Open-source software currently supported on macOS PowerPC

[barracuda156]

I guess I am limited to 10.5.8 after all - 10.6.8 A5 doesn’t boot, instead it displays a gray background with an instruction to turn off my Mac

Which image did you use and how specifically? Are there any PCIe cards (aside of the GPU) installed?
Did you try booting into boot picker (with Alt pressed)?

It is not impossible that some specific configuration is unsupported, but I had no boot issues on G5 2.3.
Generally safe procedure would be to download the image from the Mac (Windows can screw dmg), clone it to a different partition or drive with Disk Utility with Erase destination checked. Boot with Alt pressed, choose the boot drive.

 

[wewishyouhealth]

Which image did you use and how specifically? Are there any PCIe cards (aside of the GPU) installed?
Did you try booting into boot picker (with Alt pressed)?

It is not impossible that some specific configuration is unsupported, but I had no boot issues on G5 2.3.
Generally safe procedure would be to download the image from the Mac (Windows can screw dmg), clone it to a different partition or drive with Disk Utility with Erase destination checked. Boot with Alt pressed, choose the boot drive.

10.6.8_PPC_A5.dmg, there are no additional PCIe cards - it eventually worked after a retry, though I had to use the boot picker as you said - otherwise it would lose video after the boot screen and output garbled audio from the Leopard welcome video - I will see how it works on the next reboot.

So far though, I am trying the solutions you have provided on GitHub on 10.5

 

[barracuda156]

10.6.8_PPC_A5.dmg, there are no additional PCIe cards - it eventually worked after a retry, though I had to use the boot picker as you said - otherwise it would lose video after the boot screen and output garbled audio from the Leopard welcome video - I will see how it works on the next reboot.

So far though, I am trying the solutions you have provided on GitHub on 10.5

If you plan to use SDL2 or anything that uses it for video/GUI, install libsdl2-cocoa with +oldapi variant. It doesn’t matter if it was initially installed without it, just run

sudo port -v upgrade --enforce-variants libsdl2-cocoa +oldapi

That adds a hack for A5’s GL.

 

[wewishyouhealth]

If you plan to use SDL2 or anything that uses it for video/GUI, install libsdl2-cocoa with +oldapi variant. It doesn’t matter if it was initially installed without it, just run

sudo port -v upgrade --enforce-variants libsdl2-cocoa +oldapi

That adds a hack for A5’s GL.

Thank you, I will remember that - do you have an example or two of what could use it?

 

[barracuda156]

Thank you, I will remember that - do you have an example or two of what could use it?

ffmpeg*, mpv, mpv-devel, lite-xl, wiliwili, mlterm (with +sdl2)

 

[barracuda156]

Indeed, I have also tried this prebuilt from _ppc64 that you mentioned, however, just as the 10.6.8 prebuilt, it crashes on startup, without displaying any bit of UI. And yes, I followed what was said for 10.5.8 on your website

1. Re ppc64. [Obviously] to have ppc64 apps running you need the whole setup for ppc64, including gcc14 etc. You probably could not have tried that, since it gonna take time to compile everything (my pre-built ports for ppc64 are outdated, and just forcing older versions will not always work, unless you carefully use a time snapshot of ports).
Just pulling something from there and trying to run in ppc32 env won’t work.
Unless someone arranges remote access to a fast G5, ppc64 project is dead for end-users, I have no resources to compile everything. (I will still try to have at least the toolchain working and pre-built.)

2. On 10.6.8 everything should work out-of-the-box (with a few caveats re set-up). Notice, I use qt4-mac-devel on 10.6.8 (unless something does not build with it; a few ports require non-devel qt4-mac explicitly).
Good news is that you can usually switch on the go without recompiling Qt4 ports. I usually do this whenever I want something Qt4-based:

sudo port -v -N install qt4-mac-devel

And then compile w/e desired.