Do standard PCI cards work with PPC?

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Thu Aug 24, 2006 5:25 pm

I recently acquired an old PowerMac, and I'd like to stick a FireWire, and second NIC card in there. Can I pop them out of an x86 box, and just use them? Are there any issues with going from little endian to big endian?

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 3:09 am

If you run Linux on that box virtually certain it would work, Mac OS X is another story.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 3:34 pm

I have Yellow Dog on it at the moment. I just don't want to fry one of my PCI cards. It is true that I can't swap in an x86 video card, right? Not without doing some modification I hear.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 3:39 pm

Wally Balljacker wrote:I have Yellow Dog on it at the moment. I just don't wan't to fry one of my PCI cards.

Understandable, a friend of mine is too good of an example, he frieds 768 MB of RAM, the fool!

Wally Balljacker wrote:It is true that I can't swap in an x86 video card, right? Not without doing some modification I hear.

You should be able to do that, because Linux has drivers for them, even though Apple sells their crap at a higher price, doesn't mean that they're not standard AGP/PCI-express/PCI cards, which they are.

Even Apple comply with standards at times.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 1:25 pm

Wally Balljacker wrote:I have Yellow Dog on it at the moment. I just don't want to fry one of my PCI cards. It is true that I can't swap in an x86 video card, right? Not without doing some modification I hear.

I know that at least a few years ago, PCI video cards came in 2 versions, Apple and PC. It was a big/little endian thing.

This may no longer be the case, or it may be something Linux can work around.