Modern software builds for Mac OS X Tiger on PPC G3, G4 and G5 — GCC 15, Python 3.13, curl, git, ffmpeg

[danupsher]

Hey all,

I've been running an iMac G5 on Tiger 10.4.11

I spent some time cross-compiling modern packages for PPC.
Figured I'd share the results for anyone else still running Tiger on G5 hardware.

tiger-ppc-builds — pre-compiled modern software for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on PowerPC G5.

https://github.com/danupsher/tiger-ppc-builds

What's available (as GitHub releases):

- GCC 15.2.0 — C/C++ compiler with C++23 support and full exception handling
- Python 3.13.12 — Full stdlib including sqlite3, ssl, ctypes, readline, lzma, bz2. HTTPS works out of the box.
- OpenSSL 3.6.1 — Static libs + headers, mainly useful for building other software
- curl 8.12.1 — HTTPS support via OpenSSL, TLS 1.2/1.3
- git 2.48.1 — Full git with HTTPS clone support (you can clone from GitHub)
- ffmpeg 7.1.1 — ffmpeg + ffprobe with AAC, FLAC, H.264, and more

All six tested on real hardware: iMac G5 (PowerMac8,2), G5 2GHz, 1GB RAM, Tiger 10.4.11.

Installation:

Download the tarball for the package you want from the Releases page, then extract to root. Most things land in /usr/local/bin.

tar xzf <package>.tar.gz -C /

That's it. No installer, no dependencies to chase down (each package bundles what it needs).

Compatibility note — G5 only:

These are compiled with -mcpu=970, so they target the G5 (PPC970) specifically. They will not run on G3 or G4. Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger required.

How they were built:

Cross-compiled on Linux targeting powerpc-apple-darwin8, with the final linking done SSH-proxied through a real Tiger Mac to keep the binaries Darwin-native. Not a trivial setup to get right, but the end result is straightforward to use.

Hope this is useful to someone. If you run into issues or want to request another package, feel free to open an issue on GitHub or reply here.

 

[Smithwick’s]

Phenomenal stuff! I would love to see it available for G4s, though. As a general rule my G5 machines primarily use Leopard/SL or other PPC64 OSes. Tiger is my go-to for G4s (though I do have it on my PMG5 for Classic purposes more than anything). Will test out as soon as I get the opportunity. [Posting from my iBook G4 running Tiger 😉 ]

 

[Forest Expertise]

Hey all,

I've been running an iMac G5 on Tiger 10.4.11

I spent some time cross-compiling modern packages for PPC.
Figured I'd share the results for anyone else still running Tiger on G5 hardware.

tiger-ppc-builds — pre-compiled modern software for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on PowerPC G5.

https://github.com/danupsher/tiger-ppc-builds

What's available (as GitHub releases):

- GCC 15.2.0 — C/C++ compiler with C++23 support and full exception handling
- Python 3.13.12 — Full stdlib including sqlite3, ssl, ctypes, readline, lzma, bz2. HTTPS works out of the box.
- OpenSSL 3.6.1 — Static libs + headers, mainly useful for building other software
- curl 8.12.1 — HTTPS support via OpenSSL, TLS 1.2/1.3
- git 2.48.1 — Full git with HTTPS clone support (you can clone from GitHub)
- ffmpeg 7.1.1 — ffmpeg + ffprobe with AAC, FLAC, H.264, and more

All six tested on real hardware: iMac G5 (PowerMac8,2), G5 2GHz, 1GB RAM, Tiger 10.4.11.

Installation:

Download the tarball for the package you want from the Releases page, then extract to root. Most things land in /usr/local/bin.

tar xzf <package>.tar.gz -C /

That's it. No installer, no dependencies to chase down (each package bundles what it needs).

Compatibility note — G5 only:

These are compiled with -mcpu=970, so they target the G5 (PPC970) specifically. They will not run on G3 or G4. Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger required.

How they were built:

Cross-compiled on Linux targeting powerpc-apple-darwin8, with the final linking done SSH-proxied through a real Tiger Mac to keep the binaries Darwin-native. Not a trivial setup to get right, but the end result is straightforward to use.

Hope this is useful to someone. If you run into issues or want to request another package, feel free to open an issue on GitHub or reply here.

Thank you for the fix to gcc15! Everything else builds fine with PowerPC ports, but I had no luck with gcc15. Would it be okay if your fix gets added to the ports repo?

 

[danupsher]

Thank you for the fix to gcc15! Everything else builds fine with PowerPC ports, but I had no luck with gcc15. Would it be okay if your fix gets added to the ports repo?

Yes of course!

 

[danupsher]

Release cross-compiler-1.0 · danupsher/tiger-ppc-builds

Update cross-compiler section: add PPC_TIGER_HOST, SSH linking note

github.com

Cross compiler for anyone who may need it. Instructions on how to use in the readme

 

[danupsher]

Hey all,

I've been running an iMac G5 on Tiger 10.4.11

I spent some time cross-compiling modern packages for PPC.
Figured I'd share the results for anyone else still running Tiger on G5 hardware.

tiger-ppc-builds — pre-compiled modern software for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on PowerPC G5.

https://github.com/danupsher/tiger-ppc-builds

What's available (as GitHub releases):

- GCC 15.2.0 — C/C++ compiler with C++23 support and full exception handling
- Python 3.13.12 — Full stdlib including sqlite3, ssl, ctypes, readline, lzma, bz2. HTTPS works out of the box.
- OpenSSL 3.6.1 — Static libs + headers, mainly useful for building other software
- curl 8.12.1 — HTTPS support via OpenSSL, TLS 1.2/1.3
- git 2.48.1 — Full git with HTTPS clone support (you can clone from GitHub)
- ffmpeg 7.1.1 — ffmpeg + ffprobe with AAC, FLAC, H.264, and more

All six tested on real hardware: iMac G5 (PowerMac8,2), G5 2GHz, 1GB RAM, Tiger 10.4.11.

Installation:

Download the tarball for the package you want from the Releases page, then extract to root. Most things land in /usr/local/bin.

tar xzf <package>.tar.gz -C /

That's it. No installer, no dependencies to chase down (each package bundles what it needs).

Compatibility note — G5 only:

These are compiled with -mcpu=970, so they target the G5 (PPC970) specifically. They will not run on G3 or G4. Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger required.

How they were built:

Cross-compiled on Linux targeting powerpc-apple-darwin8, with the final linking done SSH-proxied through a real Tiger Mac to keep the binaries Darwin-native. Not a trivial setup to get right, but the end result is straightforward to use.

Hope this is useful to someone. If you run into issues or want to request another package, feel free to open an issue on GitHub or reply here.

Update

What's new:
- GCC 15.2.0 now runs natively on any PPC Mac (G3, G4, G5) — not just G5 anymore
- Full C++20 and C++23 support: concepts, spaceship operator, consteval, deducing this, if consteval, coroutines, etc.
- Complete STL: vector, map, unordered_map, string, regex, chrono, optional, variant, any, and more
- Full C++ exception handling: throw/catch with all types, deep unwind, multi-catch, RAII cleanup


Also available as a standalone Linux cross-compiler — compile PPC Tiger binaries from any x86_64 Linux box with no Mac needed. Pipeline: GCC 15 cc1/cc1plus → assembly fixup → cctools assembler → ld64 (Apple's linker ported to Linux).
All running natively on Linux.

Pre-built packages (all tested on Tiger):
- Python 3.13.12
- OpenSSL 3.6.1
- curl 8.12.1
- git 2.48.1
- ffmpeg 7.1.1

Everything is on GitHub: https://github.com/danupsher/tiger-ppc-builds

The cross-compiler tarball is 68MB and includes the Mac OS X 10.4u SDK — just extract, add to PATH, and ppc-ld64-g++ -std=c++17 program.cpp -o program.