Linux And The PowerPC Architecture 202
For those of you just joining us, here's a little background on the PowerPC architecture from the PowerPC FAQ, maintained by Gary Davenport and readily available at linuxppc.org.
[2.1] What is PowerPC?
PowerPC is an architecture which was jointly designed by Apple, IBM, and Motorola. The PowerPC architecture specifies an instruction set architecture (ISA), which allows anyone to design and fabricate compatible PowerPC processors.
The PowerPC architecture is derivative of the IBM POWER architecture, used in IBM's RS/6000 workstations.
[2.2] What is POWER? How does it relate to the PowerPC?
The POWER architecture was introduced by IBM for use in its RS/6000 systems in early 1990. Its name an acronym for "Power Optimization With Enhanced RISC", POWER was one of the first superscalar RISC designs. It was originally a multi-chip implementation, but diversifying workstation needs prompted work on a single-chip version.
As Apple came to IBM for its microprocessor needs, the need for a single-chip RISC processor became urgent, and the work done for the single-chip POWER derivative was polished and paired with Motorola's 88K processor bus. This was the PowerPC 601, which made its debut in the very first Power Macintoshes on March 14, 1994.
The POWER family proper advanced with the POWER2 in late 1994 and the POWER3 in late October, 1998.
The Macintosh stands on its own in the 'most-loved' personal computer category, and has won unbelievable customer loyalty through its unorthodox appearance and powerful interface. No strangers to the world of ideological zealotry, the Mac-faithful are bringing new power to the platform with the time-honored tradition of hardware hacking and GPL'ed software design. I recently spoke to Terra Soft Solutions CTO Dan Burcaw about what drives him to work on Linux for the PowerPC architecture.
"I love working on the latest Apple machines," Dan said. "Linux on a Power Macintosh G4 is just incredible. Besides Apple systems there are a variety of other cool PowerPC boxes out there like IBM RS/6000s and embedded boards. As a change, they are fun to work with too.
"Also, I really enjoy the community. The PowerPC Linux market is much, much smaller then the x86 market and it makes for more of a close community.
"Just to clarify, I don't work on LinuxPPC the product but I do work on the general PowerPC Linux effort. There has been a great deal of confusion between LinuxPPC.org (the home page for the Linux port to PowerPC) and LinuxPPC, Inc., the company that produces the LinuxPPC distribution.
"We tend to refer to the general port as PowerPC Linux and LinuxPPC refers only to the company."
Speaking of porting software, you'd be amazed how much of it compiles just fine on the PowerPC architecture. Since a great number of tools are available in source code form for Linux, porting it over to another platform isn't that difficult, and crosses the great divide between the 'IBM' and 'Macintosh' sections of the virtual software store. I also got to speak to Ani Joshi, a University of Maryland student that's also working hard to make more things work on PowerPC Linux.
"When I go about porting software, I first build it alongside with my x86 machines. I make sure there is no inline assembly which could cause problems, and if there is then I break out my x86 assembly manuals and start porting to straight PowerPC asm for those routines. Otherwise our glibc (thanks to our gcc/glibc man Franz Sirl) is very helpful and will assist me in any cross-platform code in the app. If there is some x86 non-asm code in there, it should not be a problem for us as we have very good userland libraries which allow a clean powerpc 'solution' to the problem. As for performance in LinuxPPC, I'd say people will be very happy with the G4's performance, especially once more people start enhancing software for the AltiVec unit. Our CPU's speak for themselves; the PPC platform is quite strong, in our humble opinion."
What about the artists and musicians who have called the Macintosh 'home' for so many years? Where do they fit into the new Linux landscape of Linux on the PowerPC architecture? Back to Dan Burcaw:
"Well, obviously programs like the Gimp are very important to these folks. Most of them right now will probably still keep MacOS around for Photoshop and other programs. I think we'll be able to better serve their needs as software comes over to the platform. This is a major challenge. Software companies need hard data to show that there is demand for this software. As I said, PowerPC Linux is actually a very small market and so it is hard for a lot of these companies to justify the ports (even if it is just a simple recompile)."
Dan's Black Lab Linux Project Lead, Troy Benjegerdes, adds:
"What this DOES help out a great deal on is in the science and engineering areas. The G4 processor is absolutely ideal for dealing with any kind of signal or image processing because of the AltiVec unit. Combine that with the flexibility of Linux, as well as Beowulf Clustering technology, and you have an environment for signal and image processing that very few other things can even come close to."
Porting end-user apps to Linux on another platform is great, but what about expanding the original project to include hypermachines? Troy's got game in the parallel computing department, and Black Lab Linux is specifically designed for it.
Troy says, "Recently, I've been working on porting Black Lab Linux to CSPI hardware. CSPI is a company that makes what could best be described as an 'embedded supercomputer'. They make PowerPC processor boards that are extremely compact; You can put 64 G4 processors in a single cabinet that takes up 9U on a 19" rack. If you fill an entire 7 foot tall 19 inch rack with CSPI systems, you will have over 250 G4 processors. Thats a 250 node Beowulf with a peak performance of up to 1 TeraFLOP that will fit in a closet!"
Hardware and software innovation is one thing, but to make money in this business, you've got to be able to support what you're doing. I spoke with Hollis Blanchard, who works in tech support for LinuxPPC, Inc., and I asked him about his most common LinuxPPC support problems.
"Booting is a nightmare. Open Firmware (in theory) is supposed to make life easier to boot different OS's, but I can only dream of PC BIOS. All the OF in the old Macs is horribly broken in one way or another (like on my machine, it can't drive my video, so there's no way to see what I'm typing). New machines are better, but there are so many obstacles and the hackers just don't have enough time.
"There's also a philosophical problem sometimes. Some of the people we talk to have heard all these wonderful things about Linux and are expecting it to be as easy and polished as the Mac OS. That's a hard standard to live up to. It's NOT easy - Don't believe the hype. Putting Linux on the desktop still very much depends on educating the desktop user. A lot of them have no interest in such education and rightly so."
Linux Ease-of-use issues certainly aren't indigenous to the PowerPC world, and it just goes to show that although these guys aren't working on x86, they have the same issues. I think Hollis sums it up perfectly.
"Mad props to everyone who's ever submitted a patch that fixed something for PPC. There are too many naidne-elttil x86-only folks out there... you have to remember the world is bigger than the US."
This story was inspired by and dedicated to James A. Irwin.
Now fix the compiler.. (Score:1)
PowerPC systems are great, but Linux on them is also slow. If it weren't for this, I would buy Macs for my linux systems, as I love the hardware. But the linux performance ain't there. I even ran nbench as a test, and my PII350 embarrassed my G3400 running RedHat 6.1 and LinuxPPC 2000 respectively.
The compiler just doesn't optimize code well. TerraSoft has the Altivec support, but that would require a large effort to get everythign using it and I still haven't seen where I can get their compiler...
Re:But there STILL aren't any cheap motherboards! (Score:1)
Re:You can help! (Score:1)
Abandon ship. Port over to NetBSD and stop dicking around with x86-only code.
Re:Let's not go crazy here (Score:1)
Re:And you call that a good deal? (Score:1)
Re:Forgot one thing (iBooks/Powerbooks) (Score:1)
And you call that a good deal? (Score:1)
Oh, and this is including Apple's 10-15% educational discount vs. the 1-2% on PCs.
That discount right there says how badly you're getting ripped off - PCs only offer 1-2% because that's pretty close to what their margin is.
I'm speaking mainly of Gateways here - Dells were routinely 5-6% more expensive (maybe more), and while we carry Compaq, I don't think the store has sold a single one since last summer - all the salespeople would feel too guilty.
An example:
Gateway E-4200 550
PIII/550
128M RAM
20 gig HD
17-inch Trinitron monitor
DVD drive
Zip drive
56k non-winmodem
ATI Rage 128 (Can choose "no video" and put in your own if you don't want it.)
3Com 10/100 ethernet
MS Office 2000 Pro (Academic)
8-bay case
$2166
Apple's "Faster" G4
Same as the Gateway, but:
450 MHz G4 (Dunno how this compares with the PIII-550 - I'm just going to say "even")
No monitor
No MS office
Case with 3 ext. bays and 2-3 internal bays.
$2249 - Add the monitor and Office and your system is around $2800-3000.
Well, I guess I was wrong, the factor is less than 50%, but it's still obscene.
And let's not forget that Apple intentionally engineered the firmware of G3s not to boot with a G4 processor despite the fact that a G4 was physically/electrically compatible. This is completely contrary to PC mobo manufacturers releasing BIOS updates for the latest processors.
BTW, I do like the G3/G4 case design - it's just NOT worth the price premium!
Oh, and one note, as to 3Dfx boards on a Mac - Last time I checked (2 months ago or so), the drivers only supported PCI boards despite the fact that the Macs had AGP video by then.
Forgot one thing (iBooks/Powerbooks) (Score:1)
iMacs also are feature-for-feature, until you take into account the lack of upgradability.
Great processor, great computer architecture... (Score:1)
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Re:Mac power (Score:1)
Click on the disk press command-e
Click on the disk press command-y
Click on disk select put away fomr file menu
Click on disk slect eject disk fomr the Special Menu
Drag disk to the trash (for some reasone the most poular)
Click on disk press command option e (ejects the disk and leave it behind for disk-to disk copy wiht only one drive.. Try it one time.. you'll get to do the disk swapping fun)
Command shift 1 (same eject and leave behind, note: commane -e does this in systems earlyer than MacOS 8.0....)
Hold down option and select eject disk.
poke a pin in the little hole to the left of the disk drive. note: Don't do this unless the disk is stuck.
Now.. You have all these ways... isn't ONE of them intuative for you
While the mac can have pre-emptively multitaksed threads. It mostly uses something known as co-operative multitasking. This means the currently executing program gets to decided when it realease the processor (great for games, bad for servers
When you see the old style dialogues this is either because the program was made to run under system 7 or sometimes system 6 even or just hasen't taken advantage of the new API because the programmers don't want to since nobody really cares much about this issue outside of people using the MacOS as a low-volume server. This si a bit annoying for powerusers.
Anyways.. The next version fo the MacOS (version 10 or X whatever) is based on a Unix Micro-kernal based thing so it's completely different. You should read some of the things they're doing to allow programs of today to run on it... They have three APIS sets in there... The classic, Carbon and the re-vamped openstep API based on the ideas of objective C. it should be interresting.
Re:Does anyone else see the irony? (Score:1)
Apple is the company not allowing the BeOS to run on the G4.
There's other platforms that use PPC.. I'm thinkig baout CHRP and PReP... Of course, these are hardly contenders.
It's a Pity, because the BeOS's multimedia focus and the G4 are made ofr each other.. The price of politics..
Morons, Indeed; There _ARE_ No Cheap Motherboards (Score:1)
I'd love to see the OpenPPC Project [openppc.org] do something to provide sources of PPC motherboards that don't cost thousands of dollars.
Unfortunately, what I'd really want to see is a mobo that costs only a few hundred dollars, and which allows hooking up a couple or four PPC chips. And it looks like there's not going to be any combination like that any time soon.
Remember: The Intel alternatives may not be "pretty" hardware, but they do make for a compelling lowest common denominator. I can head to Aberdeen [aberdeeninc.com] and locate an SMP Pentium III motherboard costing a couple hundred dollars, toss in a couple CPUs, and have some reasonably powerful hardware for about $1000.
For PPC to provide a realistic alternative, it needs to either:
Feel free to s/Intel/Athlon/g or s/Intel/Alpha/g as needed.
The critical point here is that if the PPC system is outrageously more expensive than an IA-32 system of relatively comparable power, it just won't sell. There are some that are sufficiently bigoted against Intel hardware that they'll pay more for something else, whether PPC, Alpha, or SPARC. I'm not going to pay a $1500 premium to run the same code, recompiled for PPC in order to have a PPC label on the CPU that may not be visible in any meaningful way unless I put a sticker on the case.
By the way, you may not be quite right about the "only" PPC motherboard being from Motorola; Cogent Computers [cogcomp.com] appears to have one that costs around $1200. Of course, the CPUs to toss into it seem to add another $1200 or more in price, so I could be off here...
I'm certainly with you in being disinterested in "buying a Mac and ripping its guts out."
Re:Forgot one thing (iBooks/Powerbooks) (Score:1)
Besides, more PC laptops will be integrating 3d support into their laptops soon which means good Q3/Unreal performance even when I'm over at my parents or something (their little 200MMX just can't handle it
Apple better get on the ball with their laptops. They seem to consistently be behind with portables now.
TWADDLE - ALPHA systems are cheaper. (Score:1)
The real truth is that IBM and Motorola fucked up when they let Apple determine the market for PPC systems.
Don't want a MAC. Just want a motherboard. (Score:1)
Yeah, but the idea is that it's dirt cheap. (Score:1)
I've seen it already - vapourware. (Score:1)
Vapourware, like the rest. Nothing shipping. I've looked everywhere and the story is the same. Everyone promising 'Real soon now' for the last 6 months.
I can go out and have an Intel based board in my hands within 30 minutes.
I don't want the Motorola board at $2500 (Score:1)
I don't want Intel, SPARC or PA-RISC either.
Jeez, read the posts.
OpenPPC (Score:1)
Re:OpenPPC (Score:1)
Whoop, is right... (Score:1)
For the love of God, moderate this up!
--Lenny
Re:Mac mice suck (Score:1)
Have you used the hockey puck? It is uncomfortable. Why ship millions of crappy mice (unless you expect to sell more mice on upgrade.) Yes, it does looks cool.
And does the MacOS support extra buttons when you do upgrade the mouse? I thought MacOS was a single consistant (dumbed down) interface so you wouldn't be confused by right/middle/left clicking.
As lease Macs ship a mouse with a button. Maybe the next "innovation" will be the 0 button mouse. Just move the cursor around the screen...
BTW: -5 troll. Thanks-
ed
Re:wintel will still hurt us, she's a cheap floozy (Score:1)
They're pretty affordable for people who buy brand name hardware (which is what it is)
For a while there were parts floating around so that you could build your own Mac - I did - but when the cloning era ended so did that. And even then the reason wasn't so much the price (which was pretty similar) but that Apple didn't have BTO at that time.
But it makes no sense to compare a brand name machine with one you make from generic components. None of them are going to ever be as cheap, and they're really two different markets.
Re:Graphic Arts and Mac (Score:1)
Additionally, besides having exceptional mindshare in the DTP market, Macs just have a lot of software already developed for them that fills small niches but which no one is willing to give up.
And of course, while this is difficult to describe, Macs have a different 'feel' than IBMs. Even moving the mouse doesn't feel the same. Once you get comfortable on the Mac there's not much incentive to leave it. It's like the comfy chair of computing
Re:And you call that a good deal? (Score:1)
Re:Really? (Score:1)
Re:Speaking of porting to PowerPC (semi-offtopic) (Score:1)
The simple truth is Be ported to Intel, then got invested in by Intel (sits on Board of Directors) and is now moving away from from the Desktop OS market altogether after a decade of never really succeeding. Their giving away of BeOS-lite is simply a publicity stunt (what, they're going to *sell* lots of copies after they've announced they're dropping the product?) and an attempt to mollify the developers they've burnt.
Be's inability to move to the moden Macs speaks more about Jean-Louis Gassée and his team then it does about Apple. It also speaks very loudly about Be's enthusiasm for disinformation and blaming everyone else for their lack of success.
Here's to the little guys and gals who succeeded where Be couldn't go.
Re:LinuxPPC Information (Score:1)
Re:Don't forget SuSE (Score:1)
Also don't leave out a few groups that are toying with porting to the PowerPC, namely Slackware and Mandrake. The last time I had heard, there were 3(!) teams working on porting Slackware to the PowerPC, including the offical team who owns a iMac and a G3. Linux-mandrake employees John Buswell, one of the orginal/leading developers of Linux for iMac, and runs the site iMacLinux.net. While the company apparently is toying with it internally ("because everybody else is doing it"), they have no offical release planned yet.
I am currently writing this using Debian/PowerPC that I install one Friday eve, about a month back. While it's far from perfect, it's a quite nice distro, and it's alot easier to install then people make it to sound. It also seems about as stable as YDL, and much more reliable then LinuxPPC. apt-get, and all of the debian tools are really nice.
web design heaven (Score:1)
i've been using linuxppc since version 4 came out, and i can't praise it highly enough.
i can see that the long-term view requires photoshop for linux - and hey, they released it for sgi - but the real strength of the ppc port to an old mac head like me is that when you upgrade your mac (and you do, you do), you get a free webserver in the old one.
my phone bill is a tiny fraction of what it once was, my productivity is vastly increased and my ability to make things happen online is far greater than it was because i know how to make the box bend to my will.
i've got the websites of twenty of thirty large NGO's sitting in an old mac clone here, and all for nothing.
well, for a hundred bucks a year, because i subscribed, but.
thank you.
will
ps. need any help with linuxppc.org?
Re:naidne-elttil? (Score:1)
What? (Score:1)
That's interesting, considering that Apple doesn't own those processor specs; the PowerPC chip design belongs to IBM--aside from the fact that Macs now contain them, what does Apple have to do with PPC?
mkLinux musings (Score:1)
The OpenPPC Project for non-Apple PPC machines (Score:1)
I can hear the yowls from here... "What non-Apple PPC machines?" Right now, there aren't many other than IBM's server line, although you can buy a Sandpoint reference board from Motorola and miscellaneous boards from smaller vendors. (See http://www.openppc.org/vendors.html [openppc.org] for a full list.)
But back in August, IBM announced that it would be releasing an open, reference motherboard design for PPC ("POP", or PowerPC Open Platform). The schematics came out quickly, but the whole project's been bogged down in testing because of a faulty northbridge. In the meantime, however, a small community project has sprung up to track POP, at http://www.openppc.org [openppc.org]. Interested parties are encouraged to sign up for the mailing list [phys.sfu.ca] and plumb the Web site [openppc.org] for tasty nuggets of goodness.
--Tom Geller
Co-founder, The OpenPPC Project
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Now all I need is a dual G4 system with linux pre-installed, a linuc rc5 client that uses altivec, and getting rid of those noisey fans would be nice...
Re:The last part is a bit harsh. (Score:1)
The original point of RISC was moving complexity out of the hardware and into the compiler. Of course the hardware is still going to be doing crazy branch prediction and whatnot, but the compiler should still do its best to keep those pipelines filled.
And hey, if you can make a program run faster without having to dip your mobo in mineral oil, why not?
Re:Endian Problems? (Score:1)
int x = 1;
char c = *((char*)&x);
Will assign 1 to c. On a big endian machine c would be 0. By the way, the line just assigns the lowest byte of the word x to c.
This can cause major headaches if you are doing bit-twiddling or mucking around with funny casts.
The last part is a bit harsh. (Score:1)
If you are talking about "endianness patch" then I agree: IMHO code which depends on the endianness are pure evil.
On a side note, how good is GCC on the PowerPC ?
On one hand, the numerous registers, the "normal" floating point unit of the Power architecture should help the optimiser, on the other hand there has been much more effort to tune the GCC compiler to the x86 CPUs than to the Power architecture.
Just wondering...
Re:Linux PPC == OS/2 PPC == NT PPC (Score:1)
The big predictions in the early '90s was that Intel's architecture was too complex, and in the long run Intel wouldn't be able to scale. People produced nice powerpoint graphs showing Intel leveling off to a flat line while RISC chips continued their linear speed growth.
So, on the surface, PPC seemed like a good idea as a replacement for x86 PCs on low-end commodity hardware. The problem was all of those damn x86 applications. And that, so far, Intel and AMD have been scaling just fine, for some periods even beating Moore's Law. So while PowerPC has been a great chip, there's never been the enormously huge returns that would encourage people to switch architectures.
OS/2 wasn't exactly super popular even on Intel hardware, so no big shock the PPC version was killed. WinNT hasn't displaced Windows 9x yet even after 7 years of trying, and even on Alpha where the thing was fast, it wasn't exactly flying off the shelves. And Apple wasn't letting anyone port their OSes to their hardware anyway.
If LinuxPPC, Inc. was a commercial enterprise in the sense of Microsoft or IBM, their product would have been killed by the beancounters a long time ago. Fortunately, the LinuxPPC project is driven by volunteer hackers who just want to run Linux on their Mac hardware. It doesn't need to be 'viable' commercially.
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Re:Morons, Indeed; There _ARE_ No Cheap Motherboar (Score:1)
Other companies like Umax made both Apple and PREP machines, as well as bare PREP boards.
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Re:Morons, Indeed; There _ARE_ No Cheap Motherboar (Score:1)
Now the main problem was that PowerPC as a commodity platform is that nobody bought it. If people had, there would be price-competitive PowerPC-based solutions available. Several manufacturers had PowerPC based systems and bare boards on the market a few years ago -- the platform just plain failed to make any money for them.
You guys seem to be putting the cart before the horse. Intel solutions are not popular because there are cheap loose parts available that you can roll your own with. Intel solutions have cheap parts because Intel solutions are popular.
If you think that cheap, bare PPC boards are going to ressurect the platform, think again. For every x86 motherboard sold to an individual, Intel sells several hundred thousand chipsets to Dell and Compaq and Gateway. The fact that you can get your hands on a $100 motherboard is a pure economy of scale issue. The guys at my Korner Klone store have no interest in PPC-based solutions. Their bread and butter is Windows 98 and NT and Novell, and they buy a hellava lot more motherboards than you and I put together.
Now, since this article is about Linux-on-PPC, why is this a flamewar? You have a source-compatible OS, so go and run it on the best damn processor you can find. If that's a homebrew x86 machine that's great; if it's an old Macintosh that's also great. Just don't expect something (a homebrew PPC machine) to come into existance just because you think it might be cool.
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Re:But there STILL aren't any cheap motherboards! (Score:1)
I notice that Dell ships either the same Rage128 or a TNT2. If I was looking at photoshop and quark all day, I'd take the ATI. Nvidia's 2D is not-so-great.
Apple should be shipping the home-use iMacs with Voodoo cards, however, and they also should be an option on the G4.
--
LinuxPPC great since change to glibc (Score:1)
Re:What is architecture specific (Score:1)
Also, if you're going to deal with bitwise operations, remember that some machines are big endian and some are little endian. You'll probably need to write different operations for each type.
Finally, Alphas, UltraSPARCs, and some other machines are 64-bit systems. Intel is 32-bit. That will get you into trouble at times.
LinuxPPC Information (Score:1)
Re:Why? (Score:1)
A very expensive Intel machine with 64 bits PCI (like the Apple g3bw) could only transfer 25 Mbyte/sec sustained with OS/2.
With NT and Linux the transferspeed dropped to 22 Mbyte/sec.
Technically the Mac has a lot better IO-system.
O yeah, the Mac was running MacOS 8.6.
And with 100baseT and average Mac (G3 233) can outperform every Intel based computer.
Due to the fact that every intel clone has to be backwards compatible with the first IMB XT the I/O performance really lags compared with Apple Mac's, Sun sparc's and Digital Alpha's.
With the introduction of MacOS 8.6 there was a problem with different ethernet switches which couldn't keep up with the Mac.
It is possible to get 100Mbit/sec sustained without a problem.
Every Intel PC I know has a limit of only 86 Mbit/sec. with 100baseT.
This has something to do with interrupts/sec.
Re:Linux PPC == OS/2 PPC == NT PPC (Score:1)
Re:X, USB and Polybutton Mice (Score:1)
Graphic Arts and Mac (Score:2)
WHAT trade secret? (Score:2)
i.e. Be has access to all the information they need to to get BeOS to run on recent Macs.
While they can't openly copy the code, nothing prevents them from reading it to find out how the hardware works.
I'm inclined to agree with those who mention that it's an issue of marketing - Be just needed an excuse for dropping PPC hardware support.
Re:Let's not go crazy here (Score:2)
1) Self consistancy: The MacOS has traditionally worked to build a consistant enviroment.. ie: all programs have (or should have if they follow MacOS interface guildlines) a FILE mane and an EDIT menue with a QUIT and CUT COPY PASTE menue items irrespective of weather they even use them or not. There's standard keyboard shortcuts of Comamnd C for Copyu, Command W for close window and the best: comand Q for quit. This means you can start up a completely new application you've never seen and type in these keyuboard shortcuts (among many others) and know what the program will do. This goes to the very deffinition of intuative. All aspects of the MacOS try to do this. In fact things like the Quicktime movie player and "Sherlock II" have been reviled by most Mac Power users since they do not use the standard interface or interface behaviors. Also you'll note that when you drag something somewhere it's either a move, or if a move is not possible, a copy.. The MacOS doesn't have the (as far as I can tell) completely random behavior windows exibits whenever I try to move or copy something.. (A shortcut? Did I tell you to make a shortcut.. no, I said move you stupid thing.. oh so now you're going to move.. and what about now.. a copy.. great..)
2) Use realworld metaphores: I'm thinking specifically of things like the desktop, although this can also be found in the icons: use a pencil to draw.. Use something that looks like a notbook to store notes (notepad). There's a folder here that has a mini computer on it.. Oh that must be some sort of computer code... (system folder)... What about this document? (It's a word doc) it looks different than this document (appleworks doc),.. anwyays...
Making a computer easy to use typically is a question of making it intuative.. That was the original point of a GUI.. although now it's degenerated into more of a "scares user less than a command line" approach where the user is some sort of baby.. oh, the user drags to the desktop.. he really wants to make an alias.. we'll do that for him. Who's supposed to be in control here? This is the kind of thing that windows users have toruble with when comming to the mac.. the mac doesn't try to baby the user. it does what you want and what the user should expect should happen when they do that. anyways...
As for things like protected memory.. this si only usefull to programmers.. Most users I know of never use more than one app at a time so don't care if only one app goes down... At leats the MacOS tells them they should restart their computer now.
Pre-emptive multitasking. It would be nice but in typical usuase I never run into this problem... The MacOS multitaks just fine 90% of the time. To me, having a nice intuative interface is more usefull then having pre-emtive multitasking.. It's more powerfull. I can use any generic program in existance with hardly any learning curve. If you really want to see how having a good interface is powerfull check out the old Claris programs... Very strraight forward apps that any newby can use with some veyr powerfull abilities.. In the old claris works you can dump a Spreadsheet into any kind of other document.. for that matter a draw or paint or word prcessing doc too.. Sort of like OLE, but it runs on an 8Mhz mac SE, takes up 2 megs of ram and 2 megs of disk space... The best part is, it doens't interfear with new user's. You have to click on this button down near the zoom in- zoom out buttons... Anyways.. now that Apple has screwed all this up in AppleWorks 6... I'm sticking with 5.0...
As for the File System and other bottlenecks.. yes, these are a pain. I expect these are problems programmers are up against when they try to make a big-full featured GOOD app on the Mac. THis is the real reasone Apple is going to MacOS X.. It's better to program on. I mean, having to restart your computer evertime a program seg-faults is insane! AGGGH! And that's if it dies right away.. sometimes it only makes your system really unstable so it crashes in code that was corupted by your code.. anyways... MacOS X is for developers. I'm learning Objective C right now because I figure MacOS X will be the ultimate developement platform...
Moronic Moderators (Score:2)
The ONLY shipping standalone PPC motherboard you can buy is from Motorola and it costs $2500. This is FACT. Don't believe me? Have fun searching.
I have absolutely no interest in buying a Mac and ripping it's guts out.
I just want a PPC based motherboard without all that Apple bullshit.
naidne-elttil? (Score:2)
Surely that ought to be ilttel neidna? :-)
Re:Endian Problems? (Score:2)
Re:I don't. (Score:2)
Re:Let's not go crazy here (Score:2)
Of course, there are some of us who prefer a minimalist interface which we can expand as needed with whatever other functionality we require.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
Re:Endian Problems? (Score:2)
I know that the PPC is big-endian and x86 is little endian (unless I got that backwards AGAIN). How much of a pain in the ass is this as far as porting code goes?
Well, technically, the PPCs have the ability to run either big endian or little endian code. Normally, they are big endian. IIRC, there's an asm mnemonic that allows you to switch the endianness when in supervisor mode.
As for porting code that relies on a given processors endianness, it isn't that hard in a language like C, which the majority of software is written in. In fact, you need to do this sometimes in software anyway, since some file formats for sounds and graphics (among other things) specify the endianness and other byte order issues for storing larger than 8-bit values. (The whole world is not like UNIX and they don't all treat files as streams of bytes.)
To convert the data, you write a cracking macro to swap the bytes. While it is trivial, I leave it as an exercise for the reader. A couple of other macros come in handy when dealing with binary data larger than 8 bits, such as macros to get the high order byte and low byte from a 16-bit value, and others for doing various manipulations on 32-bit values. It should be noted, too, that some architectures do rather bizarre things with bit orders, other than just the byte order of larger values. These, however, a not a concern when porting x86 code to the PPC.
Re:OpenPPC (Score:2)
While open hardware specs are a Good Thing (tm), openppc's mobo design is NOT. Please turn to page 24 on their PDF file of the mobo design.
Can we declare ISA dead once and for all? I mean, I know this is IBM and Token Ring really only runs well on ISA, but can we have a MODERN motherboard designed in this decade please?
How about USB for keyboard and mouse rather than the dated, lame, ISA?
Two IDE controllers? How retro.
This is nothing more than a stock x86 design (and all its legacy cruft) with a spot for a PowerPC chip.
I mean, the thing even has a game port.
_Deirdre
Re:I don't. (Score:2)
The verbal abuse in this statement aside, there are a lot of Mac people at Be. The reality is that Be supports its OS and it won't support something it doesn't have specs to. That seems pretty cut and dried, not to mention a reasonable position.
Besides, why are you slamming the efforts of a group that has done something you consider far too difficult for Be, Inc.?
Too difficult? ::chortle:: Not. There's a big difference between being able to do something and being able to *support* something.
What's so wrong with giving Mac and other PPC users a chance at Linux without having to give up their current machine or get an extra one?
This seems something to slam Apple for, not Be. I have run MacOS (various flavors), LinuxPPC, Yellow Dog Linux, MkLinux, MacOS X Server and BeOS on various Macs over the last few years.
_Deirdre (who does not speak for Be or Apple)
Re:OpenPPC (Score:2)
For a long time, the drivers for PCI Token Ring were NOT there, especially for Linux. In fact, when I was looking for Token Ring drivers (two years ago), the PCI cards were notably Not Supported. Furthermore, they weren't even well supported on other OSes at the time. I finally used a Linux box with an ISA Token Ring card to use as a router for my laptop (running Ethernet).
Let's not forgot that USB was designed to replace your serial ports, not the ISA bus.
Keyboards and mice shouldn't be hung off of ISA. USB is a more-than-acceptable way of doing it and offers advantages of doing MORE than just mouse, keyboard and game port (!).
USB networking, for example, has roughly 60% the throughput of a even a cheesy $5 ISA card.
This isn't even relevant to the point as networking is done on this board through PCI (which is the most appropriate solution).
_Deirdre
Re:Why? (Score:2)
This is why benchmarking is so contentious: you can dream up a benchmark to prove pretty much anything. But the fact is that most every-day applications are not going to make as much use of altivec as RC5 or seti@home. So these 3-6 times as fast ratings are simply not credible for everyday use.
Don't get me wrong: the G4 is a kick-ass chip, and if Apple had more competition, they would almost certainly be a better price/performance deal than x86 offerings. In fact, when I finish being a starving college students, I plan to buy a G4 (or whatever comes after it) I couldn't stand running Windoze or Linux as my only desktop OS choices. But it does the Mac community's credibility no good to treat Steve Job's inflated benchmarks as revealed truth. Yes, the G4 probably beats the competition in photoshop tests. But for those of us who don't do graphics for a living, that's not a reasonable benchmark. Like every company, Apple exaggerates their product's benefits.
Now that IBM is making G4's, though, I'm looking forward to seeing quad GHz G4's running OS X hit the market in early 2001. *drool*
Re:Why? (Score:2)
The current high-end G4 is 500 MHz. That compares with the 1 GHz chips Intel and AMD are claiming. I'm skeptical about whether those chips are going to ship in volume any time soon, though. Apple claims that the G4 is over twice as fast as a similarly clocked pentium. This is probably a bit of an exaggeration, but I think it probably is true that a G4/500 is equivalent to a P-III/750 or so.
So in terms of raw speed, the high-end x86 are probably ahead. But the G4 has a *lot* of room to grow. If the folks at Moto weren't so incompetent, we'd have 7-800 MHz G4's by now, which would blow everything x86 out of the water. And IBM is just now ramping up G4 production, so expect to see some serious increases in clock rates in the coming months.
So it's ridiculous to say that PPC's will "always lag behind." In fact, the exact opposite is true. They are currently in something of a slump, and with a little luck they will catch up and surpass x86. The PPC is simply a newer, cleaner architecture with more room to grow, and so they shouldn't have any trouble keeping up with the kludge that is x86.
Re:Does anyone else see the irony? (Score:2)
I mean, I like BeOS and all, but NeXT was just a far better deal even ignoring the personnel factor (especially because it included a bunch of dev tools and WebObjects).
--
+2 Insightful?!?!?! (Score:2)
WTF? The same damn troll post that's on every story mentioning a mac, and it's Insightful? Come on, I hope no moderator is stupid enough to believe that macs can only handle a 1 button mouse (mine has 4 and a wheel...)
Re:Mac-on-Linux (Score:2)
Be careful putting your mac partition in read-write mode... Every time I do that and boot mac-on-linux it wipes out my desktop folder...
Re:X? (Score:2)
2 and 3 button ADB mice have been around for years and often work right 'out of the box' with LinuxPPC.
2 and 3 button USB support seems good too - its what I'm using. (USB is backported to the 2.2 kernels on PPC).
If you do only have a 1 button mouse, you can set up a couple of keys to emulate the other buttons...
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
Re:Does anyone else see the irony? (Score:2)
The BeOS team has decided not to reverse engineer everything and then have Apple change the specs and break everything again.
In short, it could be done, but it's Apple, not Be, that is preventing it.
LL
Re:But there STILL aren't any cheap motherboards! (Score:2)
400MHz G4
1MB L2
64MB SDRAM
10GB Ultra ATA
DVD-ROM/DVD-Video
RAGE 128 Pro
10/100BASE-T
56K internal modem
Ram & HD upgrades you would want to do yourself, cause Apple charges a bit much. You can probably find lower prices if you shop around, that price is straight from the apple store. A lot of other places will have the same prices but throw in extra ram or something.
Desktop Metaphor (Score:2)
1) Stick it in a drawer or other container. That's already reserved for filing files and data.
2) Discard it from the workspace. In other words, the trash can.
Why no eject button? It's very simple. You do not want users taking out disks in the middle of an I/O operation or before another program is finished with it like you could in DOS. It was an attempt at protecting uneducated users from harming themselves and the system, especially back when the OS booted off a floppy.
To be honest, I agree that the trash can is better reserved for erasing the disk, but there is no other good item in a desktop metaphor for removing something from your workspace completely. Most other items I can think imply the ability to reach in and get the info back.
As to the multi-tasking question, I believe Pinky's response handles that question admirably. Another point about the old system dialogs is that the old Macintosh used to be a single-tasking system like DOS. Only one program could run at a time. When they went to multiple programs, a modal dialog is supposed to represent something you DON'T want two programs potentially messing with at the same time -- something important enough to interrupt the user for. However, there wasn't a clean way at the time to make application-specific dialogs for those messages that should only stop one program. As Pinky points out, though, this has been fixed.
I would like to know in what way either of those examples crosses off "powerful" from the list. Just because awk, sed, and grep on UNIX are horridly counter-intuitive at times doesn't make them less powerful. Just because something might be a little inconvenient doesn't mean it isn't powerful. The UI is powerful because of the wide variety of things you can do with it with little effort on your part. As a whole, the GUI is much cleaner and intuitive than it's competitors.
Re:Linux PPC == OS/2 PPC == NT PPC (Score:2)
None of these say anything against the viability of the PPC platform, which has incredible applications in the embedded (Motorola) and high-end server (IBM) markets. Unfortunately, Apple's stuck in the middle with the desktop market that neither chip supplier really cares intently about focusing on currently. The LinuxPPC and Yellow Dog guys make money the same way Red Hat and Debian do -- support.
Re:Let's not go crazy here (Score:2)
However, if you slam on the interface as being powerless, complex, difficult, and unclean, then you haven't used it in an unbiased fashion.
Re:I don't. (Score:2)
You make an excellent point -- one which I had forgotten to consider. However, the primary revenue stream of Yellow Dog Linux and LinuxPPC, Inc. is from supporting these same kind of machines running Linux. My point is that Be, especially in their FAQ, used to beat their chest repeatedly that it is all Apple's fault they are not supporting Apple's machines. However, other businesses are basing the majority of their revenue stream on doing the very thing Be claims Apple's lack of spoon-feeding prevents them from doing. The fact remains that Be is eventually pulling out of the PPC market and is happy to try to turn as many Mac/Be users against Apple to keep as many as possible. They are going where the money is currently and making the decision about where they think they can cut the biggest niche.
This seems something to slam Apple for, not Be.
Yeah, in retrospect that seems to be what the original poster was griping about, but I was making a general jab at all the people who immediately got on this thread to flame against supporting the platform, probably mainly because it's primarily the Mac platform, instead of respecting the effort and skills behind the porting work.
Re:Moronic Moderators (Score:2)
Besides, a good $1600 G4 comes with a decent video card, a modest hard drive, on-board support for Firewire, USB, UltraATA/66, Ethernet, and sound. The Motorola board has no video, no sound, and no hard drive with it. It's a decent buy, and you can always add stuff to it. Plus, the hardware that comes with it is far more supported on PPC Linux than whatever random peripherals you decide to stick on the Motorola board.
I don't think you honestly want anything to do with a PowerPC motherboard. You sound like you're just taking the opportunity to bitch about Apple's prices and slam a worthy development effort that seems not to be targetted at you. Well, live with it. There will be users of PPC platforms for years to come, and there will be enough of them interested in Linux to support it. If all you care about it money, go buy an x86 board. Try getting a SPARC or PA-RISC board for less than $2500.
Airport (Score:2)
If so, in my naive opinion it seems like you should be able to use the wavelan drivers in the PCMCIA package. Get the latest first, though.
Re:Now fix the compiler.. (Score:2)
Re:A few corrections, and my experience. (Score:2)
One thing about Macs is that they're nice and quiet; I'd be interested though in any kind of data you have to back up the impression that the G4 is fast running Linux.
Re:My experiences with YDL on a Blue G3 (Score:2)
The install is very clean and easy. If you want to get a Unix running on a Mac, this is definitely the path of least resistance.
I took OSX off in favor of Linux because I didn't need to run Mac binaries on the thing and the OSX GUI was not really Mac-ish. It had a bit of a Frankenstein monster feel to it, although I suppose you'd get used to it. The docs werent' that great either - not enough to be better than having access to source code and a gazillion Linux hackers. All in all, I had nothing wrong with it, but it didn't offer me any compelling reason to support yet another operating system (other than hacking value, but my hacking time is totally overcommitted). However it is very intriguing and I definitely will install new OSX udpates as they come down the pike.
YDL on iBooks (Score:2)
MkLinux is your answer (Score:2)
Does anyone else see the irony? (Score:2)
--
Fear not. Macs have 105 mouse buttons. (Score:2)
To sum everything I've said, macs have other ways (often more elegant) of performing the same tasks a second mouse button does. Understand this before you bash macs for having a one-button mouse.
*Note this post does not mean to a flame directed towards Linux. The wonderful open source nature of Linux makes it very easy to rip out the messy mnemonics and control key shortcut sequences in GNOME applications and replace these beasts with uncluttered menus that use the alt keys and appropriately chosen letters. (I've done with with the gnome file manager (gmc) and Dia, among others. I can't wait to do it with Nautilus. I love you, Gtk ItemFactory).
jason haas updates (Score:2)
Re:Morons, Indeed; There _ARE_ No Cheap Motherboar (Score:2)
Well I remember them. They were pretty much the Mac clones. I bought one because I was into the BeOS and I didn't want to deal with the Apple BIOS. What happened to them? I can tell you. Power Computing in Round Rock Texas was making the Mac clones and they were doing well. People were buying. They had record profits. The same for some of the other ones. When Power Computing was getting bigger Apple saw that the clone makers were taking a piece of their market. Rather then competing and letting the platform mature, Apple then stopped licensing the MacOS to the clone makers. This resulted in them losing almost all sales because machines preloaded with the MacOS was 99% of their business. This is the reason why I hate Apple. I know that I am biased but they destroyed a platform and thousands of jobs because they didn't want to compete on a level playing field.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Re:everything is relative (Score:2)
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Re:Great processor, great computer architecture... (Score:2)
Currently the only way to get a Mac is bundled with MacOS, but eventually, IBM will be shipping their PowerPC open platform boards, which you can buy independently of any OS.
And what's this about the bios being built kind of to stop people from booting something else?
PCI PowerMacs use Open Firmware (think of it as a BIOS on steroids.) The problem is not that Apple built it to be incompatable (it was developed by Sun) it's that Apple hacked it up a little bit to make it especially compatable with MacOS, which breaks a lot of things for booting other OSes. You can boot Linux directly from MacOS, though, and LinuxPPC 2000 has a nifty way to direct boot at a slightly higher level than Open Firmware (using a sort of fake System Folder on a small HFS partition - it's cool.)
Re:The last part is a bit harsh. (Score:2)
IME - gcc sux on the PPC, it write very nasty unoptimized code. It works beutifully on x86, but not on PPC. egcs, OTOH, generates great PPC code so there is no lack of good compiles out there.
I run LinuxPPC about 90% of the time, only switching to the Mac when I need to use the dreaded Microshaft Office - fortunatly thats rare. I only do this because my poor printer and Linux dont mix.
Re:Now fix the compiler.. (Score:2)
Other Linux Ports under way... (Score:2)
Debian Linux [debian.org]
Rock Linux [rocklinux.org]
[suse.com]
Turbo Linux [turbolinux.com]
APUS Linux for Power Up Amigas [sunsite.auc.dk]
Yellow Dog Linux (Based on RedHat) [yellowdoglinux.com]
What about the rest of us Linux PPC Users??? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Mac-on-Linux (Score:3)
One point everyone seems to be forgetting in the "my OS is bigger.. oops, better.. than your OS" debate is that PowerPC Linux has what may be the killer app.. the MacOS itself.
Check out The Mac on Linux Page [maconlinux.com] for more info.
I run it when I need to open that stray Word or PowerPoint document under Linux, and quite frankly, it rocks. Not everything is there yet (like sound support, and multiple serial line support), but what is there is impressive.
(Aside: the Sheepshaver [sheepshaver.com] developers were supposed to have a similar app for Power PC Linux, but nothing ever materialized. Pity..)
I'll soon try out additional Web resources for using MacOS Open Transport, MoL, and Linux ethertap support to create a "virtual" firewall. (Almost no configuration except for IP masquerading, no need to buy another box, and I get my MacOS-based VPN client when I need it. Life is good.)
-----
Re:Let's not go crazy here (Score:3)
Of course, your post was simply a troll, so I don't guess you really expected a calm answer, but, yes, the Mac OS has an interface that is all of the above.
I don't. (Score:3)
Besides, why are you slamming the efforts of a group that has done something you consider far too difficult for Be, Inc.? They're making Linux more available! What's wrong with this? Plus they're helping people not have to switch to a hardware platform many of us consider a shambling horror that just won't die, and they're helping wring extra life out of old machines that might be wasted otherwise.
Shouldn't we be supporting Linux everywhere? I mean, everyone loves it when Linux is ported to a digital camera, a calculator, or a friggin' vending machine. What's so wrong with giving Mac and other PPC users a chance at Linux without having to give up their current machine or get an extra one? Quit slamming people for providing others with a service.
OS Power is not one dimensional (Score:3)
It's clear that in areas of memory and task management, MacOS is very weak.
However it does have areas of strength too.
For example Applescript (is it in or out this year) is dynamite. It allows you glue together Mac applications the way the Unix shell allows you to glue together command line applications. It also gives you the ability to expose the objects your application handles to the outside world in an OS-wide standard way.
I like the way the OS manages application resources. Essentially, strings, menus, bitmaps and so on aren't statically compiled into applications or into dlls, but are kept in a separate "fork" of the application file which can be edited with a resource editor by the user.
The UI is generally quite good, although apple has been slipping in recent years. I like the fact that the OS has a user notification API. This is the most annoying thing about windows: having applications pop windows to the top of the Z-order and steal keystrokes.
The UI is good in many subtle ways too. For example, the way menus stick to the top of the screen. It may seem weird at first, but consider this: the ease of hitting a target with a on screen pointer is dependent on the size of the object (obviously). Not obviously, by sticking the menus to the top of the screen they're given infinite vertical extent making them easier to hit. Now, for the average, non impaired person, person, this is not a huge thing; it saves you a tiny bit of effort.
The earliest decisions made in the development of the Mac GUI were often like this -- very astute. Enough right decisions, subtle though their effect may be, and the whole user experience is improved.
You can help! (Score:3)
Remember, there's PPC, SPARC, MIPS, Alpha, and 680x0 ports out there as well. Are you listening, Corel?
Re:Why? (Score:4)
I know I shouldn't respond to this obvious troll, but here I go...
What does that mean? What is serious computing? There are many univesities that use Macs for teaching. There are many companies that still have a lot of Macs, especially for graphic design. There are many households who are still using Macs, and surprise, surprise, the marketing is working, there are many households that are actually buying Macs. Besides, a telnet client is a telnet client is a telnet client, right? :)
But just to reiterate -- this is not about Macs! This is about the PowerPC architecture. The hardware was never the weak link in Macs -- it was always the software. The hardware has always done an excellent job running the slow, underpowered, under-equipped software.
Actually, this is not true, contrary to the reports you might have seen. Yeah, a truly high end PIII or Athlon might beat a G4 for raw performace, but the beauty is, G3's and G4's are common, and relatively inexpensive, while the high end x86 chips are rare and expensive. The average G3 will toast the shit out of the average PII or PIII.
darren
Cthulhu for President! [cthulhu.org]
Why? because lots of people use Macs seriously (Score:4)
There's an awful lot of loyalty in arts and design community towards the Mac.
Windows boxes are viewed by this community with a similar sort of suspicion that the linux / slashdot community holds for Microsoft products, though this is more due to poor interfaces, bad ports of software and perceived complexity of operation compared to the familiar Mac environment, than any issue of open or closed source software. In the UK art colleges are often strongholds of Macs, this is what most artists and graphic designers are professionally trained on.
However, there are a lot of graphic designers out there who are becoming aware of the whole open source philosophy and would love to join in. To drag up the old chestnut, they are just waiting for a decent set of tools that are suitable for their work environment. I work with a graphic designer who would love to convert to linux but the tools available are just not comparable to the commercially released latest versions of Illustrator, Flash, Quark Xpress etc.
With the linux heritage and community developing from people interested in unix server applications to including those interested in providing graphics and multimedia tools, I think we may be on the verge of seeing a new professional community embracing linux and open source.
Ok, I know it's very easy to say "forget the damn graphic designers, if they can't learn our way of working, we don't want to help them" but I think if the attitude is more "let's work out how to support these user needs" we'll find a large group of unsupported sympathisers becoming enthusiastic converts.
Whooop! I'm Rip-Roaring and Rarin' to Go! (Score:5)
I run Virtual PC just so I can rape and pillage in Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 client, as well as Mac OS 9 and PowerPC Linux. I mate them like dogs in heat in July. I do it for fun, not cause I have to. I can play Tetris on every one of them, and I my high scores show up at the bank. Duke Nukem licked my boots. I'm about to add a RedHat partition, and I've got MachTen in a box on a shelf just panting to join the gangbang.
I flip around from OS to OS like a Vegas master dealing blackjack. I do what I want where I want any way I please. I compose a document using AbiSoft Word, or ApplixWare, or Microsoft Word, or ClarisWorks, or in VI (God bless the simple things in life). I've got 17 graphics programs, 18 web browsers, 41 apps capable of serving web pages, 10 text editors, 7 shells, and one goddam processor. And the machine weighs seven pounds. I can send email from 19 different programs, and just for the hell of it, I can first bounce it through 14 accounts on three planets. I can read your reply, translate it into French and post it on the web in Chinese. My computer sings to me.
I can jam my baby, my rocket, in the middle of two ten-thousand-node networks and have it act as a router, a bridge, an end-node or a firewall. My machine does IP masquerading like a Halloween ball. I can grep like a mofo, find just the true-life Pantone color you're looking for, and visit your dirtbag Windows-only web site just so I can send you nasty email and jam your mailbox with stories of the Craig Shergold and free trips to Disneyland. I eat Lithium Ion batteries for breakfast and chew NiCad cells to calm my stomach.
My machine is the best of breed. It's got hybrid vigor. You can take your fancy-pants, out-of-the-box, turn key solutions and spread them on the grass, 'cause they ain't nothing but manure.
[With thanks and respect to Mike Fink and Mark Twain.]
Re:Why? (Score:5)
Many designers learned their trade on the Macintosh these days... Many of the old school ones converted to Macs a long time ago... The MacOS might not be as stable as the Windows platforms (which I'd debate, being a user of both), but it's MUCH easier to setup and maintain, allowing non-technical people to go about being creative, rather than caring about DLL's, the many security flaws in Windows, etc...
Besides that, in case you hadn't noticed, Apple has doubled their market share in the past couple of years... Meaning their market's growing. More macs are being sold, not less... so why do you insist on why should so and so be ported to the Mac?
I do understand your second sentiment a little bit though... Mac users love their desktops, so why would they want to switch to Linux? And then the next question would really be: Why would a mac user want to switch to Linux with OS-X right around the corner? That's a real toughie, I think...
The first answer would be that some mac users are actually curious about other technologies...They use a Mac because they feel it's superior to Windows, but they're not afraid to look at other options available. The second answer? I really don't know... As i said earlier i'm a long time Mac user, though I've also PC with Windows and Linux on it, and i really do have zero interest in installing Linux on a Mac these days... A year ago, I played with MkLinux, but now that OS-X is just about here, i'd rather sit back and wait for that.
My experiences with YDL on a Blue G3 (Score:5)
So we had a blue and white G3/350 sitting around as a doorstop. My knee jerk reaction to any doorstop computer is to put Linux on it and put it to work! So I picked up Yellow Dog Linux, which is Red Hat 6 recompiled for the PPC and tweaked.
The first big difference from x86 Linux -- no PC BIOS, therefore no LILO.
The problem is that it turns out is that "Open Firmware" isn't. It is supposedly possible to boot Linux directly on powerup, but it is apparently enough of a black an art the normal course is to boot Mac and use a Mac Control Panel applet called BootX to automatically load Linux. YDL does not include any instructions for booting any other way. I wonder what will happen when OS X starts shipping on new Macs -- until the Open Firmware problem is solved, you'll have to have a Mac OS CD to install a small HFS partition with a stripped down MacOS 8 or 9. This isn't really all that bad when you think about it. Think of the HFS partition as the boot sector of the disk and MacOS as a GUI boot sector manager; heck you even get networking and a web browser thrown in.
There was plenty of hassle getting the G3 to boot. I resolved this after some Internet searches to find the magical incantations needed by BootX specifically for use on the Blue and White G3. Also, it may be necessary to tweak some BootX settings so you don't boot with the processor cache turned off and the video hardware set to VGA resolution so RTFM. After ritually sprinkling the keyboard with virtual chicken blood, I booted into the familiar RedHat installer. From there installation is pretty much coasting.
Once you get over this stuff, what you end up with is essentially identical to Red Hat. It's shipped with slightly more paranoid security defaults, which is a good thing. Instead of wuftpd, you get proftpd, which is a nifty ftp daemon that uses Apache-like XML files for configuration. Unfortunately turns out to be mysteriously unstable on YDL; it would run fine for a while suddenly start losing its mind and not allowing any logins. I downgraded to wuftpd and all is well. Also, GNOME is unstable and dumps core after a little while, but KDE works without a hitch. I wonder if these problems could be some of the compiler glitches mentioned in other threads. In any case, combine this with the annoyance of the round, one button mouse (hint, use the keyboard "=" for the right button mouse), and I wouldn't really recommend this solution for desktop use.
Pretty much these are minor issues, and the thing works fine as a server. I got Apache and MySQL running on it in a few minutes. I got the latest Python and recompiled with threads to run Zope, and multihomed the Zope with a reverse proxy Squid. I obtained OpenSSH 1.2.2 and successfully compiled it (I've heard reports of problems with OpenSSH 2 on PPC linux). The point of which is that all the usual open source tools are readily available, but that a few have some glitches.
Performance-wise, the system is nothing to write home about. I have a P3-450 which kicks its ass readily on long compiles and on Zope service. I'd say its performance runs something between a PPro 200 that I have and the P3-450. However, performance is perfectly satisfactory for a former doorstop.
I suspect the glitches and relative sluggishness may be related to the fact that the PPC compiler is less robust than it's X86 counterpart.
Bottom line: YDL Linux is great for repurposing existing Mac PPC Hardware (but not too old and probably not too new) for use as a server in non-demanding missions.