BEST PowerPC Alternatives (Linux etc).

[AphoticD]

Development of Linux started on a 386 with 4 MB RAM. In 1891 1991.

I once had Debian running on a Macintosh LC II w/10MB of RAM - it was a cool technical feat, but not incredibly usable

 

[Amethyst1]

If it did what you needed it to do, that's good

It's all that matters. I still enjoy these games today. Full-screen DOSBox... and I'm right at home.

Some of them are awful to navigate, even with modern browsers lol.

I've said elsewhere that NoScript is essential to me when dealing with the modern web. Seeing just how much some sites have going on "in the background" is mind-boggling.

 

[TheShortTimer]

This might get me in trouble, but allow me to go slightly off topic and point out what I consider one of the most amazing human achievements of all time: we sent a rocket to the moon using physical bits and only 40 KB of physical (non-volatile) memory (10-bit word x 16,000 words per module x 2 modules for redundancy / 8 bits per byte).

Mind you, that's for the Saturn V guidance system and there were more computer systems in Apollo, but still. 40 KB is crazy to steer a rocket to the MOON.

If you want to nerd out and lose an hour or two of your time, this is for you:

And now back to your regularly scheduled PowerPC program =)

On that theme, I think you'd enjoy these...

I never, ever knew anyone with a Tandy or a Sinclair, and these only ever seemed to show up locally in the annual merchandise catalogues of the two local versions of a Sears or Eaton’s: a place called Houston Jewelry (yes, the weird American spelling) and another at a competing place called Best Jewelry (no idea, in hindsight, why one went to buy electronics and TVs at a jewellery superstore).

My oldest friend had a Tandy CoCo. His mother had originally intended to purchase an Atari VCS 2600 for him but the sales clerk explained that a computer would have more mileage and scope than a games console. I'm eternally indebted to that turn of events because it gave me an opportunity to get to grips with BASIC.

It's all that matters. I still enjoy these games today. Full-screen DOSBox... and I'm right at home.

I've sought out many a PPC version or remake of those games for the PPC gaming thread and they remain great fun.

I've said elsewhere that NoScript is essential to me when dealing with the modern web. Seeing just how much some sites have going on "in the background" is mind-boggling.

YouTube for example would be unbearable without an ad-blocker. A few years ago there was a brief moment where my now abandoned Adblock Plus failed to filter out the adverts and I was bombarded with them every five minutes. That's even worse than broadcast TV! At least it led to me seeking out the far superior uBlock Origin.

 

[Amethyst1]

YouTube for example would be unbearable without an ad-blocker. A few years ago there was a brief moment where my now abandoned Adblock Plus failed to filter out the adverts and I was bombarded with them every five minutes. That's even worse than broadcast TV!

Yeah. I wonder who puts up with that nonsense.

 

[lepidotós]

degrade gracefully with older browsers

Or just slow connections. I'm on Firefox 111 right now, and with my 560Kbit connection speed, trying to load two websites at once also makes it degrade pretty far, and not in a particularly beautiful (or, if a website with a lot of intereactivity, usable) way. What looks like 2048 px images for UI elements, functionality that could have been an HTML tag that depends on JavaScript...​

 

[VirtuallyInsane]

Yeah. It's meant for 10.4 and 10.5. I could never get it to build or run on anything older.

I might give it a whirl on my Powerbooks. One of them anyway.

< old_woman_with_hearing_aid_with_weak_batteries >
Web developers KIDS THESE DAYS… DON’T KNOW HOW TO MAKE THEM WEB SITES whose functions and rendering degrade gracefully WORK ON MY CLASSIC COMPUTER
< /old_woman_with_hearing_aid_with_weak_batteries >

For real, though: sometime in these last five years, the preponderance of sites which have just said, “F this” when it comes to making sure their sites’ layouts degrade gracefully with older browsers has advanced, side-by-side, with the re-vamping of sites designed principally, if not wholly, for use with glass UIs (and which, arguably, has made those sites less information-rich and more “fluffy” in terms of big eye candy — to, again, prioritize the kludgy universe of glass UIs and soft phalanges mashing that glass, clumsily).

I’m not a fan.

Yeah, I agree, I made a music portfolio recently, which you can find by clicking here. I made it as basic as I could and even encoded the pages in HTML 4 so that it could run on Power PC browsers too. It works on Arctic Fox and everything loads. It takes a moment, but it does.

I agree. I think that an 8GB RAM MODERN laptop shouldn't struggle because people can't make websites function properly. Modern laptops should NOT be lagging when going on the web. They should be surfing websites that are optimized and user-friendly. Flashy isn't always best, is it?

*Functional over Flashy* is my motto.

It's all that matters. I still enjoy these games today. Full-screen DOSBox... and I'm right at home.

I bet.

I've said elsewhere that NoScript is essential to me when dealing with the modern web. Seeing just how much some sites have going on "in the background" is mind-boggling.

I know right? On my MBP 06' I installed script blockers/content blockers and it was able to load YouTube fast and play 480p videos smoothly in fullscreen on 2GB RAM. It was amazing how much it blocked, lol.

 

[mortlocli]

< old_woman_with_hearing_aid_with_weak_batteries >
Web developers KIDS THESE DAYS… DON’T KNOW HOW TO MAKE THEM WEB SITES whose functions and rendering degrade gracefully WORK ON MY CLASSIC COMPUTER
< /old_woman_with_hearing_aid_with_weak_batteries >

For real, though: sometime in these last five years, the preponderance of sites which have just said, “F this” when it comes to making sure their sites’ layouts degrade gracefully with older browsers has advanced, side-by-side, with the re-vamping of sites designed principally, if not wholly, for use with glass UIs (and which, arguably, has made those sites less information-rich and more “fluffy” in terms of big eye candy — to, again, prioritize the kludgy universe of glass UIs and soft phalanges mashing that glass, clumsily).

I’m not a fan.

Back in 2009 I did a two paper online course in online learning. The W3C (world wide web consortium ) had a policy that the WWW is for everyone..including the blind. (They have speech readers.) And so it should be designed so everyone can use it..no matter how basic their hardware.

We were taught web design from scratch.. Using a text editor. No web making software. Had a class reference text a couple of inches thick.
The goal was accessibility.

I guess that plan has kinda got lost..for the sake of commercialism ?!

 

[lepidotós]

Stumbled upon this Arch port if anyone's interested, it's 32-bit big endian/64-bit little endian only, no 64-bit big endian yet. I need to get a CD burner at some point to test all these out...​

 

[crimsonRE]

I fess up my (implied) age as I remember clearly how when the real barnburner of on-board, high-end PC RAM was the 128KB threshold — especially when there was discussion of making it affordable enough to conceivably have at home like an Apple ][+, VIC-20, Atari 400/800, or C-64.

This also would have been just a minute before the birth of the Macintosh 128K: the IBM PC XT. We’d heard of 128K being on the mythical Apple ///, but quite literally no one we know knew anyone who had actually owned one, much less seen one. [There was also the Tandy TRS-80 Model 16, but I never, ever knew anyone with a Tandy or a Sinclair, and these only ever seemed to show up locally in the annual merchandise catalogues of the two local versions of a Sears or Eaton’s: a place called Houston Jewelry (yes, the weird American spelling) and another at a competing place called Best Jewelry (no idea, in hindsight, why one went to buy electronics and TVs at a jewellery superstore).]

We all knew the /// existed, because it would turn up in magazine ads every rare once in a while, but it was, functionally, fairy dust for almost everyone. So the closest we ever expected to run across the possibility of 128K in a PC was seeing an IBM PC in XT form ( the former of which I had seen a total of once before in someone’s house, and nowhere close to my neighbourhood!), but it would have had something like 16, 32, or 64K.

I remember an Apple II with 64KB of RAM & a 5.25" floppy drive as being the Cadillac of personal computers. My own first computer (as a teenager), an Ohio Scientific Challenger 4P, has 8KB of RAM (& saves programs to cassette tape).
DOS, of course, has the excruciating 640KB limit (Bill Gates says "Who the hell need more than 640KB?")....gawd, how many years did we put up with that???

 

[mortlocli]

This may be off topic as its about a non-ppc Linux alternative, but it's so minimal I wonder how it would go on a PPC. Its Tiny Core Linux..and it has such a simple and tidy file system...and still caters for 486 pcs.

While reading thru the comments in Distrowatch where most users find it too basic I came across a mention of it being used in Telikin computers..touch screen computers made for seniors.
Now these look quite sophisticated but simple to use..but was surprised to find - yep..actually based on Tiny core Linux:

Open Source

Telikin Computers are the most simple, easy to use touchscreen computers for seniors, elderly & their families.

www.telikin.com

Amazing that they can take such a bare bones sort of system and make it look sophisticated ..and yet still simple to use.

 

[Amethyst1]

Amazing that they can take such a bare bones sort of system and make it look sophisticated ..and yet still simple to use.

I love the Punkt MP02 for a similar reason: it’s running (bare-bones) Android but the UI is 100% text, like a mid-1990’s cellphone. Freaking awesome.

 

[mortlocli]

I love the Punkt MP02 for a similar reason: it’s running (bare-bones) Android but the UI is 100% text, like a mid-1990’s cellphone. Freaking awesome.

thats a nice looking design.
Looking at it suddenly reminded me of a phone Ive got: the LG Viewty..charging it up right now.

Liked it as soon as I saw it, as it looks more like a camera than a phone.
..has a telescopic stylus.