough* In fact, I'm using one right now to type this into the forum. Anyway, I have run puppy on various different PCs in the same range of speed and it always runs very well.
Unfortunately, I have spent hours trying to get various versions of Ubuntu and Xubuntu to install on one of these things with no luck. I can never get the video to work right most of the time, and when I do, other things start crashing. And the only information I can find on the web for installing Linux on a clamshell iBook is years old and extremely out of date.
I've been tempted to try out Yellow Dog or straight Debian. But I somehow suspect I'd have little luck with those either.
Unfortunately, I have spent hours trying to get various versions of Ubuntu and Xubuntu to install on one of these things with no luck. I can never get the video to work right most of the time, and when I do, other things start crashing. And the only information I can find on the web for installing Linux on a clamshell iBook is years old and extremely out of date.
I've been tempted to try out Yellow Dog or straight Debian. But I somehow suspect I'd have little luck with those either.
I've been hitting it hard the last couple of weeks with my new distro which I call KISS. I've got most of the base system re-compiled for i586 and up.
The system is based on glbc-2.3.6 dual-compiled so it can run kernel-2.4 or kernel-2.6 with NPTL support. Every package except the toolchain is built using my src2pkg so re-compiling for ppc is going to be pretty starightforward. Only the toolchain and a very few packages need any chnages to compile for another arch.
I had already designed srcpkg to be used on multiple arches in such a way that most src2pkg build scripts don't require any changes at all. So, I'm getting close to a point where I will set up my iMac again -I had it going fine, but then needed the hard disk elsewhere.
But installing Slackintosh was pretty easy -I had no luck installing any large-distro ppc port.
Anyway, I'll use the same simple method to bootstrap a new KISS system under Slackintosh as what I have done to produce the original x86 version under slackware. Everyything is scripted -I've learned to keep my ducks in a row.
My src2pkg makes packaging a breeze and can create tgz, tbz or tlz packages and can take care of upx-ing bins as it goes as well. I have hacked pkgtools to handle all this plus maintain an extended databse which helps with dependenncy resolution.
I'll be setting up a repository compatible with slapt-get and gslapt -again this made much easier because srcpkg generates the needed dependency info and files when the package is created.
I'll still have some work to do modding on an existing installer routine before I have any ISO's ready.
I'm not really planning to produce a LiveCD version, but anyone would be welcome to work on that using KISS as a base -big_bass has expressed interest in doing that, but we haven't talked about it lately. I am being very thorough in the initial stages as this is what is missing most in Puppy. I have made some design and version decisions which will make it much nicer to work with KISS as it is meant to be a Long Term Support release -no jumping around back and forth, no breaking backwards compatibility.
When I was youngster, I worked for an old-fashioned German machinist and he followed a philosophy that asked: Why is there never enough time to do things right the first time? But there is always enough time to fix things later.
Unfortunately, the Puppy philosophyy has even left off the second part of that -but so has mcu of the Linux world. Don't fix that, instead lets start over, again and again.
KISS will offer the latest super-stable 2.4 kernel for those who want or need that series. And it will also offer 3 kernel lines from the 2.6 series -first the 2.6.16 series which ahs been maintained as an LTS version for the last ~3 yearsy by Adrien Bunk (up to 2.6.16.62). He has now started to maintain the 2.6.27 branch in the same way. So we can expect maintenance of 2.6.27 for 2-3 yeras without regressions. The glibc with NPTL support for KISS is compiled against kernel-headers-2.6.27. I also offer later versions of the 2.6 kernel as they become stable enough for use.
My choice of glibc-2.3.6 means that a very few modern programs will not be able to run on KISS, but glibc-2.3.6 is the last one that can be used with kernel-2.4. Using it also makes it possible and easy to use several hundred older light-weight programs which have not outlived their usefulness -many of these were in early versions of Puppy -I mostly mean programs which use GTK-1.2.
Most of the basic-level GUI for KISS will use these GTK-1.2 programs, but I will also be offering optional GTK2 applications. Again, I may use an older version of GTK -possibly 2.6 because it has less dependencies than later versions. Still, it will be possible to use the latest greatest if that seems best -which it usually is not.
The whole idea is, that I don't want to break the system with each version, by re-designing the whole thing, or leaving off support for a major library component -Puppy should have stuck with including GTK-1.2 and probably tcl/tk as well. I personally do not like tcl/tk very much, but it will also be in KISS as it is needed sometimes.
My repo already includes over 1000 programs and most of the GUI programs are GTK-1.2 programs. The only program I use daily which is not GTK-1.2 based is Opera -I'm spoiled there. But KISS will offer a wide rangeof choices for most major applications. The setup/installation routines will allow each user to set things up like they want.
I do hope that some of the Puppy users/developers contribute to the developement of KISS -the big strong point about Puppy is really the enthusiastic users and contributors.
The system is based on glbc-2.3.6 dual-compiled so it can run kernel-2.4 or kernel-2.6 with NPTL support. Every package except the toolchain is built using my src2pkg so re-compiling for ppc is going to be pretty starightforward. Only the toolchain and a very few packages need any chnages to compile for another arch.
I had already designed srcpkg to be used on multiple arches in such a way that most src2pkg build scripts don't require any changes at all. So, I'm getting close to a point where I will set up my iMac again -I had it going fine, but then needed the hard disk elsewhere.
But installing Slackintosh was pretty easy -I had no luck installing any large-distro ppc port.
Anyway, I'll use the same simple method to bootstrap a new KISS system under Slackintosh as what I have done to produce the original x86 version under slackware. Everyything is scripted -I've learned to keep my ducks in a row.
My src2pkg makes packaging a breeze and can create tgz, tbz or tlz packages and can take care of upx-ing bins as it goes as well. I have hacked pkgtools to handle all this plus maintain an extended databse which helps with dependenncy resolution.
I'll be setting up a repository compatible with slapt-get and gslapt -again this made much easier because srcpkg generates the needed dependency info and files when the package is created.
I'll still have some work to do modding on an existing installer routine before I have any ISO's ready.
I'm not really planning to produce a LiveCD version, but anyone would be welcome to work on that using KISS as a base -big_bass has expressed interest in doing that, but we haven't talked about it lately. I am being very thorough in the initial stages as this is what is missing most in Puppy. I have made some design and version decisions which will make it much nicer to work with KISS as it is meant to be a Long Term Support release -no jumping around back and forth, no breaking backwards compatibility.
When I was youngster, I worked for an old-fashioned German machinist and he followed a philosophy that asked: Why is there never enough time to do things right the first time? But there is always enough time to fix things later.
Unfortunately, the Puppy philosophyy has even left off the second part of that -but so has mcu of the Linux world. Don't fix that, instead lets start over, again and again.
KISS will offer the latest super-stable 2.4 kernel for those who want or need that series. And it will also offer 3 kernel lines from the 2.6 series -first the 2.6.16 series which ahs been maintained as an LTS version for the last ~3 yearsy by Adrien Bunk (up to 2.6.16.62). He has now started to maintain the 2.6.27 branch in the same way. So we can expect maintenance of 2.6.27 for 2-3 yeras without regressions. The glibc with NPTL support for KISS is compiled against kernel-headers-2.6.27. I also offer later versions of the 2.6 kernel as they become stable enough for use.
My choice of glibc-2.3.6 means that a very few modern programs will not be able to run on KISS, but glibc-2.3.6 is the last one that can be used with kernel-2.4. Using it also makes it possible and easy to use several hundred older light-weight programs which have not outlived their usefulness -many of these were in early versions of Puppy -I mostly mean programs which use GTK-1.2.
Most of the basic-level GUI for KISS will use these GTK-1.2 programs, but I will also be offering optional GTK2 applications. Again, I may use an older version of GTK -possibly 2.6 because it has less dependencies than later versions. Still, it will be possible to use the latest greatest if that seems best -which it usually is not.
The whole idea is, that I don't want to break the system with each version, by re-designing the whole thing, or leaving off support for a major library component -Puppy should have stuck with including GTK-1.2 and probably tcl/tk as well. I personally do not like tcl/tk very much, but it will also be in KISS as it is needed sometimes.
My repo already includes over 1000 programs and most of the GUI programs are GTK-1.2 programs. The only program I use daily which is not GTK-1.2 based is Opera -I'm spoiled there. But KISS will offer a wide rangeof choices for most major applications. The setup/installation routines will allow each user to set things up like they want.
I do hope that some of the Puppy users/developers contribute to the developement of KISS -the big strong point about Puppy is really the enthusiastic users and contributors.
Wow,
as a really enthusiastic user & contributor, and to borrow an Aussie phrase,
"That sounds Bute, (Beaut?) mate"
[may not have the spelling right, but a friend used to say it all the time
]
In other, [English], words, "Excellent, & well done!", 
What you are working on, and describe is, IMHO, exactly what Puppy both needs & deserves, and I too hope the other devs, Big_Bass especially,
will help get this as a Live CD or 3, maybe with Slack compatibility too?
Thanks again, amigo, look forward to your progress reports
I too am interested in Mac G3 support, for a friend, & if you can get it to go, methinks there will be LOADS of new puppy users, as there's loads of G3s in regular, if slow, use
Aitch
as a really enthusiastic user & contributor, and to borrow an Aussie phrase,
"That sounds Bute, (Beaut?) mate"
[may not have the spelling right, but a friend used to say it all the time
]In other, [English], words, "Excellent, & well done!",
What you are working on, and describe is, IMHO, exactly what Puppy both needs & deserves, and I too hope the other devs, Big_Bass especially,
will help get this as a Live CD or 3, maybe with Slack compatibility too?
Must be up for 'Quote of the decade' awardWhy is there never enough time to do things right the first time? But there is always enough time to fix things later.
Thanks again, amigo, look forward to your progress reports
I too am interested in Mac G3 support, for a friend, & if you can get it to go, methinks there will be LOADS of new puppy users, as there's loads of G3s in regular, if slow, use
Aitch