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Re: [gNewSense-users] gNewSense for PowerPC?


From: Rich DAddio
Subject: Re: [gNewSense-users] gNewSense for PowerPC?
Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 07:05:33 -0700 (PDT)

...
> The POWER architecture is NOT dead by any means it's
> just exposed a lot
> less now that Apple is using "regular" chips.
You mean "irregular"... :)

> 
> As a note, I'd like to encourage everyone who values
> freedom to just
> LOOK at the Power architcture - IBM provides a lot
> of specifications and
> does a ton to keep the platform hackable. They're
> not (to my knowledge)
> developing DRM (like Intel) or adding restrictions
> to their video cards
> (like AMD's framebuffer lock). They offer developer
> access to virtual
> machines - it benefits IBM for your application to
> run, so they have a
> nice developer program.
Also Freescale(former Motorola) has provided pretty
good and widely available documentation for developers
over the years. 

> 
> The problem is that Power is varied. Older Macs are
> probably the most
> common around, but they do some wacky stuff in terms
> of partitioning
> (New World Boot Partitions) and I haven't even begun
> to tackle that in
> terms of installation.
That isn't "wacky" that is proprietary. Having used
and converted many Apple machines to Linux over the
years(I'm typing this on my debian G3) and having
lived thru the mklinux stuff, Apple hasn't always been
friendly to the Linux on Apple idea. 

>I am sure that PlayStation 3s
> do NOT require New
> World Boot Partitions, as old OLD Macs didn't have
> them and New Macs don't.
Well AFAIK the P3 uses the IBM Cell and is not a Apple
device in any way. Generally IBM and Freescale(mostly)
supplied PPC chips to Apple --just as IBM supplies
them to Sony. Moreover, the boot setup is particular
to the vendor using the cpus.

e.g. lots of PPC devices(not necessarily PCs per se)
use uboot and ext2/3 and none of the Apple specific
stuff.


> 
> It's not "as simple" as fixing builder though I
> understand that work IS
> being done on that and progress IS being made. Keep
> in mind that once
> the installer works, packages need to be built for
> the architecture -
> gNewSense does not currently have a PPC repository
> for changes to be
> central.
I assume the goals of the PPC Gnewsense project are
similar to those of the x86 side. I am not sure of
this --I would have to go take a look-- but there may
be some firmware in the drivers that Apple folks are
going to dearly miss. Do you have any indications so
far?

> 
> If anyone would like to help, and owns some kind of
> GNU/Linux capable
> PowerPC system I'd urge you to install Dapper
> PowerPC on it and offer it
> up for testing. If you rely on the system to
> function, perhaps it's not
> the best way, but we could test packages on
> different machines.
Has there been any thought given to an "embedded"
Gnewsense project? Since "slimmed" down completely
free packages for PPC may have a lot of takers in that
domain.

Do you have a project pointer??

Best Regards,

Rich d
> 
> - -Kevin
> 
> Matthew Flaschen wrote:
> > Larry Cafiero wrote:
> >> Having said this, it would behoove any distro to
> develop for all the
> >> PowerPC
> >> machines that have the foresight to develop for a
> platform that still
> >> has at
> >> least -- at least -- a decade of life left.
> Ubuntu dropped the ball on this
> >> by dropping PowerPC support, but not all distros
> have to be as myopic as
> >> Ubuntu on this issue.
> > 
> > Well, Dapper fully supports PowerPC, and that's
> what gNewSense is based
> > on.  So it's not a question of developing anything
> from scratch.  Just
> > modifying Builder somewhat.
> > 
> > Matt Flaschen
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > gNewSense-users mailing list
> > address@hidden
> >
>
http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-users
> > 
> 
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>
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