Hi all,
This is a post in favor of why I feel NetBSD is worth consideration for those that may not have tried it yet on their PowerPC hardware.
While many of us are content sticking with OS X, others of us enjoy using alternate OSes on our aged hardware. Reasons for this may vary, but in my case I enjoy being able to use newer and modern software in order to extend the usefulness of my old devices in ways that an old OS cannot. I am writing this from that perspective.
NetBSD has some advantages over Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD on 32bit PPC hardware. First and foremost is compatibility. NetBSD runs on (almost) everything including very old hardware. This is an advantage because most Linux and Unix flavors have dropped or are dropping support for 32bit PPC. Meanwhile, NetBSD continues to run on everything from modern ARM and AMD64 devices all the way down to a Sega Dreamcast and 68k Macs!
The second advantage is ease of use. While the installation isn't the easiest compared to other OSes, once you are up and going, it is surprising how much just works vs Linux on the same hardware. From the perspective of my iBook G4 video drivers, audio, CPU frequency scaling, and laptop shortcut keys like brightness and volume work properly with little to no configuration. With Linux on the same device, without a struggle you have no video, CPU frequency scaling can only be had with an old legacy userspace daemon that you have to manually install, and the brightness keys work inconsistently and most of the time work backwards! Sadly, I have to use a WiFi USB dongle as Broadcom support is lacking, but I consider this a net win.
Third is software availability. OpenBSD and FreeBSD have some packages available as binary packages and the rest you have to compile from source. NetBSD's binary selection, even on 32bit PPC, is extensive. I'm writing this on the iBook running NetBSD under Firefox 52 because they keep that version available as a binary! This fact has allowed me to use this machine as a modern Python dev machine which I'm building a game with. I ended up on NetBSD because that was the only BSD I could find that allows me to easily run an up-to-date version of it.
Fourth is performance. This is where I was really impressed. Somehow, I have far better graphical performance under NetBSD on my iBook G4 with an ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 than on do with Debian Linux on an ATI Radeon 9800 on my dual 1.8 GHz PowerMac G4. I discovered this when printing the FPS of my game in pygame. On both instances, since there is no working 3D acceleration outside of OS X and MorphOS, I disabled GLX entirely to allow pygame to run. On the iBook I'm hitting a full 60 FPS in pygame! On Linux on the faster PowerMac, I could only get 23.
Fifth is pkgsrc. You thought MacPorts was cool, wait till you try pkgsrc out! If you don't want to deal with the slower cadence of the binary packages, you can build all of your packages from source with ease. It also allows you to update your compile options for all packages from a single config file. It even supports cross compiling to other architectures! While pkgsrc is NetBSD native, it supports other OSes as well including other BSDs, Linux, and modern MacOS. As of a few weeks ago, pkcsrc even runs on OS X Tiger now! Unix software from pkgsrc for Mac OS X 10.4 (PowerPC Tiger)
Sixth is its simplicity. Unlike modern Linux, one can conceivably learn most of how the OS works. Its init system is ran by simple scripts, and the documentation for most of my experience has been clear, thorough, and concise. While my background lies heavily in Linux, I have never been lost under NetBSD after a brief learning period.
Finally, I have to mention the community around it. Their IRC channel has been friendly, welcoming, and helpful with everything I've thrown at them. Since the community is small, you get the actual devs of the OS there.
If you made it this far, hopefully you'll be convinced to at least consider trying it as an alternate OS for your PowerPC Mac. It has afforded me a degree of freedom and flexibility with far fewer problems that any other alternate OS I've tried so far. Maybe it can do the same for you!
This is a post in favor of why I feel NetBSD is worth consideration for those that may not have tried it yet on their PowerPC hardware.
While many of us are content sticking with OS X, others of us enjoy using alternate OSes on our aged hardware. Reasons for this may vary, but in my case I enjoy being able to use newer and modern software in order to extend the usefulness of my old devices in ways that an old OS cannot. I am writing this from that perspective.
NetBSD has some advantages over Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD on 32bit PPC hardware. First and foremost is compatibility. NetBSD runs on (almost) everything including very old hardware. This is an advantage because most Linux and Unix flavors have dropped or are dropping support for 32bit PPC. Meanwhile, NetBSD continues to run on everything from modern ARM and AMD64 devices all the way down to a Sega Dreamcast and 68k Macs!
The second advantage is ease of use. While the installation isn't the easiest compared to other OSes, once you are up and going, it is surprising how much just works vs Linux on the same hardware. From the perspective of my iBook G4 video drivers, audio, CPU frequency scaling, and laptop shortcut keys like brightness and volume work properly with little to no configuration. With Linux on the same device, without a struggle you have no video, CPU frequency scaling can only be had with an old legacy userspace daemon that you have to manually install, and the brightness keys work inconsistently and most of the time work backwards! Sadly, I have to use a WiFi USB dongle as Broadcom support is lacking, but I consider this a net win.
Third is software availability. OpenBSD and FreeBSD have some packages available as binary packages and the rest you have to compile from source. NetBSD's binary selection, even on 32bit PPC, is extensive. I'm writing this on the iBook running NetBSD under Firefox 52 because they keep that version available as a binary! This fact has allowed me to use this machine as a modern Python dev machine which I'm building a game with. I ended up on NetBSD because that was the only BSD I could find that allows me to easily run an up-to-date version of it.
Fourth is performance. This is where I was really impressed. Somehow, I have far better graphical performance under NetBSD on my iBook G4 with an ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 than on do with Debian Linux on an ATI Radeon 9800 on my dual 1.8 GHz PowerMac G4. I discovered this when printing the FPS of my game in pygame. On both instances, since there is no working 3D acceleration outside of OS X and MorphOS, I disabled GLX entirely to allow pygame to run. On the iBook I'm hitting a full 60 FPS in pygame! On Linux on the faster PowerMac, I could only get 23.
Fifth is pkgsrc. You thought MacPorts was cool, wait till you try pkgsrc out! If you don't want to deal with the slower cadence of the binary packages, you can build all of your packages from source with ease. It also allows you to update your compile options for all packages from a single config file. It even supports cross compiling to other architectures! While pkgsrc is NetBSD native, it supports other OSes as well including other BSDs, Linux, and modern MacOS. As of a few weeks ago, pkcsrc even runs on OS X Tiger now! Unix software from pkgsrc for Mac OS X 10.4 (PowerPC Tiger)
Sixth is its simplicity. Unlike modern Linux, one can conceivably learn most of how the OS works. Its init system is ran by simple scripts, and the documentation for most of my experience has been clear, thorough, and concise. While my background lies heavily in Linux, I have never been lost under NetBSD after a brief learning period.
Finally, I have to mention the community around it. Their IRC channel has been friendly, welcoming, and helpful with everything I've thrown at them. Since the community is small, you get the actual devs of the OS there.
If you made it this far, hopefully you'll be convinced to at least consider trying it as an alternate OS for your PowerPC Mac. It has afforded me a degree of freedom and flexibility with far fewer problems that any other alternate OS I've tried so far. Maybe it can do the same for you!
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