Another YouTube viewer/player for powerpc

[wicknix]

I came across this, and decided to give it a shot on Ubuntu 16.04.7 (remix). I'd assume it'd be possible to build the CLI version on 10.4/10.5 as well with macports perl, but i haven't tried that yet. It works very well. Fast too.

Download the 0.0.8 release found here.

Now you'll need to install some perl packages to be able to build this. (I installed these which might be overkill, but it worked)

sudo apt-get install libapt-pkg-perl libarchive-zip-perl libauthen-sasl-perl libcairo-perl libcapture-tiny-perl libcgi-pm-perl libglib-perl libgtk3-perl libhtml-parser-perl libhttp-message-perl libjson-perl liblwp-protocol-https-perl liblwp-mediatypes-perl libmodule-build-perl libnet-smtp-ssl-perl libperl-dev libperl5.22 libwww-perl perl perl-base perl-depends perl-modules-5.22 perl-tk perlbrew

Extract the straw-viewer archive and cd in to its directory. Now run:

    perl Build.PL --gtk
    sudo ./Build installdeps
    sudo ./Build install

(you may get missing deps when running ./Build installdeps. That's fine, let it automatically find and install them for you. Choose "sudo" install when it asks for local or sudo.)

With any luck you'll end up with both a gtk and cli interface like these.

Cheers

 

[dextructor]

@wicknix Do you think that would be possible to install on your older 12 Linux remix?

 

[wicknix]

Possibly, but the perl in 12 is too old. Min requirement is perl 5.16. 12 comes with 5.14. Might be possible to borrow it from 14.04. I havent tested this yet though.

Cheers

 

[Macbookprodude]

Seems Linux is the way to go though I even think Linux won't be supporting PowerPC too much longer, now that ARM is coming out - just my opinion.. i'D LIKE to try and run Phenix on my G4 TI, but it won't work.

 

[wicknix]

@Macbookprodude Void is new, and isn't going away any time soon. Debian ppc, while not "officially" supported, recently got a new build machine donated from IBM, so i doubt Debian for powerpc is going anywhere either for awhile. Both MintPPC and Fienix are based on Debian, so i don't see those going away either. Don't forget Adelie Linux either, which is still rather new.
EDIT: Installing Fienix on 32bit ppc macs: https://randommacstuff.blogspot.com/p/fienix-on-32-bit.html

@dextructor Well... don't use 14.04's perl on 12.04. While it installed fine, and i was able to build straw-viewer and run it without issue, upon reboot my powerbook was hosed. Xorg is broken. So i'd suggest trying to build perl from source if you want to go this route. Otherwise using arcticfox with grease monkey and viewtube script played via mozplugger or browser-plugin-vlc still works really well. Even better if you use a mobile useragent override for youtube to speed up page loading vs the new bloated YT layout.

Cheers

 

[Macbookprodude]

@Macbookprodude Void is new, and isn't going away any time soon. Debian ppc, while not "officially" supported, recently got a new build machine donated from IBM, so i doubt Debian for powerpc is going anywhere either for awhile. Both MintPPC and Fienix are based on Debian, so i don't see those going away either. Don't forget Adelie Linux either, which is still rather new.
EDIT: Installing Fienix on 32bit ppc macs: https://randommacstuff.blogspot.com/p/fienix-on-32-bit.html

@dextructor Well... don't use 14.04's perl on 12.04. While it installed fine, and i was able to build straw-viewer and run it without issue, upon reboot my powerbook was hosed. Xorg is broken. So i'd suggest trying to build perl from source if you want to go this route. Otherwise using arcticfox with grease monkey and viewtube script played via mozplugger or browser-plugin-vlc still works really well. Even better if you use a mobile useragent override for youtube to speed up page loading vs the new bloated YT layout.

Cheers

Ok, good to know ! Will these distros run on a 1ghz TI G4 ?

 

[wicknix]

Yep. All of them should, with Fienix not being officially supported on G4's, but it will indeed run with some elbow grease. I've tried everything (void/debian/mint/fienix/ubuntu) except gentoo and adelie on my g4 minis and powerbook. No issue with any of them.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Ok, good to know.

 

[wicknix]

Here's a quick guide for in browser youtube playback with arcticfox or interweb for ppc linux.
Make sure you have mozplugger installed. Verify with

sudo apt-get install mozplugger

and make sure it's enabled in the browsers plugins. (about:addons). Be sure to disable vlc, gecko media player etc. Just enable mozplugger.
1) Install GreaseMonkey
2) Restart browser
3) Install ViewTube
4) Open about:config and in the search box type: useragent
5) Look for the youtube override and double-click on it and erase the old user agent string
6) Enter this in its place: Mozilla/5.0 (Android 7.0; Mobile; rv:54.0) Gecko/54 Firefox/54.0
7) Restart browser
8) Navigate to youtube.com (This will give you the mobile version of the site. This is much quicker and easier on these old machines than the new desktop layout)
9) Click the middle 3 dots on the viewtube player to set up viewtube to look like this:

10) Enjoy

Cheers

 

[Macbookprodude]

Will you be creating an update to the tenfivetube app ? I use this on my 1ghz Titanium and it works rather well.

 

[wicknix]

Only if it breaks again do to google/youtube changes.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Only if it breaks again do to google/youtube changes.

why they do this is a disgrace.

 

[Imixmuan]

why they do this is a disgrace.

Google is a business, not a charity for old computer users like us. What they do is their business, its our business for figure out ways around their business, for as long as we can....

 

[wicknix]

Here's a short video i made with interweb and viewtube playing youtube with mplayer via mozplugger on my PowerBook G4.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Google is a business, not a charity for old computer users like us. What they do is their business, its our business for figure out ways around their business, for as long as we can....

Sadly, they are a crooked business and a bunch of crooks.

 

[C.D.Burner]

Here's a quick guide for in browser youtube playback with arcticfox or interweb for ppc linux.
Make sure you have mozplugger installed. Verify with

sudo apt-get install mozplugger

and make sure it's enabled in the browsers plugins. (about:addons). Be sure to disable vlc, gecko media player etc. Just enable mozplugger.
1) Install GreaseMonkey
2) Restart browser
3) Install ViewTube
4) Open about:config and in the search box type: useragent
5) Look for the youtube override and double-click on it and erase the old user agent string
6) Enter this in its place: Mozilla/5.0 (Android 7.0; Mobile; rv:54.0) Gecko/54 Firefox/54.0
7) Restart browser
8) Navigate to youtube.com (This will give you the mobile version of the site. This is much quicker and easier on these old machines than the new desktop layout)
9) Click the middle 3 dots on the viewtube player to set up viewtube to look like this:
View attachment 951671
10) Enjoy

Cheers

I was looking at the about:config and noticed there is also a line referring to SoundCloud. Is there anything that could be changed to make it work?

What about Bandcamp?

 

[wicknix]

There is no useragent override for soundcloud by default in arcticfox. You or an extension/addon must have created one. Anyway, soundcloud works fine with interweb and spiderweb. I'd just use one of those. ArcticFox is a great lightweight browser, but it's getting pretty dated. It gets updates like tenfourfox does, but it's stuck at Firefox 38-45 for web standards. As time goes on, more and more sites will break due to the old code its based on.

Cheers

 

[C.D.Burner]

I've also installed viewtube in other distros, it works well. But I didn't need to play the videos through my media player, it worked in the browser as before. The reason for using this is that youtube has added more crap making it increasing hard to play videos unless you have a quad core processor and 16 GB of memory or something. Maybe I'm exaggerating a tiny bit, but not much.

If your browser plays youtube but is slow, you can also just add that line in parentheses in about:config that forces mobile mode, without installing viewtube or that other stuff. There are two drawbacks:
1. Just like with viewtube, you cannot open another youtube tab from a youtube page.
2. If you have a video playing and want to go to another tab and just listen to the video's sound, the video will stop playing when you go to the other tab. The workaround is simply to have youtube in another window, and you can have it playing in the background.

It will work much faster and won't show those annoying youtube popups except for a single one at the beginning.

 

[Dilli]

Here's a quick guide for in browser youtube playback with arcticfox or interweb for ppc linux.
Make sure you have mozplugger installed. Verify with

sudo apt-get install mozplugger

and make sure it's enabled in the browsers plugins. (about:addons). Be sure to disable vlc, gecko media player etc. Just enable mozplugger.
1) Install GreaseMonkey
2) Restart browser
3) Install ViewTube
4) Open about:config and in the search box type: useragent
5) Look for the youtube override and double-click on it and erase the old user agent string
6) Enter this in its place: Mozilla/5.0 (Android 7.0; Mobile; rv:54.0) Gecko/54 Firefox/54.0
7) Restart browser
8) Navigate to youtube.com (This will give you the mobile version of the site. This is much quicker and easier on these old machines than the new desktop layout)
9) Click the middle 3 dots on the viewtube player to set up viewtube to look like this:
View attachment 951671
10) Enjoy

Cheers

I too want to load linux and run youtube in my powerbook g4. Could you help how to go about it and where to start , how do I get linux and which version etc. Sorry for asking.

 

[Imixmuan]

I too want to load linux and run youtube in my powerbook g4. Could you help how to go about it and where to start , how do I get linux and which version etc. Sorry for asking.

Speed of Powerbook? Knowledge base of Linux? PowerPC Linux is not for the faint of heart and those that don't mind adjusting boot parameters and fiddling with config files. Your best bet, and this is just one man's opinion is probably Wicknix's 12.04 remix, put it on a thumb drive, learn how to direct open firmware to boot off THAT drive and then see how it performs on your Powerbook. If it performs acceptably, re format your hardrive and install it to a separate partition. If none of the above makes any sense to you then stick with Mac OS X. For your sanity and ours.

 

[Dilli]

Speed of Powerbook? Knowledge base of Linux? PowerPC Linux is not for the faint of heart and those that don't mind adjusting boot parameters and fiddling with config files. Your best bet, and this is just one man's opinion is probably Wicknix's 12.04 remix, put it on a thumb drive, learn how to direct open firmware to boot off THAT drive and then see how it performs on your Powerbook. If it performs acceptably, re format your hardrive and install it to a separate partition. If none of the above makes any sense to you then stick with Mac OS X. For your sanity and ours.

My powerbook is 1.33ghz 2gb ram and has ssd drive which I upgraded last of 120gb. Perhaps you are driving your own conclusions I am not faint at heart which you can note by my signature too. I just want to bring back my powerbook to run in 2020 with better OS. I can of course use the thumb drive to check things out. Where can I get wicknix remix 12.04 for the thumb drive.

 

[wicknix]

Lubuntu 16.04 Remix (updated)
Bottom of the first post. You'll need to dd the iso to usb.

 

[Dilli]

Lubuntu 16.04 Remix (updated)
Bottom of the first post. You'll need to dd the iso to usb.

Thanks. How stupid of me as to have missed that 1st post. ?

 

[Imixmuan]

My powerbook is 1.33ghz 2gb ram and has ssd drive which I upgraded last of 120gb. Perhaps you are driving your own conclusions I am not faint at heart which you can note by my signature too. I just want to bring back my powerbook to run in 2020 with better OS. I can of course use the thumb drive to check things out. Where can I get wicknix remix 12.04 for the thumb drive.

Not driving my own conclusions, but we've had some traumatic experiences here in the PowerPC forum trying to handhold the likes of Amazing Henry, Rabiz7, and a few others. I did look at your signature and saw OS X teeth but saw no Linux on your macs. Apologies if I offended. Wish you luck and happy tuxing.

 

[z970]

@Imixmuan What was wrong with Amazing Henry? Personally, I thought he was a positive presence when he was still around.