In principle ports are supposed for check for AltiVec support, but if something does not, it should be fixed for G3.
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What's the current state of MacPorts on Tiger?
- Thread starter danielktdoranie
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In principle ports are supposed for check for AltiVec support, but if something does not, it should be fixed for G3.
Summary of the state of Macports/PowerPC Ports on Tiger:
The following ports need fallbacks or to be fixed. I will note qt4-mac only fails to destroot, it builds fine. The Macports version does install successfully.
sudo port -n upgrade outdated and not atomicparsley and not doxygen and not gnupg2 and not gpgme and not gtksourceview4 and not libass and not libbdplus and not libsamplerate and not libsecret and not libuv and not libvpx and not libxkbcommon-x11 and not openal-soft and not openldap and not orc and not poppler and not portaudio and not pulseaudio and not qt4-mac and not supertuxkart and not mplayer and not mupdf and not aom and not highway and not leptonica and not libsdl2_mixer and not ninja
Of the 75 most requested ports in Macports, the following do not work on Tiger:
9. nmap (failed)
18. gnupg2 (needs fallback)
19. go (known to be broken)
31. xorg-server (known to be broken)
33. pandoc (build failed)
36. ninja (needs fallback or patches rebased)
42. cargo (known to be broken)
43. rust (known to be broken)
46. emacs (failed)
47. watch (failed)
54. gh (not ppc compatible)
60. mc (not tested)
61. ripgrep (not ppc compatible)
65. gnutar (build failure)
67. poppler (fails even without boost variant)
70. texlive (dependency issue)
75. mtr (build failure)
There is still quite a bit to test and fix, but I thought it might help people to know about 80% of ports work.
The following ports need fallbacks or to be fixed. I will note qt4-mac only fails to destroot, it builds fine. The Macports version does install successfully.
sudo port -n upgrade outdated and not atomicparsley and not doxygen and not gnupg2 and not gpgme and not gtksourceview4 and not libass and not libbdplus and not libsamplerate and not libsecret and not libuv and not libvpx and not libxkbcommon-x11 and not openal-soft and not openldap and not orc and not poppler and not portaudio and not pulseaudio and not qt4-mac and not supertuxkart and not mplayer and not mupdf and not aom and not highway and not leptonica and not libsdl2_mixer and not ninja
Of the 75 most requested ports in Macports, the following do not work on Tiger:
9. nmap (failed)
18. gnupg2 (needs fallback)
19. go (known to be broken)
31. xorg-server (known to be broken)
33. pandoc (build failed)
36. ninja (needs fallback or patches rebased)
42. cargo (known to be broken)
43. rust (known to be broken)
46. emacs (failed)
47. watch (failed)
54. gh (not ppc compatible)
60. mc (not tested)
61. ripgrep (not ppc compatible)
65. gnutar (build failure)
67. poppler (fails even without boost variant)
70. texlive (dependency issue)
75. mtr (build failure)
There is still quite a bit to test and fix, but I thought it might help people to know about 80% of ports work.
Expecting go, cargo, rust and pandoc to build was radical
(as well as their dependents like ripgrep or gh).They are broken for much newer systems even on x86.
Pandoc may be buildable, some older version of it, which is compatible with ghc 7.x (assuming that builds, to begin with). Haskell is a pain in the bottom generally, and fixing this will probably be non-trivial.
Unless you really need something which strictly requires pandoc, it is likely better to find a suitable replacement for its functionality. There are some apps in normal languages which do something pretty similar. (I have just used such replacement with rb-rtfm-filemanager, worked good enough for the purpose.)
The rest should work, this or that way, i.e. either with some fixes or fallbacks.
P. S. Emacs is weird, and I don’t understand its failures. For example, both release and devel subports fail to build for me on 10.6.8 with a bus error during the bootstrap, however both build fine on 10a190, and I have no idea why that is the case. (Pre-built apps from 10a190 work on 10.6.8, thankfully, but hey…)
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I don't really have uses for any of the broken ones, I just wanted to see if Macports on PPC was providing what Macports users in general seem to want.Expecting go, cargo, rust and pandoc to build was radical
They are broken for much newer systems even on x86.
Pandoc may be buildable, some older version of it, which is compatible with ghc 7.x (assuming that builds, to begin with). Haskell is a pain in the bottom generally, and fixing this will probably be non-trivial.
Unless you really need something which strictly requires pandoc, it is likely better to find a suitable replacement for its functionality. There are some apps in normal languages which do something pretty similar. (I have just used such replacement with rb-rtfm-filemanager, worked good enough for the purpose.)
The rest should work, this or that way, i.e. either with some fixes or fallbacks.
P. S. Emacs is weird, and I don’t understand its failures. For example, both release and devel subports fail to build for me on 10.6.8 with a bus error during the bootstrap, however both build fine on 10a190, and I have no idea why that is the case. (Pre-built apps from 10a190 work on 10.6.8, thankfully, but hey…)
And I didn't expect rust, cargo, and go to build, but since my main limitation this last weekend was focused time at the computer, I wanted to do something mindless.
It's likely fallbacks exist for a few of these, but emacs is the only one I might spend that effort on. I am more concerned with end user software, while it appears most people who submit stats to Macports prioritize development tools.
If anyone wants to do a static repo for Tiger, this gives a date with data. Similarly, if anyone wants software and is curious if it will work on Tiger, this and checking my server can save time and guesswork.
After gathering this data on the state of macports on Tiger, I think it is likely better to take an overlay repo approach than a static approach. For the ports that need fallbacks that are not currently in PowerPC ports, I should probably start a repo on GitHub with the older portfiles I built from. For those already in PPC ports, I can do pull requests like I did for gawk (thanks again for accepting that one).
It was nice to discover that lynx builds. That's another web browser option
Does retawq btw? https://github.com/macos-powerpc/powerpc-ports/tree/main/www/retawq
On a side note, but related: one text editor that is badly broken (builds but segfaults) but may be of interest for real-life users is Neovim.
Retawq builds! Thank you for that. I will have to test it with Github. Unfortunately I rarely can test during the week, as air conditioning is not consistent where I am for work. Luckily, it should be cool enough I can take a Powerbook with me in a month or so. I will test further on the weekend.
Neovim does seem very cool. I will see if it builds on Tiger this weekend. Of course, if it doesn't work on 10.5.8/10.6.8, I would be shocked if it worked on 10.4.11. I am mostly hoping to bring Tiger up to near parity with 10.5.8 as far as ports go, and maybe create ports for some interesting open source software that builds out of the box.
By the way, I have pushed the update of gcc14 to 14.3.0, hopefully it still builds on Tiger
10.5 and 10.6 work.
Could someone try if this works on Tiger? https://github.com/macos-powerpc/powerpc-ports/commit/9c5c755b8f10fb041ef58b7f2301eb3191e45cc7
Building directly from upstream should work fine too, just make sure to use a modern gcc.
github.com
To use it, have curl and git in path.
Building directly from upstream should work fine too, just make sure to use a modern gcc.
GitHub - allocata/sip: Alternative to git clone for selective GitHub downloads
Alternative to git clone for selective GitHub downloads - allocata/sip
github.com
Before you made this reply, I tried to follow the general steps on the PowerPC ports website, but got stuck at installing bootstrap curl. The provided zip won't work on my system.
My next step is trying to install curl just from the regular MacPorts repo. But, it's 6 days later and my WallStreet is still building gcc7-bootstrap for bash, the 20GB hard drive is nearly full, and still has gcc10 and gcc14 to go...
I really just want Linux on this thing, since none of the software available in regular MacPorts nor PowerPC ports seems that interesting. But Linux appears to be an even bigger struggle on an OldWorld ROM Mac. I can't get BootX to actually boot into Linux. All I get is a black screen... maybe partitioning is wrong? Hard to say since I can't find solid information on this anywhere.
I would suggest Debian Sid or one of the distributions built on it (such as MintPPC). Make sure to ask for help and follow the directions of the knowledgeable people here: https://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/ Debian Ports lists the Wallstreet Powerbook as supported: https://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/inst/install
Linux distros not based on Debian sid are unlikely to have much better software support than what is possible through Macports/PowerPC ports, at least for a G3. They should also have an easier way to get prebuilt packages.
Curl installers are currently only available for 10.5.8 and 10.6.8. I may make one for Tiger in the future, but it isn't high priority, you can always fetch source code manually.
Indeed, I have been exploring that mailing list and running Debian Sid (Ports) on my G4 and G5 for some time now. Unfortunately, there isn't much support or consensus on OldWorld ROM Macs other than that BootX is required to somehow boot into Linux, as opposed to being able to directly boot and install Linux as on NewWorld ROM Macs.
That webpage is very outdated. It references the Quik bootloader, which allowed Linux to directly boot on OldWorld ROM Macs. According to that mailing list, Quik was removed from Debian five years ago due to being unmaintained. The only bootloaders included in Debian (yaboot and grub to my knowledge) lack the ability to boot on OldWorld ROM Macs.
The only solution appears to be using BootX (which relies on OS 9) and dates back to the turn of the century. https://distrosprojects.blogspot.com/2023/09/modern-debian-on-1998-powerbook-g3.html
Which OS do you use? I did not provide bootstrap curl for 10.4, since it is not the OS I actually support.
I would prefer someone doing that, if there is an interest. It is not a big deal to do it, just a matter of spending some time on compiling. You just configure MacPorts from source as `./configure --prefix=/opt/bootstrap --without-startup-items --with-applications-dir=/opt/bootstrap/Applications --with-universal-archs="ppc"`, and then, after syncing port sources, do `sudo port -v -N pkg curl`. After a while you should get an installer in the workdir of curl.
Then when you install the main MacPorts, configure it with `--with-curlprefix=/opt/bootstrap` (and make sure that value(s) for universal-archs match).
I am sure my bootstrap curl work on 10.5 and 10.6, so if you get error with those, please let me know (here or on GitHub), and that will be addressed ASAP.
You got me curious, what possibly you can get on ppc32 Linux for that old hardware which is not available via MacPorts? AFAIK, the only real advantage of Linux is a somewhat newer browser at the moment, but it will be useless for a very slow CPU like G3. If some software is simply missing, we can add that, should not be a problem.
You might consider ARCHPower: https://archlinuxpower.org/ As they also support some Old World Macs. Other threads on this forum are likely to be of more help. I am not (yet) a Linux person. Gentoo may give good compatibility and support in theory, but you will still be getting it set up in 2026 on a less than 300 Mhz G3.
P.S.: ARCHPower does have support for QT5, which is unlikely to happen on Darwin PPC. They also have QT6, which barracuda156 has made impressive progress on, but is not yes available. Those are the main things of interest (to my knowledge) which Debian Sid (and MintPPC) or ARCHPower have over Darwin PPC) I am skeptical how well any GUI will run on your Wallstreet, unless like dosdude1 you have soldered on way more RAM.
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AFAIU, Qt on Linux will still be X11, so may not be that amazing. But ok, that is an advantage nevertheless, though whether it is consequential for G3 is an open question.
However, this does not exactly answer my question about interesting software. (I assume that referred to some end-user software and not just development tools.)
I am on Tiger, but the build times are too long, so before anything else I need to figure out how to cross-compile(build?) everything on a newer computer, PowerPC or Intel. Installing bash and all it's dependencies took my PowerMac G5 three days, so I estimate my PowerBook G3 will take about 30 days...
If you have a 900 Mhz Ibook G3, you could build everything on that and share binary archives. Something similar may be possible from your G5, I know barracuda156 managed to compile for a G4 on a G5. Is ARCHPower not possible?
I don’t get the problem: why not just compile on a G5? It does take a while initially to compile stuff, but you don’t need to do it continuously. (And it’s the same in FreeBSD or Gentoo, for example.)
There is one concern, but it applies to very few ports, AFAIK: G3 has no Altivec, so automatic detection will give you a wrong result. Out of my head, that applied to ffmpeg and lame. It should be tolerable to build 3–4 ports natively on a G3, otherwise tweak portfiles to disable AltiVec manually.
Generally speaking, building on 10.4 natively or using 10.4 deployment target from 10.5 (maybe 10.6 too) should suffice.
Obviously, do not use `+G4` or `+G5` variants (they are not picked by default).