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The late PowerPC-era Macs are really fun to play with, because they're an interesting blend of modern niceties like USB and Ethernet but are limited with how ol

The late PowerPC-era Macs are really fun to play with, because they're an interesting blend of modern niceties like USB and Ethernet but are limited with how old most software is. There's still a scene of people working on bringing newer versions of GCC and other *nix utilities to Tiger or Leopard, working with the pre-release PPC betas of Snow Leopard, and trying to keep online services working despite aging TLS versions and retired APIs. Compiling takes forever until it fails with an obscure C11 error or missing C library features. And that makes for a fun, if often frustrating, challenge. But PPC32 Linux support is quickly falling off. Gentoo isn't just used because it's fun to leave your lampshade iMac G4 compiling a kernel for days, but because it's one of the few distros still supporting the platform. There's unsupported testing repos for Debian (and maybe Ubuntu?) plus the up-and-coming Adelie. Otherwise your best bet is OpenBSD - FreeBSD and NetBSD usually lack precompiled ports, and FreeBSD has announced the next major release will almost definitely drop 32 bit PPC. The 64 bit G5 systems are much better supporte. I'm pretty sure they can boot ppc64le that many distros target. They're also even more modern - the final models had PCIe, SATA, and up to 16GB of DDR2 RAM. Sadly there's nothing modern about the power efficiency, nor the self-destructing water cooling system.

seabrookmx 2y ago
The G5 doesn't have full little-endian support and to my knowledge can _not_ boot standard ppc64le kernels (which are targeted at the POWER8+ ISA). The only big endian stuff I could find when I tried to put Linux on my G5 was 32-bit, which does run on the G5 but likely means it's Linux support dies with its older PPC Mac brethren.
- SpecialistK 2y ago
  Oh, pardon my mistake! I've always wanted a G5 but have neither the space nor electrical capacity for one.
  - seabrookmx 2y ago
    They are definitely power hogs. And slow.. Core 2 era Intel machines run circles around them. But their obscurity just makes them kind of neat!
genevra 2y ago
It's always bothered me that Apple has so little backwards compatibility. I suppose that's why Windows is used by most of the corporate world for "reliability" (more reliable than Apple), and "ease of use" (people don't want to learn command line for Linux). It's just the mid option
- opan 2y ago
  Doesn't this mainly come down to Macs using weirder architectures while Windows largely stuck to the IBM PC and its clones/descendants? I'm also seeing more software lately talking about dropping support for Windows 7 or 8 after a certain release.
  - p_ing 2y ago
    There's no reason today's macOS couldn't support a Classic environment, like the early releases of OS X. There are a lot of support costs surrounding such an environment, so I don't blame Apple for dropping it. It supports x86 emulation, for now. I believe Windows has seen more architectures than Mac OS Classic and OS X combined. Windows 3rd party software often drops support because Microsoft doesn't support the OS. It could be the desire to use new APIs that aren't included in 7/8 (or soon to be 10), but it's hard to support an operating system as an app vendor that the OS vendor doesn't support. I always liked VMware's statement that they would support NT4 and above -- like, no you can't.
    - flomo 2y ago
      Classic ran as suid root and was a big huge security hole on a multiuser OS. (which is probably why they got rid of it as soon as they could.) There are some more contained emulators of course.
    - microtonal 2y ago
      * I believe Windows has seen more architectures than Mac OS Classic and OS X combined.* I have never been a Windows user, but I used to keep an eye on it when NT was still the separate business version (pre-Vista) and my NT 4.0 (or was it 3.51?) CD-ROM had x86, MIPS, Alpha and maybe PowerPC support. When things weren’t as clear platform-wise, NT was really a multi-platform system. Since then also x86_64, IA64, ARM64.
CursedSilicon 2y ago
Minor corrections - Only the G5 *Quad* had PCI-E, all the others were PCI-X (yuck) The Quad was also the only one to take DDR2 RAM, though did support up to 16GB All Apple Macs though are PPC64 Big Endian, not ppc64le. This causes no end of problems with software that now assumes "IF PPC = LE"
- zdw 2y ago
  All of the PowerMac11,2 models that used the dual-core on a single silicon 970MP G5s supported PCIe: https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=PowerMac11,2 https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=Po... The quad was just two dual cores in a single chassis, with an unfortunately prone to breaking liquid cooling setup.
johnklos 2y ago
Regarding OpenBSD: I don't know if 32 bit PowerPC support will be around for all that long, if one considers how many platforms have been dropped from OpenBSD in the last few years. Also, it doesn't look like OpenBSD has binary packages for 32 bit PowerPC: https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.7/packages/ https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.7/packages/ Although I do see packages for OpenBSD 7.6 from last year: https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.6/packages/powerpc/ https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.6/packages/powerpc/ There's always NetBSD, though, which has tons of binary packages and which isn't going to be dropping architectures like PowerPC any time soon :)
- zdw 2y ago
  7.7 isn't out yet, and frequently port builds take a while, so this is unsurprising and shouldn't be taken as a lack of support or impending discontinuation. OpenBSD still supports the Alpha, which is an even older and rarer (albeit 64-bit) architecture.
  - raddan 2y ago
    It’s wild that OpenBSD still supports the architectures it does. I literally learned how to program on a G4 Mac running OpenBSD back in 2000. I think it was version 3.0 but I don’t really remember. It was a wonderful experience, and I chose OpenBSD because it was the only UNIX-like OS I could get to boot on that machine (I struggled to understand Debian’s esoteric instructions for weeks before I gave up). OpenBSD, by contrast, had essentially the same install program it has to this day. At the time, there were no printed books for OpenBSD, but I read the (surprisingly good) man pages and supplemented with a used copy of the FreeBSD handbook I bought on eBay. Good times.
    - graemep 2y ago
      > It’s wild that OpenBSD still supports the architectures it does have you looed at what NetBSD supports if you count the tier 2 ones? https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/ https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/
- somat 2y ago
LeFantome 2y ago
Both Chimera Linux and Adelie Linux have support for 32 bit PPC. They are fresh off the press distros. So, support can still be found.
- SpecialistK 2y ago
  I mentioned Adelie, but didn't think Chimera supports PPC32 (yet) - the founder used to maintain the PPC32 flavor of Void Linux so it's very possible.
ryandrake 2y ago
It's sad that support for these things always seems to just disappear. All software maintainers have to do is not touch it and not break it, and it would work forever, but no, they can't help themselves. Out of boredom of old things, they drop this... out of convenience, they deprecate that... and out of a refactor, they forget to keep thus... and suddenly, software that once worked fine is now gone. It's up to archivists and tinkerers to constantly fix these mistakes and restore these old platforms.
- jogu 2y ago
  Unfortunately, I don't think supporting a platform by providing prebuilt binaries is as simple as "just don't touch it". There's no guarantee things will continue to build for the platform, nor that upstream projects won't remove explicit support from their code bases if the effort to maintain it exists.
- degamad 2y ago
  > All software maintainers have to do is not touch it That seems okay... > and not break it Ah, there's the rub - when you're not actively testing on the platform, because no-one on your team has the relevant pieces around any more, then you don't know whether you've broken it. And even if you do have the relevant pieces, there's a non-zero cost involved in testing every subsequent release on that environment, and implementing workarounds for every subsequent change or new feature in the future which fails to work on the old hardware, used by ~0.0% of your user base. It's not just boredom that causes stuff to be dropped, it's when the cost of maintaining compatibility with the old hardware exceeds the benefit of retaining the compatibility.
LeoPanthera 2y ago
It's sort of surprising NetBSD doesn't support it. I thought almost the whole point of NetBSD was that it ran on anything.
- flomo 2y ago
  My impression is 'the point' is more that NetBSD is a hobby OS which is easier to port to old hardware (so volunteers welcome). Newer commercial boards all run Linux.
- lproven 2y ago
  It does? https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/macppc/ https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/macppc/
karlgkk 2y ago
I've never understood running PPC Linux on old machines. Unless you're interested in running some of the really weird and esoteric scientific packages, or you're trying to unfuck a machine (which I've used ppclinux for many times lol), I don't get the point? These machines were built as a package. Both the software and hardware was designed with an ethos in mind. It's bespoke. I can't tell you what to do with your hardware, but if you want to run old linux, you can just do that in like qemu or something.
- SpecialistK 2y ago
  I mostly agree, and dual boot Tiger and Leopard on my 1.67GHz PowerBook G4. But just as those OSes aren't very useful outside of novelty (or maybe some older Mac OS games that haven't been ported to a newer platform) so is running a modern Linux distro or BSD on it. The times I've done it, I've done the install, clicked around for a few minutes, and then move on. Sometimes struggling with and overcoming the hassle of installing an OS (or newer version of Bash on 20 year old Mac OS X) is the point. Journey vs destination and all that.
leoh 2y ago
> Compiling takes forever until it fails with an obscure C11 error or missing C library features. And that makes for a fun, if often frustrating, challenge. Seems to me the trick to enhancing build times would be emulation using modern hardware, no? qemu, etc.
- SpecialistK 2y ago
  QEMU support exists, but needs TLC. The best it can do is "mac99" which emulates a 1st generation PowerMac G4 - it can run 9.2 - 10.5. But in my experience via UTM on a modern MacBook, it gains some Geekbench points like memory speed but loses a lot in others like integer performance. I'm very glad that it exists but is not at a point where a powerful Ryzen or Apple Mx can compile (much) faster than real hardware.
bobmcnamara 2y ago
And that OpenFirmware. Telnet to your BIOS?!
drdude 2y ago
I still have my PowerMac G5 (Dual 2.0 GHz with 8 GB RAM)... still works but it is stashed with my other electronics "heritage" beside a 21 inches CRT Dell flatron monitor! and the 23" Apple Cinema Display I bought with the PowerMac. Such a well built machine. I wish Apple still made such an expandable chassis but with more compatible parts like it was with the Intel based Mac Pro. I believe the one I have still has Mac OSX Snow Leopard installed, the original Mac OSX that came with it was Panther, my favorite is Tiger though. I ran Yellowdog linux on it, and Fedora 4 back in the days when I didn't want to upgrade to a newer OS right away and I liked it.

seabrookmx 2y ago

The G5 doesn't have full little-endian support and to my knowledge can _not_ boot standard ppc64le kernels (which are targeted at the POWER8+ ISA). The only big endian stuff I could find when I tried to put Linux on my G5 was 32-bit, which does run on the G5 but likely means it's Linux support dies with its older PPC Mac brethren.

SpecialistK 2y ago
Oh, pardon my mistake! I've always wanted a G5 but have neither the space nor electrical capacity for one.
- seabrookmx 2y ago
  They are definitely power hogs. And slow.. Core 2 era Intel machines run circles around them. But their obscurity just makes them kind of neat!

genevra 2y ago

It's always bothered me that Apple has so little backwards compatibility. I suppose that's why Windows is used by most of the corporate world for "reliability" (more reliable than Apple), and "ease of use" (people don't want to learn command line for Linux). It's just the mid option

opan 2y ago
Doesn't this mainly come down to Macs using weirder architectures while Windows largely stuck to the IBM PC and its clones/descendants? I'm also seeing more software lately talking about dropping support for Windows 7 or 8 after a certain release.
- p_ing 2y ago
  There's no reason today's macOS couldn't support a Classic environment, like the early releases of OS X. There are a lot of support costs surrounding such an environment, so I don't blame Apple for dropping it. It supports x86 emulation, for now. I believe Windows has seen more architectures than Mac OS Classic and OS X combined. Windows 3rd party software often drops support because Microsoft doesn't support the OS. It could be the desire to use new APIs that aren't included in 7/8 (or soon to be 10), but it's hard to support an operating system as an app vendor that the OS vendor doesn't support. I always liked VMware's statement that they would support NT4 and above -- like, no you can't.
  - flomo 2y ago
    Classic ran as suid root and was a big huge security hole on a multiuser OS. (which is probably why they got rid of it as soon as they could.) There are some more contained emulators of course.
  - microtonal 2y ago
    * I believe Windows has seen more architectures than Mac OS Classic and OS X combined.* I have never been a Windows user, but I used to keep an eye on it when NT was still the separate business version (pre-Vista) and my NT 4.0 (or was it 3.51?) CD-ROM had x86, MIPS, Alpha and maybe PowerPC support. When things weren’t as clear platform-wise, NT was really a multi-platform system. Since then also x86_64, IA64, ARM64.

CursedSilicon 2y ago

Minor corrections - Only the G5 *Quad* had PCI-E, all the others were PCI-X (yuck) The Quad was also the only one to take DDR2 RAM, though did support up to 16GB All Apple Macs though are PPC64 Big Endian, not ppc64le. This causes no end of problems with software that now assumes "IF PPC = LE"

zdw 2y ago
All of the PowerMac11,2 models that used the dual-core on a single silicon 970MP G5s supported PCIe: https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=PowerMac11,2 https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=Po... The quad was just two dual cores in a single chassis, with an unfortunately prone to breaking liquid cooling setup.

johnklos 2y ago

Regarding OpenBSD: I don't know if 32 bit PowerPC support will be around for all that long, if one considers how many platforms have been dropped from OpenBSD in the last few years. Also, it doesn't look like OpenBSD has binary packages for 32 bit PowerPC: https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.7/packages/ https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.7/packages/ Although I do see packages for OpenBSD 7.6 from last year: https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.6/packages/powerpc/ https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.6/packages/powerpc/ There's always NetBSD, though, which has tons of binary packages and which isn't going to be dropping architectures like PowerPC any time soon :)

zdw 2y ago
7.7 isn't out yet, and frequently port builds take a while, so this is unsurprising and shouldn't be taken as a lack of support or impending discontinuation. OpenBSD still supports the Alpha, which is an even older and rarer (albeit 64-bit) architecture.
- raddan 2y ago
  It’s wild that OpenBSD still supports the architectures it does. I literally learned how to program on a G4 Mac running OpenBSD back in 2000. I think it was version 3.0 but I don’t really remember. It was a wonderful experience, and I chose OpenBSD because it was the only UNIX-like OS I could get to boot on that machine (I struggled to understand Debian’s esoteric instructions for weeks before I gave up). OpenBSD, by contrast, had essentially the same install program it has to this day. At the time, there were no printed books for OpenBSD, but I read the (surprisingly good) man pages and supplemented with a used copy of the FreeBSD handbook I bought on eBay. Good times.
  - graemep 2y ago
    > It’s wild that OpenBSD still supports the architectures it does have you looed at what NetBSD supports if you count the tier 2 ones? https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/ https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/
somat 2y ago

LeFantome 2y ago

Both Chimera Linux and Adelie Linux have support for 32 bit PPC. They are fresh off the press distros. So, support can still be found.

SpecialistK 2y ago
I mentioned Adelie, but didn't think Chimera supports PPC32 (yet) - the founder used to maintain the PPC32 flavor of Void Linux so it's very possible.

ryandrake 2y ago

It's sad that support for these things always seems to just disappear. All software maintainers have to do is not touch it and not break it, and it would work forever, but no, they can't help themselves. Out of boredom of old things, they drop this... out of convenience, they deprecate that... and out of a refactor, they forget to keep thus... and suddenly, software that once worked fine is now gone. It's up to archivists and tinkerers to constantly fix these mistakes and restore these old platforms.

jogu 2y ago
Unfortunately, I don't think supporting a platform by providing prebuilt binaries is as simple as "just don't touch it". There's no guarantee things will continue to build for the platform, nor that upstream projects won't remove explicit support from their code bases if the effort to maintain it exists.
degamad 2y ago
> All software maintainers have to do is not touch it That seems okay... > and not break it Ah, there's the rub - when you're not actively testing on the platform, because no-one on your team has the relevant pieces around any more, then you don't know whether you've broken it. And even if you do have the relevant pieces, there's a non-zero cost involved in testing every subsequent release on that environment, and implementing workarounds for every subsequent change or new feature in the future which fails to work on the old hardware, used by ~0.0% of your user base. It's not just boredom that causes stuff to be dropped, it's when the cost of maintaining compatibility with the old hardware exceeds the benefit of retaining the compatibility.

LeoPanthera 2y ago

It's sort of surprising NetBSD doesn't support it. I thought almost the whole point of NetBSD was that it ran on anything.

flomo 2y ago
My impression is 'the point' is more that NetBSD is a hobby OS which is easier to port to old hardware (so volunteers welcome). Newer commercial boards all run Linux.
lproven 2y ago
It does? https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/macppc/ https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/macppc/

karlgkk 2y ago

I've never understood running PPC Linux on old machines. Unless you're interested in running some of the really weird and esoteric scientific packages, or you're trying to unfuck a machine (which I've used ppclinux for many times lol), I don't get the point? These machines were built as a package. Both the software and hardware was designed with an ethos in mind. It's bespoke. I can't tell you what to do with your hardware, but if you want to run old linux, you can just do that in like qemu or something.

SpecialistK 2y ago
I mostly agree, and dual boot Tiger and Leopard on my 1.67GHz PowerBook G4. But just as those OSes aren't very useful outside of novelty (or maybe some older Mac OS games that haven't been ported to a newer platform) so is running a modern Linux distro or BSD on it. The times I've done it, I've done the install, clicked around for a few minutes, and then move on. Sometimes struggling with and overcoming the hassle of installing an OS (or newer version of Bash on 20 year old Mac OS X) is the point. Journey vs destination and all that.

leoh 2y ago

> Compiling takes forever until it fails with an obscure C11 error or missing C library features. And that makes for a fun, if often frustrating, challenge. Seems to me the trick to enhancing build times would be emulation using modern hardware, no? qemu, etc.

SpecialistK 2y ago
QEMU support exists, but needs TLC. The best it can do is "mac99" which emulates a 1st generation PowerMac G4 - it can run 9.2 - 10.5. But in my experience via UTM on a modern MacBook, it gains some Geekbench points like memory speed but loses a lot in others like integer performance. I'm very glad that it exists but is not at a point where a powerful Ryzen or Apple Mx can compile (much) faster than real hardware.

bobmcnamara 2y ago

And that OpenFirmware. Telnet to your BIOS?!

drdude 2y ago

I still have my PowerMac G5 (Dual 2.0 GHz with 8 GB RAM)... still works but it is stashed with my other electronics "heritage" beside a 21 inches CRT Dell flatron monitor! and the 23" Apple Cinema Display I bought with the PowerMac. Such a well built machine. I wish Apple still made such an expandable chassis but with more compatible parts like it was with the Intel based Mac Pro. I believe the one I have still has Mac OSX Snow Leopard installed, the original Mac OSX that came with it was Panther, my favorite is Tiger though. I ran Yellowdog linux on it, and Fedora 4 back in the days when I didn't want to upgrade to a newer OS right away and I liked it.