I am confused. this list is"G3-5-list" is it not?
If there are OS systems other than Mac
that can co exist on the Mac, are these
to be not mentioned in this group?
I may have missed this in the rules.
Cheers
Gene Henly
From: "Eric Hall" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2012 10:59 AM
Subject: Re: Don't Landfill old Mac's
Of course, I for one, am tired of hearing you shill this o/s. Perhaps a line
in your sig, people can email you off list if they are interested.
Thanks
----- Original Message -----
From: David W. Morris <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc:
Sent: Friday, January 6, 2012 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: Don't Landfill old Mac's
On Jan 6, 2012, at 5:14 PM, Len Gerstel wrote:
This list is the G3-5 List. It is usable software agnostic. Since MOST
people on the list run Mac OS, that is what the main knowledge base is.
There are other lists with more knowledgable *nix people on them.
That being said, *nix talk is allowed, but remember, most people on the
list don't have a lot of knowledge or interest there.
Just remember, this is not the Swap List.
Len Gerstel
List Nanny
That is good to know. I am just trying to be a good list member and not step
on anyone's toes here, so that is why I am being careful with any
discussions about alternative OSes for these G4 Mac models.
I'll try to keep this as brief as possible, with respect to others on the
list that have no interest in using an alternative OS on their G4 Mac
computers, after all MacOSX is the best OS available on any hardware. ;-)
The alternative OS that I am a strong supporter of is called MorphOS and is
currently at version 2.7. It is based on a micro-kernel called Quark and is
tightly coded to make it extremely fast and efficient. It has been dubbed
"The Lightning OS" by many reviewers, and if it is setup as the primary OS
on a G4 Mac computer, it can reboot in less than 10 seconds to a fully
functional desktop environment. MorphOS3.0 is late and should be released
any day now. It has been developed by a small group of mostly European
members who are all former Amiga users who wanted to create a modern Amiga
replacement operating system that would run on PowerPC CPU's. The last and
highest performing Amiga hardware was created by a third party company named
Phase5. They made a few different models of accelerators for Commodore Amiga
computers that had both a Motorola 68040, or 68060 (remember when Mac's only
had Motorola 680x0 CPU's?) and a 603, or 604e PowerPC
CPU. The accelerator came with a modified OS that could run certain
software on the PowerPC CPU, but would then task switch back to the Motorola
680x0 CPU to run the rest of the Amiga software. It was a clunky solution
and came too late, as Commodore was already on the ropes and about to go
bankrupt, but still development continued long after Commodore died and
these people from Phase5, along with many other Amiga users/developers that
would not let the platform die, began the MorphOS project. It was first
hoped that the new owner of the Amiga IP would buy their work and it would
have become the new AmigaOS, which would have been version 4 (as the
official AmigaOS ended at version 3.9). It was not to be and another company
won the negotiations to write AmigaOS4.x and we now have competing products
in the Amiga community.
Enough on the history lesson. All you need to know about it is that MorphOS
has been under development for over 10 years now and has become a very
polished and efficient operating system, but it still lacks in sheer numbers
of developers and native software, even though it can run most of the
thousands of software titles that were originally written for the Amiga line
of computers through a JIT (Just-In-Time) 680x0 to PPC translator that is
built into the MorphOS operating system. The only Amiga software that does
not run without an emulator on MorphOS, is mostly games and a few other
applications that do not follow the system guidelines and hit the old Amiga
custom chipset directly, as these custom chips do not exist in the computers
(like G4 Mac's) that are supported today by MorphOS.
MorphOS is not intended as a replacement for MacOSX (except perhaps for only
the most hardcore old time Amiga users). It is what is commonly referred to
as a "Hobby OS" that a few thousand users and developers enjoy using and
mostly only has interest for people that were former users of the Amiga line
of computers, or others that just enjoy exploring alternative operating
systems and software, like the "nix" users.
This list is a perfect place to promote MorphOS, because it is made up of
people that appreciate older PowerPC hardware and because over the last few
years the MorphOS Development Team has ported MorphOS to several G4 Mac
computer models, such as:
All G4 MacMini's
1.25GHz & 1.42GHz G4 eMac's
All G4 PowerMac's with AGP video card slots that are 500MHz or faster (might
even work on 400MHz & faster models)
When MorphOS3.0 is released (any day now) it will also support 4 models of
the G4 PowerBook and will be the first portable MorphOS compatible systems
(big deal for us). The models that will be supported are model 1107, 1109,
1138 & 1139, which are all 1.67GHz G4 PowerBooks in 15" and 17" sizes. None
of the 12" G4 PowerBooks are to be supported with the MorphOS3.0 release due
to unsupported video cards used in the 12" models. MorphOS only supports
Radeon video cards in G4 Mac models, so if you have an older G4 PowerMac
that has a different AGP video card, it would need to be swapped for one of
the supported Radeon video cards to be able to run MorphOS on that system.
Proof of concept screen shots and public demonstrations of MorphOS booting
on a Dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac and a 2.1GHz G5 iMac have been shown, but the
MorphOS Development Team has stated that no work on a version to support G5
computers will be done until they are finished supporting all of the G4 Mac
computer models that make sense to support is completed.
MorphOS is a commercial OS project (used to be free until about 4 or 5 years
ago) but it is available as a free download for a time limited demo that
allows you to run it unrestricted for 30 minutes at a time, before it slows
down to a crawl and you must re-boot so you can use it for another 30
minutes at full speed. In this way you can evaluate MorphOS as much as you
want before you decide if it is something you want to buy.
If you have read this far and would like to know more, check out the
official MorphOS website at "http://www.morphos-team.net/index.html"; or
visit one of the main English MorphOS forum sites at
"http://www.morphzone.org/modules/news/";. Why am I promoting an OS which
only has a tiny user base and limited software availability? Well, the only
way to grow is to promote it to more users and hope to interest a few new
developers, so that is my purpose. I am also teaching myself how to program
so I can contribute with new software, so my favorite "Hobby OS" will
succeed and grow in the future.
Take a look at MorphOS. It is free to try and you might like what you see,
but I don't expect it to replace your use of MacOSX, as MorphOS still needs
a few more years of development and tons more native software before it
could be considered as a replacement for anything, but with Apple and all
third party software developers abandoning your PowerPC Mac computers, isn't
it nice to know that there is one group of users and developers who are
still supporting G4 Mac computers?
Thanks for your patience in reading this long post and for any interest you
may share in my favorite hobby.
David
aka AmigaDave
Dual booting MacOSX & MorphOS2.7 on 1.5GHz G4 MacMini & Dual 1.42GHz G4
PowerMac MDD, plus dual booting MacOSX & MorphOS3.0 beta on 15" & 17"
1.67GHz G4 PowerBooks & dual booting MacOSX & Ubuntu PPC v10.10 on a Dual
2.7GHz G5 PowerMac.
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