I remember installing Growl back in the day, so I could get notifications. I think I got things wrong. Or something.
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The future of PowerPC in the ARM revolution.
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I remember installing Growl back in the day, so I could get notifications. I think I got things wrong. Or something.
You too??
It ended up getting so bad for me, I had to switch to Linux to preserve my health! Save for the few times I've since had to work on modern Macs (and deal with life), I've been cortisol-free for two-and-a-half years.
Funny, I had the opposite experience. Last distro I used was Debian though.I had to switch to Linux to preserve my health! Save for the few times I've since had to work on modern Macs (and deal with life), I've been cortisol-free for two-and-a-half years.
I tried Ubuntu and liked it on my PC laptop, but it couldn't run certain software and WINE wasn't enough, so I had to go back to Windows 10 for daily driver stuff. I like to use my old Macs when I can to escape Windows 10.
What's wrong with Debian? It's pretty lightweight and not particularly hostile for most things. You might run into driver issues for gpus I suppose.
Boy, are you in luck ...
PINEBOOK Pro | PINE64
Hexa-Core Rockchip RK3399 4GB LPDDR4 RAM M.2 NVMe expansion option 1080p IPS panel Built-in 802.11ac WiFi with Bluetooth 5.0 Bootable microSD and 64GB eMMC Go to Store The Pinebook Pro is meant to…www.pine64.org
Ordered...
I remember hearing they don't exactly have the best build quality, or the best performance, but for $200? I can forgive a lot at that price for a new laptop, as long as it offers something unique.Ordered...
The build quality is okay. The keyboard and trackpad are the only things that feel cheap. Performance isn't bad, and it's certainly faster than a PPC laptop. I run OpenBSD on mine, so Linux would be much faster. I never tried the Linux distro it comes with so couldn't tell you how it performs with it
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It wasn't too bad. But it had small problems that added up. I installed it on an old HP Laptop to try it out and it was working decently well besides the wifi randomly dropping. (this was about 2014-15 or so I think) I mainly used it to dick around in Linux to learn stuff about it. I used Debian on the recommendation of a friend.
I installed Gnome 3 first and when my little sisters came over I decided to install Linux on it for when they wanted to Play Minecraft. Well the "double click/right click" to open didn't work on it, and I spent hours googling to fix it and couldn't really get it to work. (So I just taught 10 year olds to use the command line, which took less of my time) I also decided to install VBA on it to emulate Gameboy Games (like I did on my MBA at the time, said sisters were interested in my Game Boy Color and I wanted them to be able to play some games without gumming up my original Game Boy). VBA worked fine, but I couldn't get the bluetooth to recognize the Dualshock 4 controller, so I found a program to do exactly that and installed the binary. That didn't work, so I tried to compile it from source, still didn't work, so I gave up. It was my last 2 years of College and I had less free time to mess with it.
Eventually the double-click problem was fixed by reinstalling Debian and using KDE this time, but by this point my sisters had moved on to iPad Minis so it was a moot point. I did install it on a Dell Inspiron 17 that I still have, but it's been hardly touched because I was deep into Macs at this point. It works fine, but I don't feel it has any benefits over the Macs that I use.
My Linux-using friend group was helpful thankfully, but only one of them used Debian. They currently use Alpine, Manjaro, Ubuntu, and NixOS.
Also I should point out that Linux is restricted to hobby-use for me, since my work is deep in Adobe territory, so I haven't had much experience with doing productive stuff with it. My programmer friends all use it though, so it clearly has benefits there, but they're all much smarter than I am and more willing to spend time fixing broken things.
Also as a final note, the text rendering and trackpad drivers just aren't as good as Mac, so here I am. If I do dive into messing with Linux again I'll probably go for Manjaro this time, and just play around with UI stuff.
I'll wipe it and install Debian on it. It's my distro of choice, and I've gotten to know it well over the past ten years
And speaking of (things based on) Debian, I did just install Lubuntu 20.04 on my rather old Dell, and it feels like a whole new laptop. It's frankly kind of amazing how much better it runs than it was with Windows 10. Most of my experience with Linux comes from 16.04 on a Powermac G5, so I figured I might as well try something I was familiar with.I'll wipe it and install Debian on it. It's my distro of choice, and I've gotten to know it well over the past ten years
It's just so nice to have hardware and software choices. And it's wonderful to see both my Windows and Apple towers sharing files natively.
PowerPC is so far out of date these days that the ARM transition effectively means nothing. These machines are still capable of web browsing, and will be until TenFourFox is discontinued. Given the relative strength of the G5 and the continued interest in these machines as enthusiast's and hobbyist's devices, that could last for a long while yet. I used a G5 as a daily driver for most of 2014-2015 and if I wasn't actively coding in R and Python for work and school I could do it today. They incidentally still make great music machines anyways, as all available software is of an appropriate vintage that you can't really overtax the G5. I know eyoungren has used a G5 for quite sometime as a work machine just fine in graphic design.
That being said, a year's difference is quite noticable: my Mac Pro 1,1 can run 10.11 and use up to date versions of Logic, Waves plugins, RStudio, and Jupyter Notebooks. I'm not even sure if Python 3 works on G5s. (Not a computer science guy, so someone else could tell you that).
The truth is, these devices have basically, stagnated, per se, but are stuck where they are. They won't get noticably better or worse from here on out, much like OS9 computers. Computing standards on the browser side have slowed down in terms of rate of advancement, despite Apple's insistence on arbitrary OS updates anually nowadays.
That being said, a year's difference is quite noticable: my Mac Pro 1,1 can run 10.11 and use up to date versions of Logic, Waves plugins, RStudio, and Jupyter Notebooks. I'm not even sure if Python 3 works on G5s. (Not a computer science guy, so someone else could tell you that).
The truth is, these devices have basically, stagnated, per se, but are stuck where they are. They won't get noticably better or worse from here on out, much like OS9 computers. Computing standards on the browser side have slowed down in terms of rate of advancement, despite Apple's insistence on arbitrary OS updates anually nowadays.
The company that just past 2 trillion in market value? Collapse?
I still don't get the hateboner that people get over Cook. Can we stop pretending like Steve Jobs was the messiah of tech and Cook is the pretender to the throne?
As far as I can tell Apple under Tim Cook is no more hostile to user repair than it was under Jobs.
As far as I can tell Apple under Tim Cook is no more hostile to user repair than it was under Jobs.
I repair Macs for my own use and to give away to folks who want to tinker with an old computer.
Other folks far more qualified, like Louis Rossman, have expanded at length on Apple’s wholesale retreat from product modularity, ability to repair, and closing access to repair materials like schematics and parts — all in contravention of a consumer doctrine known as right to repair — which have advanced en toto under the executive steering of Tim Cook (who assumed day-to-day operations some time before Jobs died).
The trash can Mac Pro, dramatically lacking parts modularity, was launched in 2013.
The retina MBP, with the completely sealed display assembly, perma-soldered RAM and proprietary SSD pins, was launched in mid-2012.
The current MacBook, with virtually no parts that can be replaced (and stuck with a failed keyboard design), was launched in 2015.
The current form factor iMac, with adhesive-sealed LCD to thwart internal access to adding RAM/change drive, was launched in mid-2012.
Yes, there was an entry-level MacBook Air in 2008, and even then, there were still modular parts which could be replaced by a person proficient with electronics repair (and/or equipped with the tools, diagrams, related skills, and maybe even an iFixit guide).
This has not been the case under the tutelage of Cook over the past 10 years, and “as far as I can tell” is not a valid observation unless you can attest to applied repair knowledge on the last decade’s introduction of Macs (that is, the post-unibody MBPs/MBs, post-G5-case-MacPros, and the LCD-sealed iMacs listed above). And then there’s the T2 chip. That’s a whole separate conversation we ought to have.
And yes, while Apple aren’t the only designer/manufacturer force pressing against “right-to-repair”, their reach in the industry now is tremendous, and the leads they make dramatically impact and shape the development & design decisions of a smaller, ever-dwindling pool of competitors.
And that’s why you’re hearing longtime users of Apple gear speaking, some even qualified, on this thread about Apple’s wholesale abandonment of a customer-oriented business and its embrace as a firm committed to micro-transaction service culture and a compelled planned obsolescence of its now-completely closed hardware which forces more e-waste and a termination for end-users to seek means to keep their hardware operating for many years to come.
I’m coming back with an edit to add:
With a two-trillion dollar market cap, Apple may not be at risk to corporate, uhm, “hardship” in the near-term, but consumer dissatisfaction with this overall strategy, over time, is going to render this closed model as completely antithetical to a continuing prosperity of brand loyalty.
That is: consumers will, when presented with better options, consider consuming something else if they want to avoid a completely closed ecosystem in which, should one part fail on their gear, they risk losing everything on that gear (and whose main/sole recourse is to buy the same thing again, with the same risk of failure and loss of everything on that gear). And no, “putting it all on the cloud” as “backup” is not a sustainable, long-term fix — especially when you’re an institution with a fixed annual budget for capital spending on new (i.e., replacement) equipment.
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Unfortunately the browsing experience on PPC is tied to one individual on the entire planet. Once that person decides they're no longer interested in doing the work that will change. How long he'll continue to do it is anyone's guess but I'm not sure I would consider it a long while yet.
BTW, kudos to Cameron Kaiser for all his hard work which he gives away for free. Doing this must consume a lot of time.
Eric moved his DD away from PPC to Intel earlier this year. PPC systems are still useful but they are primarily used for special circumstances and / or enthusiast purposes.
Can confirm that Python 3 works on Leopard on a G4, so I can only assume it would on a G5 as well. I installed from Tigerbrew when I set it up a year or so ago, and it worked without a hitch.
My problems with Apple, and some other corporations, goes far beyond hostile user repair. They'll never see another dime of my cash until there is a change in their leadership and a change in how they operate, as well as treat a large portion of their customers. I don't see it happening, but there you go. I won't elaborate any further than that.
Quite frankly, Apple are well beyond the legal line labelled “a trust”.
As an American case example, Eastman Kodak strayed well beyond this line during the 1950s and 1960s with the completely closed-loop ecosystem of Kodachrome film and processing, alongside cameras and formats they pioneered and dominated for years (such as 126, 110, 828 and so on).
Subsequent antitrust action compelled EK to allow third-party competitors (3M, Fuji, etc.) to produce film stock using the proprietary chemical process of Kodachrome, and the pre-paid mailer envelopes for processing Kodachrome was ended in the U.S., allowing customers to drop off their Kodachrome at third-party photomats instead of having to send everything directly to EK.