Topics

1

Gnu/Linux Distros / MATE PowerPC Remix

« on: July 27, 2017, 08:14:26 PM »

It seems A-EON Technology made their own Linux distro with MATE since Ubuntu officially dropped PowerPC in Ubuntu 17.04. Maybe this is something that could be of use to us as well?

2

Gnu/Linux Distros / OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

« on: May 31, 2017, 10:12:02 AM »

Was taking a look at various distros and it looks like OpenSUSE Tubleweed (which is a rolling release) is available for both PPC64 and PPC64le.

3

Gnu/Linux Distros / Fedora

« on: April 26, 2017, 02:32:22 PM »

I think we should also test Fedora, I know its not fully Libre but it's a major distribution that still supports PowerPC (albeit only PPC64 and not in their standard "Workstation" variant).

Thoughts.

4

Gnu/Linux Distros / Debian+PIXEL

« on: December 21, 2016, 03:52:30 PM »

The RPi Foundation has released an x86 version of the Raspbian PIXEL (Debian+PIXEL) distro
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/pixel-pc-mac/

Personally I like PIXEL, it's clean, simple and elegant and I would certianly like to ask the RPi Foundation for a PPC version.
Thoughts?

5

Suggestions / Future Power CPU's and ideas

« on: November 05, 2016, 02:01:03 AM »

NXP's QorIQ Power line has a bit of an uncertain future, so I was pondering what else could be a future candidate for a future project.

I was thinking, since the Power8 and Power9 cores are open for modification, could a potential dual core SMT4 (2 cores, 8 threads) or a quad core SMT4 (4 cores, 16 threads) be a viable option for a laptop? (I think a quad core design might guzzle up too much power). If a dual core full Power9 CPU could be utilized (maybe at a lower clockspeed as well), what would it enable us to do? Who would design it and who would build it?

Thoughts?

6

General Discussion / Potential Qualcomm takeover of NXP

« on: September 30, 2016, 11:10:19 AM »

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSFWN1C50KZ

While I had some faith NXP would continue the development of the QorIQ PowerPC line, I'm not so sure Qualcomm will do the same.

7

General Discussion / RISC-V

« on: September 10, 2016, 04:35:13 AM »

I was thinking the RISC-V architecture, being fully open-source as well would also be a interesting arch to look into. Even if there is at the moment only one company who offers custom silicon.
https://www.sifive.com/products/freedom/

Maybe for a future project  ?
 

8

Others OS / GNU (sans Linux)

« on: May 24, 2016, 11:05:14 AM »

More specifically, systems based on the GNU Hurd Microkernel, making the OS a full GNU system instead of a GNU/Linux system.
GNU Hurd isn't fully finished yet, But in about a year time, the GNU Hurd went from version 0.5 to 0.8. It looks like the project is gaining steam again. Popular distributions include Debian/GNU Hurd.

According to the GNU/Hurd page, there is a PPC64 implementation, but it's only PPC64el, the big endian implementation is quite outdated and mainly focused on older PPC Mac's. Unfortunatly, the Debian/GNU Hurd OS is only x86 at the moment.

So, should we look into getting a full GNU implementation now that the GNU Hurd is developing faster then ever before?

9

Others OS / Redox OS

« on: April 30, 2016, 04:32:52 PM »

This might be an interesting idea for an OS.

http://www.redox-os.org/

Basically, they build a microkernel in the Rust programming language with a focus on safety and speed.
The idea is to build a modern Unix-like OS that sheds many of the legacy stuff that has built up on Linux.
The project is just over a year old but seems to be a fast moving target with over 40 developers that contributed already.
The only problem is that they are only developping on IA-32, AMD64. If we would be able to work with them to develop a ppc64 version, we could have a modern, fast and interesting new OS.

Thoughts?

10

Suggestions / Hardware Kill Switches

« on: February 20, 2016, 01:34:41 PM »

Another hardware idea that I think is cool: Hardware kill switches.

Basically, when you flip a kill switch, it cuts the power to a specific component.
https://puri.sm/librem-15/
The Librem laptops use kill switches for the microphone, webcam, bluetooth and wifi.
Privacy wise, this is awesome. No-one can just hack into your system and listen to your microphone even if you thought you turned it off in software.

However, looking at their product updates, it looks like they had some difficulty adjusting their case to accommodate the switches, let alone I can't find any company that sells specific switches made for this purpose, so they probably had to implement their own design. I wouldn't know what this would mean cost-wise.

This isn't a priority, nor do I know if it's feasible with what we're trying to accomplish here, but I thought it could be a great idea.

11

Introduction / Casper

« on: February 16, 2016, 05:21:11 PM »

Hello everyone

I'm Casper.
I live in Gent, Belgium, I'm 20 years old and I study Japanese.

Now that we got that out of the way, how did I find this project?
My family has been Mac users since before my birth, so I largely grew up on using PowerPC Apple devices, which I remember as being the most colorful and diverse period of Apple's Mac lineup.

I was only introduced to Windows later on and I enjoyed using Windows XP, 7 and even 8 to a point. But Windows 10 is starting to frustrate the hell out of me. Flat and boring presentation, the settings are all over the place, broken backwards compatibility at some places, privacy issues, closed wall system.

Problem is, Mac OSX, which is up to this day still my favorite OS has been slowly evolving into the same thing. The Macs definitely were my favorite computers when they were computers that could just get stuff done while even sporting some of my favorite games, but with the switch to Intel, they have become commodity fetished objects, mainly being sported as status symbols.

The Macs of today aren't even that special, building sober and powerful laptops with an excellent trackpad is something most Windows PC makers can pull of now.

in light of that, I've been retracing my computing steps back to the systems I enjoyed.

So, I've been busy slowly refurbishing my old Powerbook G4 in favor of my 13" Macbook Pro (batter needs replacing, maybe a new HD and I'm thinking of running Morph OS on there).

I got interested into PowerPC again after I stumbled on the Amiga community (never grew up on Amiga's since their zenith was before my time) and I was interested to see the platform was still being developed on PowerPC.

The new AmigaOne systems are crazy expensive though (but the still-to-be-fully-announced AmigaOne A1222 looks like it'll be more reasonably priced) so I kept on searching, until, through the forums of AmigaWorld I saw a post linking back to here.

A modern PowerPC laptop is something I'm seriously interested in. Especially if it's open and respects the users rights (maybe want get an FSF approval, you'll get a LOT of attention that way).

I'm no hardware or software developer, but I'm definitely a computer enthusiast. If you ever need something translated from English to Dutch (my native language), I can give it a shot.

Pleased to make your acquaintance.

My current computers are:
Macbook Pro 13" (currently in use)
AMD-based Windows machine (self-built)
Powerbook G4 (currently refurbishing)
Powerbook G3 (currently dead)
Power Mac G4
Mini Mac G4
iMac G3 (X2)