I literally have an iPhone and iPad as my modern devices. Everything else is either PPC, or dead. So this has almost become my reality too.
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Inaugural Summer PowerPC Challenge! July 1-8, 2017
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The Challenge has started for me, Its gonna be hard to do some things but I'll be fine. 
So, it is already July first in Korea so the challenge started for me. This date is really convenient as I was actually quite busy before today.
I'm using a Powerbook 15" 1,67 Ghz and 2Gb of Ram. It's the version with the better screen. As I'm quite far from my home it will be my only PPC device for this challenge. It's worth noting that I installed an SSD in it.
I will not be able to completely abide by the rules, as I need to use at least one modern texting app on my phone or enjoy the death of my "Korean social life".
Other than that I will use my Palm Tungsten E2, but it's already a device I use everyday so no big change here.
My first few actions of the day will include downloading BOINC, as it runs on all my other devices. Most likely for some Asteroids at Home number crunching, as it's both an interesting and quite light to run project.
I may also set a blog or something more convenient to post about the challenge and my experiences/progresses.
Finally I have some work to do, mainly writing.
In the previous weeks I installed a few games to have at least some distraction. It includes Ages of Empires 2, Age of Mythology, Space colony, Heroes of Might and Magic IV and the PowerPC version of Katawa Shoujo that someone on this forum awesomely compiled during the Winter challenge.
I'll be on the go today and tomorrow as my place is gonna be without any power for the weekend day hours.
Good Challenge everyone!
I'm using a Powerbook 15" 1,67 Ghz and 2Gb of Ram. It's the version with the better screen. As I'm quite far from my home it will be my only PPC device for this challenge. It's worth noting that I installed an SSD in it.
I will not be able to completely abide by the rules, as I need to use at least one modern texting app on my phone or enjoy the death of my "Korean social life".
Other than that I will use my Palm Tungsten E2, but it's already a device I use everyday so no big change here.
My first few actions of the day will include downloading BOINC, as it runs on all my other devices. Most likely for some Asteroids at Home number crunching, as it's both an interesting and quite light to run project.
I may also set a blog or something more convenient to post about the challenge and my experiences/progresses.
Finally I have some work to do, mainly writing.
In the previous weeks I installed a few games to have at least some distraction. It includes Ages of Empires 2, Age of Mythology, Space colony, Heroes of Might and Magic IV and the PowerPC version of Katawa Shoujo that someone on this forum awesomely compiled during the Winter challenge.
I'll be on the go today and tomorrow as my place is gonna be without any power for the weekend day hours.
Good Challenge everyone!
Would you mind writing up a step-by-step guide to how you made your linux look/act like MacOS?
Just moved my sim card from my iPhone 7 to my iPhone 3GS, charged up my iPad 1 and I'm typing this on my Powerbook G4 15" 1.67. I also have a Ti Powerbook G4, a 12" Powerbook G4 1.5 and a Powerbook G3 Pismo, so they might see some action this week as well.
Over here, I've started the PowerPC challenge and ironically, the main issue isn't the PowerPC hardware.
Since this is a PPC challenge, I can wave my iPad Air 1 good-bye so I decided to use my Nexus 7 instead. I know that the Nexus 7 isn't exactly PowerPC era but I guess it can just pass as it's exactly in between the last PowerPC supported iPad (the iPad 3 - March 2012) and the first unsupported devices (iPhone 5 - September 2012) as it was released in July 2012.
I'll be using my Nexus 7 and my PSVita in PSP mode (as my PSP is almost dead - random button presses all the time).
Other than that, my Powerbook is handling stuff pretty well, I don't mind waiting a bit for stuff an LWK is relatively fast!
EDIT: Due to unforseen family circumstances, I have decided to withdraw from this challenge. Feel free to take my place in the first post
Since this is a PPC challenge, I can wave my iPad Air 1 good-bye so I decided to use my Nexus 7 instead. I know that the Nexus 7 isn't exactly PowerPC era but I guess it can just pass as it's exactly in between the last PowerPC supported iPad (the iPad 3 - March 2012) and the first unsupported devices (iPhone 5 - September 2012) as it was released in July 2012.
I'll be using my Nexus 7 and my PSVita in PSP mode (as my PSP is almost dead - random button presses all the time).
Other than that, my Powerbook is handling stuff pretty well, I don't mind waiting a bit for stuff an LWK is relatively fast!
EDIT: Due to unforseen family circumstances, I have decided to withdraw from this challenge. Feel free to take my place in the first post
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The day is almost over for me already (It's 10:30pm in Korea) and I had no major issue. I'll do a more complete post tomorrow morning, but in the meanwhile I had a question:
Would it be considered cheating to use a PC with Steam to play a Playstation game from 1999? I have it on Playstation too but it's back at home, very far away.
Would it be considered cheating to use a PC with Steam to play a Playstation game from 1999? I have it on Playstation too but it's back at home, very far away
.So fired up the PB G4 12" in Leopard.
Started "Automatic" to get my ShowRSS feed and uTorrent providing me with a new episode/season of Zoo .
Currently installing Fedora 25 Server on the G5 running on the lefthand screen whilst watching Zoo on the PB on the righthand screen whilst browsing this forum and the blog post how to install Fedora on a G5.
About 5 hours further and I'm now going to do the manual GRUB config to be able to boot Fedora since it doesn't have Yaboot anymore, if it works detailed post will follow.
Started "Automatic" to get my ShowRSS feed and uTorrent providing me with a new episode/season of Zoo .
Currently installing Fedora 25 Server on the G5 running on the lefthand screen whilst watching Zoo on the PB on the righthand screen whilst browsing this forum and the blog post how to install Fedora on a G5.
About 5 hours further and I'm now going to do the manual GRUB config to be able to boot Fedora since it doesn't have Yaboot anymore, if it works detailed post will follow.
I might have to extend my PowerPC challenge by a day, because I'll only be able to start it properly tomorrow, Sunday 2nd. I'm away over the weekend visiting family, with no portable PPC or similar device - I'm currently on a Windows 7 desktop, also having my Android 4.4 phone with me, so... yeah. I could've fetched my PowerBook 3400, but that's just barely capable of using the internet, so it wouldn't have seen much use anyway.
I did do some prep work on the Power Mac G4 yesterday before leaving, such as getting acquainted with iTunes and ripping a few CDs, setting up my mail accounts in Leopard's Mail application, making sure certain websites work properly, things like that. So basically, I'll be starting tomorrow afternoon and see about going until the 9th then, hoping that this'll be alright.
(Quick edit: An additional note, kind of related to the challenge, I ended up buying a cheap but non-working PowerBook G4 on eBay, which should arrive in the next few days and which I hope I'll be able to get working again. We'll see about that, tho...)
I did do some prep work on the Power Mac G4 yesterday before leaving, such as getting acquainted with iTunes and ripping a few CDs, setting up my mail accounts in Leopard's Mail application, making sure certain websites work properly, things like that. So basically, I'll be starting tomorrow afternoon and see about going until the 9th then, hoping that this'll be alright.
(Quick edit: An additional note, kind of related to the challenge, I ended up buying a cheap but non-working PowerBook G4 on eBay, which should arrive in the next few days and which I hope I'll be able to get working again. We'll see about that, tho...)
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Yeah…so, iTunes 4.0. The ONLY version of iTunes that can stream your library over the internet.
Day 1: Already prepared, my PowerBook G4 (12" - 1,5GHz, maxed RAM) with Leopard, TenFourFox FPR1, VLC, Audacity, iLife 06.
I am also in the process of trying BSDs on my PowerMac G4 (400 - 1G). I already know that OpenBSD runs pretty fine on this machine, so I will digg deeper into this.
Usage: No YouTube, at least I do not know yet how to make 360-480p videos run smoothly. So I crawled Soundcloud and enjoyed some new music, this is working well on G4. I am using Audacity for recording music from my vinyl records, this is working very well. MacBook Pro (mid 2010) has a better input, but still, pretty usable even on this old PowerBook.
There is no problem with iMovie in iLife 06, importing 720p videos from my phone is kind of slow, but the editing process is OK. I just need to install Blender and GIMP to make my own Titles, since those in iMovie 06 are pretty ugly
I also installed Leopard-Webkit, just to compare it with TenFourFox, but everything non-google is working just fine in TFF. so I might not even test it during this week.
Problems: Google Drive, it is super slow, YouTube (or video-on-demand in general), no games prepared (that is my fault, not a problem with PPC).
I am also in the process of trying BSDs on my PowerMac G4 (400 - 1G). I already know that OpenBSD runs pretty fine on this machine, so I will digg deeper into this.
Usage: No YouTube, at least I do not know yet how to make 360-480p videos run smoothly. So I crawled Soundcloud and enjoyed some new music, this is working well on G4. I am using Audacity for recording music from my vinyl records, this is working very well. MacBook Pro (mid 2010) has a better input, but still, pretty usable even on this old PowerBook.
There is no problem with iMovie in iLife 06, importing 720p videos from my phone is kind of slow, but the editing process is OK. I just need to install Blender and GIMP to make my own Titles, since those in iMovie 06 are pretty ugly
I also installed Leopard-Webkit, just to compare it with TenFourFox, but everything non-google is working just fine in TFF. so I might not even test it during this week.
Problems: Google Drive, it is super slow, YouTube (or video-on-demand in general), no games prepared (that is my fault, not a problem with PPC).
The challenge has started for me.
I'm using a 2x2.0 GHz G5.
First off, I had an issue with the keyboard I was going to use (A Corsair K70 Vengeance keyboard). When plugged into the PowerMac G5 I'm using, an input kept getting spammed so I couldn't log in. When I eventually got it somewhat working, it acted as if the control key was held down (when I clicked on system prefs, it opened the context menu, stuff like that). I decided to just use a wireless Logitech keyboard, but that's not as luxurious. I would just use the keyboard that came with my iMac G4, but it's not in the best shape. I also can't stand the mouse, luckily my Zowie FK2 works fine.
Life is easy so far, I want to watch Games Done Quick on Twitch so I set up livestreamer - it works perfectly at best quality. Spotify works, so I can listen to music easily. The only thing that I kind of wished would work that doesn't is World of Warcraft - I've been playing on a private server that's on the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, which has a native PowerPC client. The only problem is, Blizzard has a thing called "Warden" that functions as an anti-cheat. The header sent to PowerPC clients was never recorded, so after you log in and try to view the character list, the client just crashes upon receiving the wrong header. I've talked to some people that host/work on servers and they basically said that it's most likely fixable but just not worth it as nobody uses PPC anymore... It'll still work on servers that don't have Warden, but sadly the server I was trying to play on does. Oh well. Any other game suggestions? I've been thinking about Warcraft III, some Civ, ZDoom, etc.
I'm probably going to install Final Cut and maybe edit some videos about my experiences with the challenge as I go, but I'm not sure.
I'm using a 2x2.0 GHz G5.
First off, I had an issue with the keyboard I was going to use (A Corsair K70 Vengeance keyboard). When plugged into the PowerMac G5 I'm using, an input kept getting spammed so I couldn't log in. When I eventually got it somewhat working, it acted as if the control key was held down (when I clicked on system prefs, it opened the context menu, stuff like that). I decided to just use a wireless Logitech keyboard, but that's not as luxurious. I would just use the keyboard that came with my iMac G4, but it's not in the best shape. I also can't stand the mouse, luckily my Zowie FK2 works fine.
Life is easy so far, I want to watch Games Done Quick on Twitch so I set up livestreamer - it works perfectly at best quality. Spotify works, so I can listen to music easily. The only thing that I kind of wished would work that doesn't is World of Warcraft - I've been playing on a private server that's on the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, which has a native PowerPC client. The only problem is, Blizzard has a thing called "Warden" that functions as an anti-cheat. The header sent to PowerPC clients was never recorded, so after you log in and try to view the character list, the client just crashes upon receiving the wrong header. I've talked to some people that host/work on servers and they basically said that it's most likely fixable but just not worth it as nobody uses PPC anymore... It'll still work on servers that don't have Warden, but sadly the server I was trying to play on does. Oh well. Any other game suggestions? I've been thinking about Warcraft III, some Civ, ZDoom, etc.
I'm probably going to install Final Cut and maybe edit some videos about my experiences with the challenge as I go, but I'm not sure.
I'm away from my Macs so don't have access to my direct links but if you search on this forum there're many ways to play Youtube on your Powerbook, even up to 720P.
EDIT: Just one example
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Day 1: Already prepared, my PowerBook G4 (12" - 1,5GHz, maxed RAM) with Leopard, TenFourFox FPR1, VLC, Audacity, iLife 06.
I am also in the process of trying BSDs on my PowerMac G4 (400 - 1G). I already know that OpenBSD runs pretty fine on this machine, so I will digg deeper into this.
Usage: No YouTube, at least I do not know yet how to make 360-480p videos run smoothly. So I crawled Soundcloud and enjoyed some new music, this is working well on G4. I am using Audacity for recording music from my vinyl records, this is working very well. MacBook Pro (mid 2010) has a better input, but still, pretty usable even on this old PowerBook.
There is no problem with iMovie in iLife 06, importing 720p videos from my phone is kind of slow, but the editing process is OK. I just need to install Blender and GIMP to make my own Titles, since those in iMovie 06 are pretty ugly
I also installed Leopard-Webkit, just to compare it with TenFourFox, but everything non-google is working just fine in TFF. so I might not even test it during this week.
Problems: Google Drive, it is super slow, YouTube (or video-on-demand in general), no games prepared (that is my fault, not a problem with PPC).
If you want to watch 360p YouTube, watch in LWK. LWK works fine with 360p YT on my PowerBook G4 and it only has a 1GHz CPU. Use PPC Media Centre to download yt vids easily!
@pet84rik Yeah as @Dronecatcher said, there are a lot of ways to watch YouTube on PowerPC Macs. On my PowerMac G4, I use Leopard WebKit for 360p Youtube, and, even if it is too CPU demanding, it works flawlessly. Damn, I can even watch Facebook videos and some sites (like Openload) video content.
@lhn555 Admirable effort in trying to get WoW on your G5. If you like FPS online multiplayer games, there's always Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, still working on PowerPC Macs. You could try installing Game Ranger, so you should be able to get a lot more multiplayer online games.
The only thing coming to my mind which is still undoable on PowerPC Macs, until someone find a solution, is video chat. Apparently every way to do it is by now gone.
@lhn555 Admirable effort in trying to get WoW on your G5. If you like FPS online multiplayer games, there's always Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, still working on PowerPC Macs. You could try installing Game Ranger, so you should be able to get a lot more multiplayer online games.
The only thing coming to my mind which is still undoable on PowerPC Macs, until someone find a solution, is video chat. Apparently every way to do it is by now gone.
Hi guys, here's what I do to watch YouTube on Leopard. I'm using Python 2.6.4, maybe other versions will work as well but I haven't tested it. Also make sure you have VLC.
Download youtube-dl and put it where you want, I put it in my home folder so my Terminal would open to where it is already. Make sure you chmod +x it.
Then, I used this simple script to ask for a YouTube link and use youtube-dl to stream it through to VLC.
It'll ask you for a link, you put it in, and it streams. Using the native stream option built into VLC doesn't work with YouTube as there's a problem with what they're using to handle TLS on the release for PPC Macs I guess.
Download youtube-dl and put it where you want, I put it in my home folder so my Terminal would open to where it is already. Make sure you chmod +x it.
Then, I used this simple script to ask for a YouTube link and use youtube-dl to stream it through to VLC.
Code:
echo -n "Link? "
read link
./youtube-dl "$link" -o -| "/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC" -It'll ask you for a link, you put it in, and it streams. Using the native stream option built into VLC doesn't work with YouTube as there's a problem with what they're using to handle TLS on the release for PPC Macs I guess.
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Thank you guys. I have tried that Media centre PPC, but I am probably not skilled enough to run it.
Connectix Virtual Game Station if you happen to have the PlayStation discs with you.The day is almost over for me already (It's 10:30pm in Korea) and I had no major issue. I'll do a more complete post tomorrow morning, but in the meanwhile I had a question:
Would it be considered cheating to use a PC with Steam to play a Playstation game from 1999? I have it on Playstation too but it's back at home, very far away
End of the first day here (actually a little after, 1:08 AM), and it's been pretty good so far. My G5 only has 2.5 GB of ram which seems to be the main bottleneck of the machine. I'm installing FCPS 2, watching a YT video through VLC, and typing this. It takes many seconds for the text to catch up with my typing. I wish I had more DDR ram lying around (if only it didn't have to be in matching pairs...)
I had a bit of a light day on the computer, a little busy with weekend things and a lot lazy.
New blog post is up, will have at least one per day for the week!
New blog post is up, will have at least one per day for the week!
That's not likely too little RAM, it's because you are using the rich text editor - you can turn it off under your username/preferences at the top right.
The first day went pretty smooth for me, i had no problems doing almost all of the things i do on my x86 wintel machine on my 1.33 GHz iBook G4. Using my mini vga to vga adapter i hooked up the G4 to my 1080p monitor. I watch 720p video thanks to CorePlayer and i watch 480p youtube at a buttery smooth 30 fps thanks to QuickTime Enabler. The only problem i have is the macrumors website. It looks horrible for some reason and it wont work, so i am forced to post from my phone (i've tried switching browsers and i still get the same issues). You can see what i mean by looking at the provided screenshot. Other than that i have no issues so far...
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Second day of the challenge, still trying to get Fedora 25 Server to boot into a GUI on my G5.
I've installed Mate, Cinnamon, even Gnome but no luck , I only get a mouse cursor.
LXDE seems to work but the colors are awfull and the text is hard to read.
I've swapped my Radeon video card to an Nvidia one but same result.
I'm removing all DE's except LXDE and am going to fiddle around with kernel boot options now
I've installed Mate, Cinnamon, even Gnome but no luck , I only get a mouse cursor.
LXDE seems to work but the colors are awfull and the text is hard to read.
I've swapped my Radeon video card to an Nvidia one but same result.
I'm removing all DE's except LXDE and am going to fiddle around with kernel boot options now