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Bug-Creator

macrumors 68000
May 30, 2011
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Why “if”? ATI cards were officially supported on PM G5 2005. Of course they work.

Sure, but....

Genuine PPC-Mac cards for the PCIe are rare as none shipped as the default option.
Flashed PC cards often show issues when used in MorphOS.

"Best" way to use a PCIe PowerMac_G5 with MorphOS is to install a newer Radeon with AtomBIOS which won't work with the OF or OSX and then either boot into MorphOS "blind" or leave in the NVidia for those purposes.
 

Methanoid

macrumors regular
Jan 6, 2009
104
84
Has anyone netbooted MOS (or Debian/Linux) on PPC machines? If so would appreciate pointers
 

danielktdoranie

macrumors member
Jul 28, 2021
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WTF? Did these people write an entire OS from scratch? Their website has lots of words but very few details.

It can't be Linux because it's not GPL. BSD-based maybe? Did they make a full webkit port?
Yes. The project´s original goal was to create a new operating system which allowed to transparently run legacy applications originally written for Commodore's Ax00 range of computers on modern hardware. It's basically an AmigaOS clone done right.

As for 2020 webkit.. It was ported. https://wayfarer.icu/

Okay, y'all triggered the f*ck out of me LOL

No. A LOT of code from the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) project AROS (AROS Research Operating System) is in MorphOS. I won't pay for MorphOS on that basis, They've taken code that is free and open source and put it in their closed source operating system and charge for it. Morally speaking, personally, I have a problem with this.

Don't get me wrong, they're doing a lot of work of their own too, I wouldn't mind donating money to the project (especially if it was open source, as I have done with other open source projects in the past) but taking the code that someone else made free and open source, and then taking it and charging €79 for it? Wow.

They'd have a lot more developers and we'd see MorphOS on a lot more hardware platforms if it was FOSS (like AROS is).

As far as Mac OS X goes, yes Apple did more or less the same thing, but at least they published the FOSS code they used (Darwin) for anyone to use (they kept the FOSS part FOSS) and now macOS is free.

It's sad because 1.) I really like MorphOS and 2.)we need more Amiga-like operating systems out there IMHO. Amigas had true preemptive multitasking (TRIPOS) when no other retail operating systems did (yes, one could get Unix with it's preemptive multitasking in the 1980s too but it was intended for educational and corporate use, some license were crazy expensive) unlike "classic" Mac OS and Window's cooperative multitasking that was horrible making those OSes crash a lot). Hell Apple didn't get a preemptive multitasking until it bought NeXT and we didn't get to use it until the Mac OS X Public Beta was released.
 
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Methanoid

macrumors regular
Jan 6, 2009
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Whether or not they used FOS code €79 is a lot for an OS these days. People pay €15 for Windows (which is better, although many many flaws), Linux generally free. Should be no more than €29 to grow userbase and they probably sell 2-3 times as many licences
 

danielktdoranie

macrumors member
Jul 28, 2021
42
24
Whether or not they used FOS code €79 is a lot for an OS these days. People pay €15 for Windows (which is better, although many many flaws), Linux generally free. Should be no more than €29 to grow userbase and they probably sell 2-3 times as many licences
If it was open source and free I would happily donate €100 on my own volition.
 

danielktdoranie

macrumors member
Jul 28, 2021
42
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ArcaOS is $139. Just sayin‘. 🦄
Yeah I don't like OS/2 enough to pay that. I can always spin up a OS/2 Warp 4 Connect VM for free if I ever get nostalgic for it.

BY THE WAY! You hear Hobbes OS/2 Archive is going away permanently on April 15th, 2024? They stopped accepting submissions. I downloaded the entire thing... I wonder if archive.org will host it?
 

Tankerthebuberz

macrumors member
Nov 3, 2023
79
45
I usually don't post responses in this area, as it can get quite heated, as exemplified by the fine gentleman above who got 'triggered.' There is a cost to everything, even freedom. Unfortunately, you may not like hearing that, but there is. There was a cost to produce the machine you're using, all the way down to paying the person who mined the minerals for the batteries and other materials. Even Ubuntu and open-source projects like Debian get kickbacks for including specific browsers and keeping search engines defaults out of the box, amongst other tactics like Debian's 'popularity contest.'

The PowerPC market is not growing; in fact, it is shrinking as machines get older and die. The market share (just PowerPC Macs, not including third-party machines) gets smaller each year. What a lot of people don't think about is the aspect of continued support and browser updates, along with email. The WebKit browser and Iris email clients are always updated, usually monthly or every few months, basing everything off the current WebKit branch. That time and energy help support that. Without that support, we would end up with projects like TenFourFox, which, with all due respect, is aging, and continued hobby development is far and in-between (big thanks to Wicknix and Cameron). But without funding, the project may die, along with its software development and support. You have to understand they don’t sell a **** tone of licenses every year maybe a few and that few keeps this project on life support. Then there's the question of price. 'Make it cheaper,' some say. How much cheaper to where it would just make more sense to stop development because it would not be worth it anymore, and then the project dies. If this project had been free, it would've honestly been dead at the same time that asteroid wiped out dinosaurs 66 million years ago, but alas, we are left with Amiga survivors, as with all extinction events usually have those holdouts, and that's what MorphOS is. Just my take. 😂
 
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Tankerthebuberz

macrumors member
Nov 3, 2023
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On a side not to admins I would pin this thread as I consider it just as important as the Debian thread. People deserve to know this exsists
 

Dronecatcher

macrumors 603
Jun 17, 2014
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Lincolnshire, UK
@Tankerthebuberz

“There is a cost to everything, even freedom.”

That’s an oft repeated slogan but I don’t think it applies in this context.

This entire community over the years has transformed the viability of ageing PowerPC machines - 1000s of man hours gone into piecing together a first aid kit to keep these Macs online and at what cost to the end user? Nothing - other than a like or too and maybe a written show of gratitude.

This is the true definition of enthusiasts - wanting to share whatever revealtions one has made and not making a brand of it.

I do like Morphos and I don’t object to the price but I do object to the policy of selling a licence for a singular union of one machine to the OS - that does smack of scalping the end user.
 

Tankerthebuberz

macrumors member
Nov 3, 2023
79
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But there is a difference between enthusiasts and businesses that actually use these machines every day. There are businesses using MorphOS for their operations—granted, not a lot, but I have a friend who works on the Morph teams, and they have paying business customers that use the software daily. In that use case, it goes beyond enthusiasts. What you consider an enthusiast might be vital for other use cases. Another thing you're missing here is support. I'm not denying that man-hours have gone into it, but that's all it is—enthusiast-driven. MorphOS is targeting a different base, both in the enthusiast and business realms. This is not Linux; it's not an enthusiast product. This is typically guaranteed roadmap of where the product is headed and what the goal is whith each software release….that’s a big difference. If that's what you're looking for, go Debian. You can spend the time, resources and hair pulling to configure it the way you want but most people want easy….luxury…..and a no complicated setup and that is not free…the people and the time/effort to make that process as effortless as possible deserve to get paid. if you want consistent updates and product support, you probably won't use a project that is a 'hobby.' I'm not trying to shoot you down, but everyone's use case is different, which is why I don't get involved in wars over operating systems. Use what you love and find appealing.
 
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Dronecatcher

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Jun 17, 2014
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@Tankerthebuberz

But my initial comment still holds true - there has been no cost to me personally for enjoying the fruits of this community.

MorphOS may well be deployed as a long term business venture but I see it on the same page as all enthusiast ventures - that's just my personal take.

It's wonderful to have it has an option but again, the licence deal puts me off and strictly speaking I currently squeeze more functionality out of OSX than I can from MorphOS.
 

Tankerthebuberz

macrumors member
Nov 3, 2023
79
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Yeah, I'm not shooting you down, brother; I actually agree. I don't mind paying, but I've been very vocal that the license agreement needs to change and adapt to a changing environment. The fact that the license can't be transferred or used on any other machine you own as long as it's only installed on that one system is craziness to me, and I also agree on the price. Is MorphOS an enthusiast product? I would say not. I mean, they go to public events with brand new PowerPC hardware running MorphOS. They've even said in the future, their goal is to move away from legacy Apple machines for newer PowerPC systems. It just so happens that the largest user group is legacy Macs, and they're even offering PowerPC systems that are brand new to YouTube reviewers. I get what you're saying; this is not just an enthusiast product. It's like saying Microsoft Office is enthusiast because I only use it once a year, versus a college student that uses it every day. Microsoft office is not an enthusiast product and that same image is how they’re trying to brand morphos. There brand is there Bread and butter….if you started a company you probably wouldn’t want to be referred to as an enthusiast company…there a company llc licensed. That’s not free….when you go use Amazon Aws your paying to use software in the cloud you can get for free if you wanna configure and do it yourself…that’s all I was trying to say!
 
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Tankerthebuberz

macrumors member
Nov 3, 2023
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I think they are trying to move in that direction…they sent me some stuff a ways back along with some pamphlets I’ll try to see if I can find them.
 

akator

macrumors newbie
Mar 27, 2016
29
27
My issue is Morph OS is the license tying it to a single machine. I would have bought it years ago except for this.

Obviously I'd like the cost to be less, but I still would have happily paid the price as it has been for years if it wasn't tied to one machine. As much as I love my PPC machines, they are a lot more flaky than they used to be. I've got backup machines and replacement parts, but since Morph OS is tied to specific hardware that makes my hardware collection useless.

Yes, I know I can switch my license to different hardware, but this additional hassle crosses the line of something I want to enjoy in my spare time.
 

Tankerthebuberz

macrumors member
Nov 3, 2023
79
45
agreed….the price and the licensing are the biggest put offs for me….I agree though with @Dronecatcher I still find I’m able to squeeze a little more out of Mac OS…I only have one machine licensed because I just can’t justify the price and the fact how they tie the license to the machines nic address.
 

danielktdoranie

macrumors member
Jul 28, 2021
42
24
I do like Morphos and I don’t object to the price but I do object to the policy of selling a licence for a singular union of one machine to the OS - that does smack of scalping the end user.

That is my point as well and a point that @Tankerthebuberz is ignoring.

The AROS project started in 1995. It has always been free and open source. Many software developers took time out of their lives to donate code to it.

Then Morph OS comes along in 1999, takes AROS code, puts it in their operating system and charges for it. They continue to do it too.

FYI, if anyone wants to run an Amiga-like OS on x86 the Icaros Desktop is free and open source. Just like MorphOS it is based on AROS but somehow that project exists without the need to charge for free and open source code.

So if you’re looking to run x86 32-bit Amiga-like OS then you’re set, no need to wait and inevitably pay MorphOS for what will be mostly made from free open source code (probably taken from Icaros Desktop, certainly AROS, yet again.)

@Dronecatcher unrelated, I am big fan of your YouTube channel, you’ve made me aware of a lot of software I never knew existed. Thank you.
 

Dronecatcher

macrumors 603
Jun 17, 2014
5,209
7,794
Lincolnshire, UK
@Dronecatcher unrelated, I am big fan of your YouTube channel, you’ve made me aware of a lot of software I never knew existed. Thank you.
Thanks - that's very kind of you. I should make more of an effort with it (add narration for a start) but it's more of a low end video scrapbook than anything, I'm not trying to create an online brand.

I still get my Amiga kicks through WinUAE and E-UAE JIT on PowerPC :)
 

danielktdoranie

macrumors member
Jul 28, 2021
42
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Thanks - that's very kind of you. I should make more of an effort with it (add narration for a start) but it's more of a low end video scrapbook than anything, I'm not trying to create an online brand.

I still get my Amiga kicks through WinUAE and E-UAE JIT on PowerPC :)
Yet more software I didn’t know about! Will try that emulator on one of my G4 Macs later today.

You turned me on to Gemini (because of that and because of other “smol web” stuff I have seen) I got a static IP and I am gonna be hosting a Gemini server (among other things) on some Raspberry Pi SBCs
 
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danielktdoranie

macrumors member
Jul 28, 2021
42
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That's great! Gemini is so low bandwidth so should work really well.
Cheers. I have 3 Raspberry Pi computers doing nothing so I figured “why not make them headless servers?”. In addition to a Gemini server I would like to do a Nginx web server for a couple of domains I own and also a .onion. I want to have an IRC server, FTP server, Gopher server and a Hotline server too. Once I get it going I will post links here if anyone wants to play with it.
 

Bug-Creator

macrumors 68000
May 30, 2011
1,763
4,689
Germany
No. A LOT of code from the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) project AROS (AROS Research Operating System) is in MorphOS.
Define "a lot" as all the stuff that is based on AROS had been added early on and is in boot.img (and even there it is just a small part).

Not that it would matter as you somehow fail to know that this is what AROS mission statement was in the early day. Thats why it license was written the way it was, to allow inclusion in commercial AmigaOS (ESCOM/GateWay at that time) or clones.
You also never read the statements by the people who worked on AROS in the 90s how they felt about MorphOS.

The reality:
Noone, and I do mean noone was using AROS back in those days. You could run it on bare metal but that was a total pain in the butt, or you could run it hosted on Linux a snails pace. "running it" was all you could do as there was no SW.

MorphOS people did come in took some modules, ran actual SW on it found and fixed endless bugs and issues and gave those sources back. Some of them were never reintegrated to AROS as they were to MorphOS specific other are the reason why you can use AROS based 68k distros in emulation or on fake-retro pseudo 680x0.


I won't pay for MorphOS on that basis, They've taken code that is free and open source and put it in their closed source operating system and charge for it. Morally speaking, personally, I have a problem with this.

Hello Mr Stallman ;)

Either that or you're a bit of a hypocrite as everything and really everything you buy that is even remotely IT is based on some FOSS component. Maybe it is running something Linux based, maybe it is just the compiler and libraries or maybe it is relying on some web services.

None of it is a problem as long as the licenses or honored, licenses that were chosen by the original author who were well aware of what they meant. Licenses that were clear and obvious for anybody who contributed later.

What really is insulting is the notion that these developers who choose a "weak" license are just some naive fools that need to be saved by wannabe activists.
 
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