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PowerPC Macs Are Useless...
- Thread starter Dronecatcher
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Sorry for the off topic nature of this post, but you should consider making a guide for Mac Pro 1,1 owners, since you seem to understand the quirks a lot. I plan on buying a 1,1 myself along with a 4,1 that can be flashed to be a 5,1.
The 1,1 is fairly new to me - my feet are still firmly in the PowerPC camp - it's just that the Mac Pro doesn't really require any workarounds to get by. So far, 4 X 2.66Ghz, 9GB RAM and OSX 10.7.5 are fine for all my needs
The 1,1 is fairly new to me - my feet are still firmly in the PowerPC camp - it's just that the Mac Pro doesn't really require any workarounds to get by. So far, 4 X 2.66Ghz, 9GB RAM and OSX 10.7.5 are fine for all my needs
Curiously, how would you compare your Mac Pro 1,1 to your Quad G5s of the past? Given the specs are very similar, does the Intel system outperform the PowerPC when using software with decent UB support / optimization?
The Mac Pro is certainly faster at transcoding video - no doubt about that and somewhat better at cutting through javascript laden websites. With regard to graphic design, working with images and making music, I don't feel any difference - the Mac Pro has roughly double the CPU horsepower but it's not really noticeably faster.
I'd say the extra lifting required to make OSX Lion function detracts a little.
Also, with 10.7 Lion being the newest officially supported OS on the Mac Pro 1,1 you're no better off with it in terms of browser support. Neither 10.5 or 10.7 have modern mainstream browser support. Modern Chrome and Firefox require 10.9+.
I think Waterfox requires 10.7 but I also use ArcticFox and Intel TFF which would be happy with 10.6
While i agree (shameless plug) that Arctic Fox (10.6+) is mainstream, don't forget Pale Moon and Basilisk run on 10.7+. That's 3 modern, and updated browsers. I built them all for mac. Grab them here:
Pale Moon: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zS9kpvNZiA24qr2D_ltJ95gPCyq8gd4d/view?usp=sharing
Basilisk: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZCfMjQpbSLkwO2xmFuh33YCl67SY_XKo/view?usp=sharing
Arctic Fox: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iTzON3npfYiXnWUSqzuHAfYjP9RwY-TO/view?usp=sharing
Cheers
With all due respect... those are not mainstream browsers. They are forks of mainstream browsers. Mainstream would be official builds of Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc.
If PowerPC Macs are useless, why I am still using one in the end of 2018 and why is it my main computer?
Maybe people who use new computers just don't really know how to use them, so they need the newest device as possible to get latest apps and get their things done without a hitch.
Maybe people who use new computers just don't really know how to use them, so they need the newest device as possible to get latest apps and get their things done without a hitch.
If PowerPC Macs are useless, why I am still using one in the end of 2018 and why is it my main computer?
Maybe people who use new computers just don't really know how to use them, so they need the newest device as possible to get latest apps and get their things done without a hitch.
That's it. Besides, that PPC Macs are "useless" is just a subjective evaluation or opinion that the vast majority of people on this particular forum will happily disagree with. No big deal as everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion in my opinion.
IMO no computer is truly "useless". Every computer ever made, will likely still be able to do most of the same things now, that it could do back when it was new. A PowerBook G4 now, can still watch video/DVD, edit photos, play music, mix audio, write documents, create presentations, and browse Wikipedia, just as well now as it could back then.
What has changed, is that newer computers are better at doing that stuff now, it's not that older computers have gotten any worse at doing those jobs, it's just that newer computers have gotten better/faster.
Sadly, there are some things that have/will get worse on the old computers, thanks to the internet. Since newer computers are getting faster, websites get more bloated to "take advantage of" these faster computers, this of course, makes the browsing experience on older computers, much worse(since they can't handle these huge Javascript-based websites).
Lastly, there is also a software component. For example, with 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 2TB 7200RPM HDD, and a Quadro FX 4500, a Quad G5 should still be able to handle almost everything a modern PC or modern Mac can. But, it can't because no one writes new software that will work on it(OS X 10.5 was the last PowerPC supported MacOS version, and no one writes apps that support 10.5 anymore let-alone PowerPC-optimized 10.5 apps. Linux is just as bad, because although some distros still support PowerPC, and have new apps, almost none of them are optimized for PowerPC so they run slower than they really should.)
I really like your Arctic Fox port of Pale Moon. Been using it for a month now on 10.6.
Your New Moon 28.2.2 build above, in info.plist it says OK to run in 10.6 but it just quits immediately...
I tried out Arctic Fox on Snow Leopard. Really like it! I never really use SL for browsing... because it's typically my gaming OS, and allows me to play a wide assortment of PowerPC and Intel games.
My PowerPC systems play games fairly decently, but even the ones that only have PowerPC code in them run much better on my MacBook through Rosetta than on my fastest PowerPC system.
My PowerPC systems play games fairly decently, but even the ones that only have PowerPC code in them run much better on my MacBook through Rosetta than on my fastest PowerPC system.
@Eccofonic : Yeah, Pale Moon 28 and Basilisk are 10.7+ only. I tried to make them work on 10.6 at one time, but i think that's going to be a huge uphill battle. That's where AF fills the void.
Cheers
Cheers
PowerPC is not useless; the modern website is.
I have a feeling that, if we went to "brutalist" web design, and dumped out all of our increasingly bloated Javascript-based sites, the web would be perfectly usable on PowerPC...
They would and it wouldn't even be "brutalist". There are a lot of good looking plain HTML and CSS sites out there that are lightweight and functional. We can leave the multi-megabyte Javascript libraries, dancing bananas, and autoplaying videos in the toilet where they belong and still have a clean, beautiful, functional web.
It's still beautiful. http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
Looks better every day.
Someone ought to send Tim an email though; his list of websites online is missing a few.
If you use a browser like this it will make every webpage lightweight whether it likes it or not.
https://habilis.net/lynxlet/
https://habilis.net/lynxlet/
Hooray! You have now disabled Javascript for EVERY website you browse. Which, other than simple websites or websites solely using HTML and CSS, makes browsing pretty much suck.
A much better and more useful thing to do is install either uMatrix or NoScript. The ability to block specific JS elements on a case by case basis is much more useful than blocking it all together.
Talk about shotgun versus scalpel!
Macrumors is particularly bad about this since they redesigned it a couple years ago. I used to be able to browse MR with Netsurf or Dillo from my PowerBook and it was perfectly usable. Now it's a disaster if you don't have Javascript, which really grinds my gears because it isn't necessary.
[this post frustratingly posted from Dillo]