forum GNU Linux PowerPC Notebook
Software => Base Installation - Software List => Topic started by: fospot-ppc on April 01, 2016, 11:14:34 PM
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Hello All,
This section and post are about the Debian powerpc port - but should also be applicable to other OSes.
The main objective is to create a list of applications and functionalities people want/need on the GNU/Linux PowerPC Notebook,
listing any compatibility and/or performance issues.
We will then prioritize the list, then try to solve the issues, or report and follow them.
The target OS is Debian unstable "sid" or at least Debian testing "stretch".
(unstable might be sometimes broken - so testing should be easier to work with).
When possible, please try to stick to "main" (DFSG) components - remember, we're trying to be as close as possible to the FSF definition of FREE.
REMINDER:
After some discussions, it seems Debian powerpc port will be our choice of OS for our GNU/Linux PowerPC Notebook - to start with.
Most of us believe we will need to move towards Debian ppc64, and specifically Debian ppc64el (little endian) - to be future proof.
But Debian powerpc seems like a good starting point - it has (very) good support from the community - for the moment,
and it support altivec (ppc64el doesn't).
So to start with, here is a list of categories with some example Software - please submit a list of Software you would like to have on the Notebook, with any eventual issues you have with them.
Internet:
- Firefox - browser (*blocks/freezes, high CPU usage, unusable web videos)
- Chromium - browser (*no powerpc package - secret binary blob issue on june 2015)
- Empathy - instant messaging
- HexChat - XChat fork
- Transmission - torrent
- Deluge - torrent
- FileZilla - FTP client
- Pan - news reader
- RSSOwl - news aggregator (*free - but GNU GPL incompatible license)
- XChat - IRC client (*not active)
- SABnzbd - news grabber (**contrib)
- Skype (**proprietary)
- Telegram - instant messaging client (**proprietary server software)
Privacy:
- GnuPG
- Seahorse - GnuPG frontend
- JAP/anon-proxy - anonymity proxy
- KeePassX - password safe - crossplatform version
- VeraCrypt - on the fly encryption (**nonfree Truecrypt license)
Office / Productivity:
- LibreOffice
- Evince Document Viewer - pdf and others...
- Calibre - ebooks
- Scribus - publishing
- GnuCash - accounting
- Evolution - email/calendar/contacts etc...
- OwnCloud client - file hosting
- Tesseract - OCR
- Simple-Scan
- LaTeXila
- TaskCoach (not in stretch/testing, but included in jessie/stable and sid/unstable)
- ProjectLibre (*free - but GNU GPL incompatible license)
- Okular - pdf viewer (KDE)
- Kontact - calendar/contacts (KDE)
- Kindle - mobi ebooks (**proprietary)
Video / Music / Entertainment:
- Minitube - youtube player
- VLC - media player
- MPlayer - media player
- MEncoder - transcoding tool
- ffmpeg - multimedia libraries and programs
- OpenShot - video editor
- Pitivi - video editor
- Flowblade - video editing
- LiVES - video editing
- avidemux - video editing
- Clementine - music player
- Ardour - sound reader/editor/mixer
- Jack - CD ripper/encoder
- HandBrake - DVD ripper/backup
- Audacity - digital audio editor
- Shotwell - photo organizer
- Shotcut - video editor (*ppa - not in official Debian repositories)
- Amarok - music player (KDE)
- digiKam - image organizer (KDE)
- Kdenlive - video editor (KDE)
- Lightworks (**non-free freemium license - not in official Debian repositories)
Graphics:
- ImageMagick - software suite for displaying/editing/converting images
- GIMP - graphics editor
- Inkscape - vector graphics editor
- Darktable - photography editor
- Blender - 3D graphics and animation
- DIA - diagram creation
System Utilities and Tools:
- Synaptic Package Manager
- package management - update
NOTE: Automatic upgrade of packages is NOT recommended in testing or unstable systems as this might bring unexpected behaviour and remove packages without notice.
- GParted - partitioning
- preload - read ahead daemon
- Back In Time - backup
- Launchy - application launcher
- Remmina - remote desktop
- Clam AntiVirus
Window Managers:
- LXDE (yay!)
- XFCE
- KDE
Editors:
- SciTE
- Zim - graphical text editor based on wiki technologies
- Atom (NPM / Node.js)
- Etherpad - collaborative editing (*not in official Debian repositories)
- Lime Text (*specific Open Source license - not in official Debian repositories)
Programming:
- Arduino IDE (*outdated)
- nodejs
- CoffeeScript
- GNU Octave
- Android SDK (*no powerpc port)
- Apache Cordova - mobile application development framework (NPM / Node.js)
- OpenJDK / HotSpot
- Eclipse (*free - but GNU GPL incompatible license)
- Code::Blocks - C/C++ IDE
- LLVM - compiler/toolchain
- clang - C family front-end
- Arduino Eclipse Plugin - alternative to Arduino IDE
- Qt - application framework
- Vulkan - graphics API (**proprietary)
Basic OS functionnalities - hardware dependent:
- power management - fans / cpu-freq / sleep / hibernate
- sound
- hardware GPU acceleration
- wifi
- scanning
- printing (USB/wifi)
Games:
- Speed Dreams
- Battle for Westhnoth
- SuperTuxKart
- HedgeWars
- SCID - chess
- Lincity - SimCity like game
- Freeciv - Civilization like game
When looking for issues, consider the following items:
- high CPU usage (does it monopolize the CPU)
- speed of execution (is it slow compared to Mac OSX / Windows counterparts)
- reactivity (does the application block/freeze ?)
- up-to-date-ness (is the version current?)
- license (free?)
Best Regards,
Fadi.
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I think that your list of application is good but I think that it’s need to bee extend some more.
First I think that it should inclued a Video playing software for local files if poosibly. Second i think it should include Preload. This is what Preload does in the developers description:
preload monitors applications that users run, and by analyzing this data, predicts what applications users might run, and fetches those binaries and their dependencies into memory for faster startup times. I have tryied Preload on a X86 platform and it made a diffrent in the load time of the applications.
I have found a ppa from ubuntu that have Preload created for the PowerPC platform : https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/trusty/powerpc/preload/0.6.4-2
I don't have a device were I can try the software and see how it's behaving.
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Yes a video player is a must i think, There are still source code from the last version of VLC for PPC around somewhere if anyone is upp for the task? But if someone have any better ideas for a better video player.
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Video-Editing:
- OpenShot 2.X(a must)
- Kdenlive 15.2.X(a must)
- PiTiVi
- Shotcut
- Flowblade
- LiVES
- LightWorks
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I believe there is a PowerPC 64-bit port of Hotspot, which means that there would be a higher speed Java compared to 32-bit PowerPC.
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Hi,
this is a nice project I only learned about today :)
But Debian powerpc seems like a good starting point - it has (very) good support from the community - for the moment.
I'd like to chime in that both, powerpc and ppc64el are currently Debian release architectures, and considering that powerpc is big-endian (I don't know whether this is switchable, but at least the Debian port is for the big endian variant), and ppc64el is low endian, there may be less issues with software ported from x86 to ppc64el. Also as a Debian Maintainer in the process to become a full Debian developer I'm more excited about a notebook running ppc64 to do my packaging work, because for testing packages on powerpc I already have an old G4 Powerbook ;)
Yes a video player is a must i think, There are still source code from the last version of VLC for PPC around somewhere if anyone is upp for the task? But if someone have any better ideas for a better video player.
VLC builds on both, powerpc and ppc64el: https://buildd.debian.org/status/package.php?p=vlc&suite=sid (https://buildd.debian.org/status/package.php?p=vlc&suite=sid)
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Our "software workgroup" like to collaborate with Debian powerpc team!
Please give us some details our we can collaborate. ;)
The NXP e6500 core, the core of our Notebook, can run in big endian mode with Altivec acceleration and in little endian mode without Altivec acceleration.
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I would definitely go for eb. IMO the loss of AltiVec is a big one and it's waste of money also. All PowerPC OSs run in eb.
Of course, el is the way to go, but now it's too early.
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I agree with Carlos, most multimedia software should be able to take advantage of AltiVec. By removing that you'd deliberately cripple the notebook. Seems like a waste to me. Though I do also agree little endian is going to get more support in the future, for now, big endian would probably be the best choice.
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XChat hasn't had an update since 2012, I use the fork Hexchat.
I'd love to have Inkscape though.
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What about:
Multimedia (for playing and for studio):
- mplayer
- mencoder
- ffmpeg
- Ardour 3.x
- jack
- Audacity
Devel:
- android SDK (it was on the way to work, years ago in Debian Lenny, don't know about it now days)
or
- apache cordova
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Browser:
Chromium ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser) )
Text Editor:
Atom ( https://atom.io )
Edit:
SublimeText would be cool to have ( http://www.sublimetext.com)
Open Source version of it: ( http://limetext.org )
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Hello All,
I have updated the original post with all your suggestions - thanks :)
(If I missed something please point it to me).
Now I suppose we need to prioritize the list, and start working...
I have installed Debian testing (stretch) on my iMac G5.
I had problems with the official netinst alpha 5 CD image (issues with keyboard), but It finally worked with the 20160418_07:08 snapshot.
chroot was not a good solution - for GUI applications - some worked, but firefox didn't for example.
Maybe I was doing something wrong...
I suppose we'll update the original post with priorities, but then we can start a different post for listing Software that are running OK (a kind of "I got xxx running on ..." thread), and one post per issue we stumble upon.
What do you think about this?
Thanks,
Fadi.
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As browser I found much better chromium/chrome versus firefox.
I would add Darktable as photo organizer.
E book reader? Kindle is the best in my opinion, although is proprietary :(
Another proprietary tool but necessary is Skype
Window Manager: IMHO XFCE is more elegant then LXDE but light as well.
Anyway an option shall be a minimal install .... so anyone will add the software of his choice!
Avigot
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Hi Avigot,
I have added your suggestions - but Kindle and Skype are ... "evil".
About LXDE v/s XFCE, people should be able to choose... (I will not even attempt to start a discussion about which is better/faster etc.... :) )
For the moment we're just putting up a list of software, then we will need people to test them on PowerPC hardware, and if possible participate in improving them.
Thanks,
Fadi.
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I would like to throw a few more application into the pool:
FTP Client
Filezilla
Games
FreeCiv
LinCity
SCID (Chess)
Video-Tool
Handbrake
RSS
RssOwl
Privacy
VeraCrypt
JAP
KeePass(X)
PDF
Okular
Image viewer
digiKam
Mail
Evolution
Calendar, contacts
Kontact
Banking
GNU cash
Disk utility
GParted
IRC
HexaChat
Newsreader
Pan
Music
Amarok
Backup
Back in time
Application launcher
Launchy
As built-in applications, we need the right ones for "Jo average" users as well.
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My proposal (maybe some applications are too specific) for built-in applications are:
Internet:
Filezilla (https://filezilla-project.org)
Google Chronium (https://www.chromium.org)
ownCloud (https://owncloud.com/)
Kontact (https://userbase.kde.org/Kontact)
Telegram (https://desktop.telegram.org)
RssOwl (http://www.rssowl.org)
SABnzbd (http://sabnzbd.org)
HexChat (https://hexchat.github.io)
Evolution (https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evolution)
Remmina (http://www.remmina.org/)
Privacy / security:
KeePassX (https://www.keepassx.org)
VeraCrypt (https://veracrypt.codeplex.com)
JAP (https://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html)
GnuPG (https://www.gnupg.org/)
Douane (http://douaneapp.com)
Office:
Tesseract (https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract)
gImageReader Tesseract Frontend (https://sourceforge.net/projects/gimagereader/)
Simple Scan (https://launchpad.net/simple-scan)
LibreOffice (https://www.libreoffice.org)
GnuCash (https://www.gnucash.org/index.phtml?lang=en_US)
Scribus (https://www.scribus.net)
Okular (https://okular.kde.org)
Task Coach (http://www.taskcoach.org/)
GIMP (http://www.gimp.org)
Inkscape (https://inkscape.org/)
TextRoom (https://code.google.com/archive/p/textroom/)
LaTeX (http://www.latex-project.org)
ProjectLibre (http://www.projectlibre.org)
Zim (http://www.zim-wiki.org)
Utilities:
Clam AntiVirus (https://www.clamav.net)
Double Commander (http://doublecmd.sourceforge.net)
7-ZIP (http://7-zip.org)
GParted (http://gparted.org/)
Back in time (http://backintime.le-web.org)
Launchy (http://www.launchy.net)
KFritz (http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/KFritz?content=120190) or even better maybe:
Roger Router (http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Roger_Router)
Conky (https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky)
ntopng (http://www.ntop.org/products/traffic-analysis/ntop/)
GCstar (http://www.gcstar.org/)
Shutter (http://shutter-project.org)
CopyQ (http://hluk.github.io/CopyQ/)
youtube-dl (http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/)
Functy (http://functy.sourceforge.net)
TIPP10 (https://www.tipp10.com/en/)
Multimedia:
ImageMagick (http://www.imagemagick.org/)
digiKam (https://www.digikam.org)
HandBrake (https://handbrake.fr)
Amarok (https://amarok.kde.org/)
VLC (http://www.videolan.org)
avidemux (http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/)
Programing:
Eclipse (https://eclipse.org)
Atom (https://atom.io)
Lime Text (http://limetext.org)
Etherpad (collaborative editing) (http://etherpad.org/)
GNU Compiler Collection (https://gcc.gnu.org)
LLVM (http://llvm.org)
Clang (http://clang.llvm.org)
Vulkan (https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/)
OpenJDK (http://openjdk.java.net/projects/ppc-aix-port/)
Games:
SCID (http://scid.sourceforge.net)
Bold application are (out of the box) crossplatform. Minimum 3 out of 4 OSes are supported: MacOS X, Windows, Linux, BSD
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Regarding to Arduino, maybe this is an alternative:
Arduino Eclipse plugin (http://eclipse.baeyens.it)
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I would definitely go for eb. IMO the loss of AltiVec is a big one and it's waste of money also. All PowerPC OSs run in eb.
Of course, el is the way to go, but now it's too early.
Another advantage is: Maybe larger hardware support. Debian could also be used on older PowerPC machines. Reaching more hardware means reaching more people, means reaching more potential developers/ programers.
Cons are:
- larger hardware support
- be is not the future
- applications are harder to port
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I have installed Debian testing (stretch) on my iMac G5.
I had problems with the official netinst alpha 5 CD image (issues with keyboard), but It finally worked with the 20160418_07:08 snapshot.
chroot was not a good solution - for GUI applications - some worked, but firefox didn't for example.
Maybe I was doing something wrong...
...
Thanks,
Fadi.
Hello Fadi,
I have a x86 Mac mini, an Apple Cube and an Apple Powerbook Pismo. Wich one would be the best computer for Debian to test the applications?
Til now, I only have experience with MacOS X and Windows *shame*
And a few 68K Macs 8)
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Graphics:
Blender (https://www.blender.org/ (https://www.blender.org/))
Programming:
Qt5 (https://www.qt.io/ (https://www.qt.io/))
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Hello Fadi,
I have a x86 Mac mini, an Apple Cube and an Apple Powerbook Pismo. Wich one would be the best computer for Debian to test the applications?
Til now, I only have experience with MacOS X and Windows *shame*
And a few 68K Macs 8)
Hi Carlos,
You could use Debian on all of your machines ;D
I'm afraid the x86 Mac mini won't do for testing powerpc packages...
The m68k either.
The Powerbook Pismo is a G3 machine, so no AltiVec.
The Cube is a G4 (with AltiVec) 32-bit machine, but should be OK for the tests.
BTW, this was my dream machine for years...
A word of advice: use ext3 for the partition containing /boot.
It looks like yaboot has issues with ext4.
I'll update the main post with the new software suggestions this evening.
NOTE: we are not trying to do a new "distro" - we're just listing "needed" software to test. Other software would still be available for installation.
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Hi Fadi,
yes. The Cube was a great computer or still is :-)
A piece of art ;-)
Okay, I first have to find a place and then plug it on.
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Hi team,
My two cents in the whole Altivec debate:
I use Debian Wheezy very often (almost daily) in my two machines:
I have a G5 Quad and an IntelliStation 285.
One has the PPC970 with Altivec and the other one has the POWER5 without Altivec.
Both machines have 8GB of DDR2 ECC RAM.
I disabled two of the G5s cores for my tests.
I expected the IntelliStation to win most benchmarks. IBM's benchmarks show it as a faster system overall. The PPC970 desperately begs for more cache, and the IntelliStation has generous 32MB of cache. But the actual numbers are surprising.
I compiled VLC without Altivec and yes, it runs as well as the G5, but the IntelliStation uses far more CPU time to play the same videos.
The G5 humiliates the IntelliStation on Blender benchmarks.
I'm so puzzled by the results that I ordered from eBay a graphics card that is supported by Linux (the IBM GXT135p works on framebuffer only in Linux), and I will run the tests again.
But my experience so far totally points on the direction of Altivec.
On the rest of the software, my computing experience is COMPLETE. Audio editors work, GIMP works, Blender works, I can totally live on my G5 only. But many packages are not actively maintained anymore and are several versions behind. Most of us are not coders, so there would be a lot of work to catch up.
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One more thing:
We could also try to figure out what are IBM's and OpenPOWER's plans for the POWER line in terms of adding SIMD-Altivec-like functionality to the future releases of the POWER processor, so help us decide between endianness and Altivec.
I'm available to test, compare and benchmark anything, and I'm going to keep a more active eye on the forums from now on.
Please shoot me a message if you need me to test anything. I will go through the list of software that is already here and report as I go.
Saulo
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The Cube is a G4 (with AltiVec) 32-bit machine, but should be OK for the tests.
BTW, this was my dream machine for years...
A word of advice: use ext3 for the partition containing /boot.
It looks like yaboot has issues with ext4.
My G5 Quad boots fine with ext4, but not my IntelliStation, so I think it could be something related to the firmware.
I'm planning to upgrade the firmware of my IntelliStation and try again. Took me 6 bloody and painful months to manage to boot it in Linux.
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One more thing:
We could also try to figure out what are IBM's and OpenPOWER's plans for the POWER line in terms of adding SIMD-Altivec-like functionality to the future releases of the POWER processor, so help us decide between endianness and Altivec.
IBMs direction is little endian and POWER6 and all following CPU designs do have a SIMD unit.
More important, do IBM have interest in building a stripped down version of POWER CPUs anymore?
Because, from my perspective NXP won't do any further development regarding to POWER ISA.
If the QorIQ CPUs the last of it's kind, we should go Debian eb, twice.
I'm available to test, compare and benchmark anything, and I'm going to keep a more active eye on the forums from now on.
Please shoot me a message if you need me to test anything. I will go through the list of software that is already here and report as I go.
Saulo
Maybe you could also test the applications both on the G5. With and without AltiVec.
But I really have no clue how good these applications are optimized.
I only know the SETI client in 2005/ 2006 was highly optimized. At that date, the G5 slaughtered almost anything 8-)
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If IBM goes little endian, we might have to follow suit. I assume our project will not just make one laptop. If we follow up with a newer design and processor later, and a large chunk of previous software needs to be reconsidered, re-written, that might not go down well with software developers.
Then of course, one can pose the question: if NXP stops making PowerPC processors (they seem to be sweeping PowerPC under the rug for ARM at the moment), could we hypothetically cram a full POWER9 chip in a laptop (that would supposedly be a quad-core)?
Are we looking into OpenPower? For future hardware and software support, such a conglomerate of companies around the architecture could come in handy for finding solutions.
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IBMs direction is little endian and POWER6 and all following CPU designs do have a SIMD unit.
More important, do IBM have interest in building a stripped down version of POWER CPUs anymore?
Because, from my perspective NXP won't do any further development regarding to POWER ISA.
If the QorIQ CPUs the last of it's kind, we should go Debian eb, twice.
They do have SIMD, but if it doesn't work in both endian modes, we are stuck (if I understand right).
Maybe you could also test the applications both on the G5. With and without AltiVec.
But I really have no clue how good these applications are optimized.
I only know the SETI client in 2005/ 2006 was highly optimized. At that date, the G5 slaughtered almost anything 8-)
What is the goal of the tests? Should I create a table and benchmark applications with and without Altivec for us to know where to focus our efforts?
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If the decision isn't done to go little endian or big endian, the goal is to look, if AltiVec has a big influence in performance.
AltiVec has of course. But only if well optimized. It would be interesting, how good the compiler results are.
They do have SIMD, but if it doesn't work in both endian modes, we are stuck (if I understand right).
Yes, the QorIQ T2 and T4 do have AltiVec, but only working in big endian only.
If IBM goes little endian, we might have to follow suit. I assume our project will not just make one laptop. If we follow up with a newer design and processor later, and a large chunk of previous software needs to be reconsidered, re-written, that might not go down well with software developers.
It depends. Is there future PowerPC offerings that fit in a "desktop" computer or not. If our next project is a "workstation class" computer, then we should now go little endian :-)
Then of course, one can pose the question: if NXP stops making PowerPC processors (they seem to be sweeping PowerPC under the rug for ARM at the moment), could we hypothetically cram a full POWER9 chip in a laptop (that would supposedly be a quad-core)?
;D
Impossible. Besides the price, you need a lot more chips on the mainboard, too. Then the power rating are too high.
Are we looking into OpenPower? For future hardware and software support, such a conglomerate of companies around the architecture could come in handy for finding solutions.
Good question ;)
I have asked this, too. I don't know yet, if Roberto has plans to do this.
More important. We first have to have a running crowdfunding campaign of the present project.
If this works well and we have generated a big buzz on this, then we have the spotlight to do more such projects. Maybe with different ISAs and or different devices and or different OSs. Intel outside, of course ;)
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I'm still a bit torn. Choosing a future-looking endian mode and leaving Altivec behind or going for Altivec and struggle with software in the future.
What about future Altivec support in both little and big endian modes?
I'll pick up the most processor intensive software on the list and compile them with and without Altivec and compare the performance. I would skip things like LibreOffice and focus on VLC, ImageMagick, ffmpeg (or whatever the replacement is) and report back.
We need a future-looking platform but it has to work well today otherwise the project fails.
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Then of course, one can pose the question: if NXP stops making PowerPC processors (they seem to be sweeping PowerPC under the rug for ARM at the moment), could we hypothetically cram a full POWER9 chip in a laptop (that would supposedly be a quad-core)?
;D
Impossible. Besides the price, you need a lot more chips on the mainboard, too. Then the power rating are too high.
Maybe one of the OpenPower members will develop a less power-hungry SoC or the IBM chips might become less power hungry when they move to smaller processes. Maybe we can see what A-EON and the Amiga guys have planned for future systems (of course, they are focusing on desktop PC's, so a more power hungry system isn't really an issue for them).
Are we looking into OpenPower? For future hardware and software support, such a conglomerate of companies around the architecture could come in handy for finding solutions.
Good question ;)
I have asked this, too. I don't know yet, if Roberto has plans to do this.
More important. We first have to have a running crowdfunding campaign of the present project.
If this works well and we have generated a big buzz on this, then we have the spotlight to do more such projects. Maybe with different ISAs and or different devices and or different OSs. Intel outside, of course ;)
Imagine being able to develop a FOSS system around the Elbrus 2K architecture, that would turn some heads. ;)
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What about future Altivec support in both little and big endian modes?
For example, POWER8 supports AltiVec in big and little endian mode. I assume, if NXP is developing future PowerPC CPUs (QorIQ T5?), they will also support AltiVec in both modes, I hope.
Maybe one of the OpenPower members will develop a less power-hungry SoC or the IBM chips might become less power hungry when they move to smaller processes. Maybe we can see what A-EON and the Amiga guys have planned for future systems (of course, they are focusing on desktop PC's, so a more power hungry system isn't really an issue for them).
We only can hope. But I think the only company that is able to develop a stripped-down version that fits in an notebook are IBM itself.
Is someone aware what is Dan Dobberpuhl doing at the moment? Maybe we could hire him for developing a new PowerPC CPU ;)
I don't think much about A-EON, because of the decision they made in the past. That is my personal opinion. I could be wrong, of course!
Imagine being able to develop a FOSS system around the Elbrus 2K architecture, that would turn some heads. ;)
VLIW? x86? Waste of money
Interesting CPU architectures for possible future projects are:
PowerPC (crystal clear ;) )
MIPS (very interesting!)
SPARC (maybe to power-hungry for notebook)
RISC-V
ARM (last place, because of the momentum they have already)
But first, we need this project working. Then the spotlight is on us and companies like IBM become aware of us.
On ownCloud, I wrote a doc with a lot of news sites, we should contact as soon as the crowdfunding is running to reach as much as people as possible.
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Fadi,
I have updated my software list. These are:
Douane (http://douaneapp.com)
gImageReader: Tesseract Frontend (https://sourceforge.net/projects/gimagereader/)
TextRoom (https://code.google.com/archive/p/textroom/)
Double Commander (http://doublecmd.sourceforge.net)
7-ZIP (http://7-zip.org)
Roger Router Fritzbox callmonitor GPL v2 license (https://www.tabos.org/download/)
Conky (https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky)
ntopng (http://www.ntop.org/products/traffic-analysis/ntop/)
GCstar (http://www.gcstar.org/)
Shutter (http://shutter-project.org)
CopyQ (http://hluk.github.io/CopyQ/)
youtube-dl (http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/)
Functy (http://functy.sourceforge.net)
TIPP10 typing tutor GPL license (https://www.tipp10.com/en/)
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Imagine being able to develop a FOSS system around the Elbrus 2K architecture, that would turn some heads. ;)
VLIW? x86? Waste of money
Interesting CPU architectures for possible future projects are:
PowerPC (crystal clear ;) )
MIPS (very interesting!)
SPARC (maybe to power-hungry for notebook)
RISC-V
ARM (last place, because of the momentum they have already)
But first, we need this project working. Then the spotlight is on us and companies like IBM become aware of us.
On ownCloud, I wrote a doc with a lot of news sites, we should contact as soon as the crowdfunding is running to reach as much as people as possible.
I think VLIW is still an interesting prospect, but that might just be me ;)
I do hope that or NXP develops a new PPC chip or IBM develops a variant of their mainstream POWER chips (they could cut down the server centric features and downscale the chip), but there would have to be a large enough market for it to work.
As for the crowdfunding. I hope we do settle on a name and logo for the laptop before the crowdfunding begins.
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Name and logo before crowdfunding would be good. Otherwise, it isn't that bad, if the crowdfunding people could take influence on name and logo as well.
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About the Vulkan API:
I have thought, the API is open-source?
“The Vulkan working group has been driven by more positive developer energy than any other Khronos project, resulting in the release of specifications, conformance tests, and open source SDK and compiler components in just 18 months,” said Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group and vice president at NVIDIA
KHRONOS GROUP (https://www.khronos.org/news/press/khronos-releases-vulkan-1-0-specification)
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As of Launchy, maybe a better alternative is Synapse? https://launchpad.net/synapse-project
Launchy is also discontinued
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Maybe Apple Swift is interesting?
https://swift.org
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And don't forget Rust, although their PPC compiler is still in the works as far as I know.
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Recoll (http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/) :)
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Rebol:
http://www.rebol.com/
Very lightweight Internet oriented powerful scripting language that runs on almost everything.
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OpenVPN (https://openvpn.net/index.php/download/community-downloads.html)
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Forgive me if I am wrong as I'm not familiar with hardware. But some distros have support for PPC64 such as Fedora, and packages they maintain should probably work. Why do ppc notebook devs need to port them? I figured that since gcc support PPC, I can compile the whole system myself if it's necessary.
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Fadi,
I have updated my software list. These are:
Douane (http://douaneapp.com)
gImageReader: Tesseract Frontend (https://sourceforge.net/projects/gimagereader/)
TextRoom (https://code.google.com/archive/p/textroom/)
Double Commander (http://doublecmd.sourceforge.net)
7-ZIP (http://7-zip.org)
Roger Router Fritzbox callmonitor GPL v2 license (https://www.tabos.org/download/)
Conky (https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky)
ntopng (http://www.ntop.org/products/traffic-analysis/ntop/)
GCstar (http://www.gcstar.org/)
Shutter (http://shutter-project.org)
CopyQ (http://hluk.github.io/CopyQ/)
youtube-dl (http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/)
Functy (http://functy.sourceforge.net)
TIPP10 typing tutor GPL license (https://www.tipp10.com/en/)
youtube-dl is Python, it platform independent.
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PowerPC disassembler, maybe someone is interested in:
Hopper (https://www.hopperapp.com/blog/)
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PPC support for Google V8 goes mainstream (https://developer.ibm.com/opentech/2015/06/30/ppc-support-for-google-v8-goes-mainstream/)