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In Depth With Jason Haas And LinuxPPC 59

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
AcaBen writes: "MacSlash's Les Harris did an in depth interview with Jason Haas of LinuxPPC about their upcoming release and enhancements. It also includes some news of his recovery from the bad auto accident (covered by Slashdot) he was involved in, and provides details about how LinuxPPC will compete with MacOS X."
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In Depth With Jason Haas and LinuxPPC More

In Depth With Jason Haas and LinuxPPC

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  • The clipboard is destroyed everytime you make a selection. You cannot cut/copy something, then select something else and paste to replace it. It forces you to clear out the space you want to paste into first, then copy, then go back and paste. If you want to go through a bunch of fields and replace things with whatever is on your pasteboard you are pretty much SOL (it is very difficult). Also, almost none of the apps available for X have cut/copy/paste in their edit menu. The only app I use that has real cut and paste is Navigator (which is crap in most other respects).

    Even Windoze gets it right. There's no reason why X apps can't do it the right way, after all, the Mac has been out for 16 years now. This is just another example of why Linux isn't taking over the desktop anytime soon.

    Burris

  • Jason sucks (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Goddamn Jason. I always thought it was a mistake for him to join Metallica. Got into his head.
  • 2000-09-04 16:35:32 Here come the UltraSPARC III's! (articles,news) (rejected) 2000-09-06 20:48:03 No UltraSPARC III Coming this Month (articles,news) (rejected) 2000-09-08 16:14:28 Embedded UltraSPARC (articles,news) (rejected) 2000-09-08 16:25:53 Answer to Sun's Recent Cache Woes? (articles,news) (rejected) 2000-09-12 16:11:00 Sun Tidbits of Major Import (articles,news) (rejected) 2000-09-26 16:57:03 Sun rises with new generation of servers (articles,news) (rejected)
  • The interview covered SUSE, and OSX, but did not cover the most credible alternative now available for english-speaking folk on the Mac, namely Yellow Dog [yellowdoglinux.com].

    We had a dreadful time getting PPC to work on our Mac, but yellow dog runs like a charm.

    I am wondering whether the interviewer was being kind, or had only done a portion of their homework.

  • provides details about how LinuxPPC will compete with MacOS X.

    I didn't really see the article do that. I only saw a vague statement to the effect that most people who use MOSX probably won't know what an X server is. Which may be true, but it won't stop most of us who use LinuxPPC now from using an Xserver on a Mac (now, X's inherent problems may, but whatever).

    But I do wonder how Linux can compete with MacOS X. Maybe....

    Price? For a while, yes. While Mac OS X is still sold as an upgrade for current HW owners, unless it's really cheap, LinuxPPC will probably be cheaper. But at some point, MOSX will come with all apple machines.

    Applications? Anything for Linux can and probably will be ported to OSX. Already I find binary RPMs for MOSX before I find RPMs for Linux PPC.

    Ease? Ha!

    Performance? Maybe. I think that the reason that Apple dropped non-G3 machines from the supported list for MOSX was that they didn't have the processor speed to keep the user experience snappy. I've heard stories of opening and closing the dock munching 75% of the CPU. LinuxPPC runs nicely on my 200 Mhz 604e. (Though how an OS that ran beautifully on the 68040 33mhz NeXTStation I have sitting next to me got this slow, I can't say).

    In short, I think performance is the best competitive bet for LinuxPPC. That, and fanatical loyalty.
  • It's not the 52-week low as much as the percentage of plummet. 50% is a big loss. Imagine losing $.50 for every dollar you had - or, more appropriately, $500,000 for every one million. See the difference?
  • He is complaining that in X, you cannot paste/replace text like you can in Windows.

    He makes two points, really. One is the lack of a highlight->replace type feature you mention, the other is the lack of a menu item. I was irked specifically by the menu item (or lack thereof) but probably should've mentioned the highlight->replace issue also.

    Under X, the procedure typically goes like:

    1. select some text
    2. cut text from screen
    3. select other text
    4. copy text into previous spot

    Which is not altogether different except for the lack of having two things highlighted at once. But the end results are the same. I just don't see what his problem is in that regard.

  • I don't think you read his post well at all. He is complaining that in X, you cannot paste/replace text like you can in Windows.

    In Windows:

    1. select some text
    2. press ctrl+c to copy
    3. select some other text
    4. press ctrl+v to paste the first item *over* the second item, replacing it
    this acts like a replace feature.

  • Does anyone have any info on Linux support on RS/6000? Yellowdog Linux claims to work on older single processor RS/6000's but not the newer ones. I called IBM and they said there was no Linux support for their RS/6000's at all and no plans for such. Does anyone know what is holding this up. IBM has been very forward thinking about supporting linux on its hardware, so this seems odd to me.

    And why does Yellowdog only run on old uniprocessor boxes? Is Linux's multi-processor support for G4's lacking in some way? RS/6000 are great price/performance servers and its a shame they only run AIX.

  • Where exactly would the word accident be appropriate then?
  • Wait, he is moving to colder climate! The article said he was moving to Wisconsin.
  • Big versus little endian. If you are migrating from a Sun, HP, or SGI to Linux, and if you have lots of binary data, then the PPC offers a nice platform for the initial migration. Or you can be like me and convert all your fread/fwrite statements to xdr input functions.

    I have a dual-boot Powerbook. Having the MacOS and LinuxPPC gives me a lot of options all on one mobile computer.

  • There are lots of supported 3 button mice. LinuxPPC works beautifully with USB mice and there are many 3 button models available (the Contour Unimouse is my choice).You can still obtain a number of 2 & 3 button mice for ADB Macs from mail order sources, but PCI USB cards are cheap, so why bother? USB has been well suported in LinuxPPC since the 1999 Q3 release.
  • Please offer some argument for your "most credible" statement. It's provactive. And wrong. I thoroughly checked out both before deciding on LinuxPPC. The much vaunted Yellow Dog installer was a joke compared to LinuxPPC's X based installer and the code under the hood is mostly the same. Yellow Dog's slick corporate presentation reduced its credibility in my eyes. I had no trouble at all getting LinuxPPC to work on my aging Umax C600 Mac clone... and I had no trouble getting it to recognize the G3 card in the L2 cahce slot. Which version of LinuxPPC did you try?
  • Ok people, let's look at this realistically. Everyone is freaked out about computer and Internet stocks. Microsoft, the company that has the vast majority of the computer market, is suffering from much closer to a two year low than Apple. Specifically, over the past two years Apple has appreciated in value over 20%, where Microsoft has only appreciated around 10%. Do we think people have had enough of Windows? No. Windows is here for a while and Microsoft will remain profitable.

    In starker terms, if you bought stock in Microsoft a year ago, you have seen the value of your stock plummet nearly a third. Apple has only lost about 10% (so far) over the same time frame

    I hope we do not see the dark days of Apple at $8 a share, but you never know. It was nice to see Apple and Microsoft at around the same price, even if was only for a month. The sotck fell today because people are afraid that Apple may become unprofitable again, even though that is not what announced today. You can see that same thing happen to much more traditional companies when they do not meet the so-called analyst forecasts.

  • Of course, assuming a desktop application, x86 is the best bet in performance/price. Far and away. I also inquired into motherboards for Sparc and Alpha chips at LWCE, and in both cases the board alone was again around $1000 (entry-level models at that!)

    I was interested in PPC mostly out of curiosity/novelty, and a desire to have a top-quality machine, more so than any specific plans to do something with Altivec. (And I don't mind the sound of fans-- heck, I don't sleep as well at nights without it ;-) If I was a cold, emotionless pencil pusher, I wouldn't have given PPC a second thought. Unless there is some specific advantage PPC gives you, it's more an issue of getting a higher-quality system (and all the associated warm fuzzies) versus nailing that global perf/$$$ maxima.

    P.S.: Building a G4 Linux system would present an even more complex issue with drivers. The boards have a regular PCI bus, so you can slip in just about any card you like, but you have to ensure that you can compile the driver source. Vendor-supplied binary drivers are useless as they are almost invariably x86-only.
  • Please read "Provocative" for "provactive" in the comment above.
  • The same RH installer is included in the LinuxPPC installer - as is clearly indicated in the install docs... Any Mac user installing any Linux distro would be well-advised to RTFM...regardless of technical sophistication.

  • Re:What about Yellow Dog? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    [Bah, stupid Slashdot defaults. Here it is formatted propery.]

    I'm not the originator of this thread, but...

    Frankly, you're damn lucky that you're one of the ones for whom the LinuxPPC 2000 X installer worked. It can make your life suck in a big way when it doesn't, and it has a fairly good chance of not working.

    The Yellow Dog installer is the good old reliable Redhat text mode installer... easy enough to use, and it has a fairly high probability of working without trouble.

    Interface-wise, I actually prefer the RedHat textmode installer over the newer X-based one LinuxPPC used in 2K. No, you don't have a mouse to point and click, but the menus are simple and (for the most part) straightforward.

    YDL also has more packages, and seems to have cleaner integration. (Yes, the code under the hood is the same, but the job of a distribution is to get it to all work together with minimal fuss.)

    And although I'm not the kind of user who needs tech support, and therefore have no direct experience with either distribution in that regard, my understanding is that YDL's support is a lot better. Hopefully LPPC Inc. can improve in this regard once they get Jason back in Madison and he feels ready to work full time.

  • Re:Admirable effort (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Think about it: our lab has a bunch of old 604e's converted to G3 PPC by third party vendor daughterboard upgrades. What are the chances of MacOS X running at a reasonable speed on these boxen, or running at all, for that matter? Very little, I'd venture."

    The chances are quite good actually, many people have the public beta running on such boxes. There are failures but there are successes too.

    The kernel & bsd stuff (Darwin) is open source, so even if Apple doesn't make it solid on these old boxes before release, users have a chance to do it.
  • Perhaps somewhere where its use doesn't imply the lack of fault or blame.
  • Big versus little endian

    Good point. I haven't had to deal with this issue in the past few years and forgot about it. Thanks.


    --
    Chief Frog Inspector

  • Re:LinuxPPC/Yellowdog on RS/6000? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You might want to look here: http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensou rce/linux/projects/ppc/
  • This was the exact reason for the OpenPPC Project [openppc.org], which intended to produce PPC-based motherboards from IBM's PowerPC Open Platform [ibm.com] plans.

    Unfortunately, IBM never released the layout files ("Gerbers") because of problems with the northbridge. The project's pretty moribund these days, but who knows? Maybe IBM will revisit the idea of creating a reference design for the 405 chips (and similar), and we'll have inexpensive, third-party PPC-based motherboards yet.

    Tom Geller, co-founder, The OpenPPC Project

  • If the stock continues to plummet, will OS X be any competition at all. Pretty, yes, but as recently seen by the G4 cube consumers can only buy so much of "pretty" to drive a company's profits up until they want "functional".
  • People weren't talking about his accident much afterwards, and I assumed he'd had serious a brain injury or something. I'm really glad he's OK, even if LinuxPPC may have a problem with OS X now on the scene.

  • 2KQ3 (Score:1)

    by paRcat ( 50146 )
    2KQ3

    What a cool version structure. Why doesn't all other software follow this?


    _______________
    you may quote me
  • Are you sure that's just not his license plate?
  • Maybe you already have PPC machines that run a less desirable OS. Maybe you think the PPC chip is the faster chip within given price ranges. Maybe you work in some graphics shop full of G4s and would like to dual boot or convert some machines. Maybe you like the nifty case design of the iMac, the G4s, and the Cube. Or maybe you are halfway crazy and just need a little help getting over the edge.
  • I support Haas's decision not to replace his brain with an overclocked Athlon, as the heat problem would have forced him to move to colder climate.


    My mom is not a Karma whore!
  • Uh, run more applications? Maybe it would let you switch between them better then the joke gnome has but i doubt you could run more .. look at this [fortyoz.org].

  • You can also get to it at http://www.linuxppc.org/news/jhaas/ [linuxppc.org], which does work.
  • Also, almost none of the apps available for X have cut/copy/paste in their edit menu.

    If you don't know how to properly copy & paste in X, please refrain from broadcasting your ignorance to the world. But for everyone's benefit, I'll say that X does not need menus for proper copying & pasting. Here's how it works:

    • Left click to mark area for copying
    • Middle click to paste marked area someplace else

    That's how it works. No stupid keystrokes. No stupid menus. Works everywhere. Simple. Effective. And oh how I wish I could throttle every dumb-ass Windows/Mac user who doesn't understand the simplest X basics...

  • Re:Admirable effort (Score:3)

    by Straker Skunk ( 16970 ) on Friday September 29, 2000 @09:11AM (#744092)
    PPC >> x86

    That goes for architecture design, thermal properties, size, and (alas) price.

    I recently built myself a new workstation. It ended up being AthlonTB-based, but boy did I look hard for a reasonably priced non-Apple G4/CHRP motherboard. The things don't exist. I asked a Motorola rep at LWCE2000 about the company's line of PPC ATX boards. Their most inexpensive model is over a thousand dollars!

    Then again, he said those were made for controlling industrial equipment, so the manufacturing tolerances are a little tighter than necessary for a desktop system. But the rep did say something quite enlightening: the reason you don't see cheap G4 boards is that Apple would never EVER allow MacOS to run on them, and because of that, no one sees a market. It's a damn shame....
  • One reason I'd love to have linuxPPC is because of legacy hardware. Think about it: our lab has a bunch of old 604e's converted to G3 PPC by third party vendor daughterboard upgrades. What are the chances of MacOS X running at a reasonable speed on these boxen, or running at all, for that matter? Very little, I'd venture. LinuxPPC can and does run quite well on these machines, however (except for the lack of decent supported 2-3 button mice, though :P)

  • Re: IP Address to get around DNS error (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ijustpoured.abowlofhotgrits.downthefront.ofmypants
  • Years back, when Jobs returned to Apple, he killed the Apple clones. Since then there's probably very little interest or expectation for Mac-like mobos. Industrial applications are a natural for a special PPC mobo, which would be a good platform for Linux, as controllers.

    The reason I ask is because if (as the case is) I were to pick a platform for the express intent of installing Linux (to do engineering work, run a server, etc.) which is better bang for the buck?

    So far I'm inclined toward x86 simply because there's more to choose from, even though it's an effort to confirm avalibility (and support) of drivers for each and every card and device I consider.

    I considered the cube but, noticing a lack of expandability, have backed off.


    --
    Chief Frog Inspector
  • How do you replace ? How do you copy an Image ? How do you copy without leaving the keyboard ?

    Replace doesn't make a lot of sense for a whole lot of apps. I'm not going to be able to highlight arbitrary xterm text and replace it in any meaningful way. Images are the same story; I'm not going to be able to copy the Slashdot logo into my C source code. Some apps can handle such things (a fancy word processor, for example), but since those actions aren't universal, neither is the method to perform them.

    Copying & pasting text is universal, but far too many people don't understand how to do it.

  • (Has a nice ring to it... :-)

    granted people here don't like shelling out money for anything let alone as OS but I for one will be shelling out my (insert $$ value here) for a version of NeXTSTEP running on big hardware. I don't think I'll need the seperate partition for linux anymore.

    Can't say much about the hardware and core OS (though I've heard my share of good things about the NeXTCubes, and gosh they looked killer), but for the working environment, you could always go with GnuStep [gnustep.org].

    Hmmm... perhaps if you had some Mac hardware, installed [the microkernel-based] Darwin, and built GnuStep... that would probably be as close to a free OSX/OpenStep as one can get, yes?
  • Here's a howto for a fairly new RS/6000 workstation: http://www.stud.ifi.u io. no/~ingvarha/fag/43p/2000/43p.html [ifi.uio.no]. I've been thinking about trying it myself.
  • that really saddens me, I was hoping apple would'nt break the best feature of NeXTSTEP which was quality USEABLE multitasking, only other setup I have found to be neerly as tolerable is FreeBSD on a fast box with decent ram and a light wm
    For apple to have made the OPENSTEP code into a clunky slow apple/linux/gnome'esk UI is preety sad
    I can seeing p100's running 3.3 with over a hundred applications open, if you brought the one on the bottom up, it was instantly useable. really really sad
  • I think you have that one right. I have a 450MHz 128MB New World machine, and I'm triple-booting OS9, OS X, and Yellow Dog. OS X is purty, but it's clunky. It shouldn't take 10 seconds to open a terminal window, ya know? I'm enamored of the _idea_ of OS X, but PPC/Linux is more usable for me right now. It's fast as blazes, in fact.
    ---------
  • you are using linux, and that attempt to access that particular DOS device won't lock up your computer! Nice try vile Foreigner!!! grahaha!
  • Until then, enjoy your bloated, featureless xterm-switcher.

    Hahaha! It is obvious you have never used X! Because anyone who has ever used X knows that in addition to dozens of xterms, we also have xclock!

    Real men understand that copy and insert (technically, X allows neither cut nor paste) of plain text is all any sane person would ever need. After all, every known text editor (emacs and vi) has implemented a perfectly servicable cut and paste of its own. And certainly only text needs to be copied -- why on earth would you try to paste an xclock into an xterm?
  • You know, I wish I could be absolutely, positively certain you are a troll. Unforunately, I've met far too many clueless morons in my life to have any idea what you are.

    Salesman: What can I do for you today?
    Customer: I'd like a screwdriver.
    Salesman: Here is some vise-grips.
    Customer: Umm... I kinda want a screwdriver....
    Salesman: Well, these vise-grips can do anything a screwdriver can do! They're the superior tool!
    Customer: [muttering] clueless moron!
    Salesman: [muttering] idiot!
  • Mac OS X beta is a *joke* if you try to load it. The nice window shadows eat all your CPU, and more than a few dozen of windows is not realistic on a 384Mb machine.

    Huh? I have it running on a 192Mb machine, and the only time it ever gets sluggish is
    when it's loading the "Classic" environment (which I'd expect.) Seriously, I've got Internet Explorer, Omniweb, Macster, AppleMail (the spiritual heir of NeXTMail, natch) all running, and the box isn't even breathing hard [dyndns.org].
  • Information can be had here [www.suse.de] and here [ibm.com]
    --
  • I guess all those prayers you guys were arguing about did some good after all!!

    Glad to hear that Jason got better.
  • Once I get my Apple Cube, it runs LinuxPPC. Why? -True multitasking. Older MacOS isn't too hot with MT, whereas I can work the Gimp and pull up a java-heavy website with Mozilla at the same time. -Much more customizable GUI. I use GNOME and KDE. At the same time. -Easier to upgrade kernels. I visit SourceForge, or some other kernel repository, and voila! -CivCTP works on RISC processors :)
  • Stupid user-restricted stories. Warn us about that crap before we go there. Sharkey
    www.badassmofo.com [badassmofo.com]
    Tastes great, Less filling.
  • But why, unless I get it really really cheap, would I opt for a PPC to run Linux over x86 architecture?

    Years ago I picked up a cheap Sun SparcIPX to plop Linux on because drivers for x86 were few, far between. I expect drivers are less of a problem for this same reason, as video, sound, etc. has less variation. Perhaps I've answered my one question, but what perspective do others have on this?


    --
    Chief Frog Inspector
  • How is X cut and paste not real? It is different.. but once gotten used to it IS faster and more efficient. Unless of course your stuck with a (shitty) one button mouse.
  • it shouldn't be too tough to compete with OSX considering the backwards motion mac seems to be swimming in. did i hear that gnu starter-upper richard also was in an accident? or is that just some pro-LINUS propaganda and wishful thinking?


    1. LINUS [mikegallay.com]
      1. & LUCY


  • Read about Jason's recovery (Score:3)

    by crisco ( 4669 ) on Friday September 29, 2000 @08:41AM (#744113) Homepage
    If you get a chance, read Jason's wife's daily account of his recovery at http://www.linuxppc.com/news/jhaas [linuxppc.com]. (Note: Link currently isn't working for me, my ISP might be having DNS problems).

    I never realized the seriousness of a brain injury until reading it, that guy seems lucky to be alive and still able to comprehend Linux.

  • LinuxPPC seems nice enough I have installed it and run it for a time on newer macintosh hardware. But the X/GNOME/KDE GUI has nothing on what IMO is the best GUI made, NeXTSTEP 3.3/OPENSTEP 4.X had a very easy to use unified FAST, must I repeat FAST interface that users were not scared of, on a 33mhz 68040, I ran more applications than this damned 233MXX laptop running linux could EVER run.
    With a newer version of the Mach Kernel and an upgrade from 4.3bsd to 4.4bsd-lite, the under pinnings of MacOS X are second to none, granted people here don't like shelling out money for anything let alone as OS but I for one will be shelling out my (insert $$ value here) for a version of NeXTSTEP running on big hardware. I don't think I'll need the seperate partition for linux anymore.
  • couldn't agree more. wasted at least 4 cents of my time


    1. LINUS [mikegallay.com]
      1. & LUCY


  • Yes, you are right. GNOME and KDE are a total joke compared to Mac OSX. I mean, GNOME and KDE don't even have real cut and paste. How pathetic is that?

    Seriously now, Mac OS-X has true multitasking, it's got the Mach kernel with a full BSD complement. It is totally different from previous versions of MacOS. It's basically NeXTStep v6 with a Mac face.

    Burris

  • Accident? I don't think so. Drunk driver, criminal negligence involving major bodily injury. The use of the word accident in this context is inappropriate.

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