This thing is just begging for a Linux install!
300 bucks for a Dual-Core 2.3 GHz PowerMac G5
http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-POWERMAC-G5-2 ... dZViewItem
Lots of cheap PPC Macs on eBay
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Wally Balljacker
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Tsuroerusu
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Re: Lots of cheap PPC Macs on eBay
Or *BSD, you know.Wally Balljacker wrote:This thing is just begging for a Linux install!
300 bucks for a Dual-Core 2.3 GHz PowerMac G5
"Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love. This is the eternal rule."
- Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha), founder of Buddhism.
Re: Lots of cheap PPC Macs on eBay
not really; freebsd and netbsd don't support g5 at all and openbsd's support is in the alpha stage.Tsuroerusu wrote:Or *BSD, you know.Wally Balljacker wrote:This thing is just begging for a Linux install!
300 bucks for a Dual-Core 2.3 GHz PowerMac G5
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Tsuroerusu
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Re: Lots of cheap PPC Macs on eBay
Darn, I wasn't aware of that. I did a little checking on OpenBSD's macppc status page and came accross this: "After the 3.8 release, support for the G5 was started, with the goal to have full G5 support ship in the next release. SMP development is also in progress now." so at least that's good news. I wonder why G5 support, and PowerPC support in general is so limited, I mean Apple uses BSD as the foundation for OS X, wouldn't it be possible to take some code from Darwin and use some of that to improve PPC support in FreeBSD (Since that's what Darwin is at it's heart). But what the heck, the G5 machines are hell expensive in most cases anyway, I think the Mac mini's would be cool to have running OpenBSD, seriously, wouldn't it be cool to have that sucker sittin' with a pufferfish over in the corner?thetza wrote:not really; freebsd and netbsd don't support g5 at all and openbsd's support is in the alpha stage.
(I like security on steroids, and that's pretty much what OpenBSD is!)
Also, question for you thetza, do you know how good Linux's G5 support? Can Linux take advantage of the 64-bit features of the PowerPC 970 chip? Also, what Linux distro has the best PPC support?
"Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love. This is the eternal rule."
- Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha), founder of Buddhism.
Re: Lots of cheap PPC Macs on eBay
Expensive hardware is probably the #1 reason.Tsuroerusu wrote: Darn, I wasn't aware of that. I did a little checking on OpenBSD's macppc status page and came accross this: "After the 3.8 release, support for the G5 was started, with the goal to have full G5 support ship in the next release. SMP development is also in progress now." so at least that's good news. I wonder why G5 support, and PowerPC support in general is so limited
Not really; the user land tools are taken from freebsd, but the kernel is based off mach.Tsuroerusu wrote:I mean Apple uses BSD as the foundation for OS X, wouldn't it be possible to take some code from Darwin and use some of that to improve PPC support in FreeBSD (Since that's what Darwin is at it's heart).
http://www.soekris.com/ <<=== even cooler. They even have encryption accelerators designed specifically for openbsd.Tsuroerusu wrote:But what the heck, the G5 machines are hell expensive in most cases anyway, I think the Mac mini's would be cool to have running OpenBSD, seriously, wouldn't it be cool to have that sucker sittin' with a pufferfish over in the corner?
(I like security on steroids, and that's pretty much what OpenBSD is!)
AFAIK its fully supported; Torvalds himself uses a G5 tower I think. The best distro would most likely be debian or one of its evil spawns.Tsuroerusu wrote:Also, question for you thetza, do you know how good Linux's G5 support? Can Linux take advantage of the 64-bit features of the PowerPC 970 chip? Also, what Linux distro has the best PPC support?
If you really want freebsd/netbsd on G5, the best way is to start a fund and buy a tower for one of the core kernel developers. Thats how openbsd initially got ported to G5. (as a side note, you should try and find the donation page for the openbsd g5 port; there's an interesting flame war concerning the fact that the porter is a fundamentalist christian with all sorts of abrasive 'views' on his web page).
That said, opterons will probably be more bang for the buck imho.
