[ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies

[Warren Nagourney]

Thanks, Derick.

Although this is a YDL forum, I am afraid to say that there is no  
comparison between any linux on PPC and OS X. The former simply  
doesn't have the software base that I need. I used to think that it  
would be faster than OS X, but after a few installations of linux on  
Apple computers, I discovered that OS X wins hands down in the speed  
area as well. I think that linux is optimized for x86 and of course  
things like flash are only available on x86 linux (I hate flash, but  
it unfortunately has become a standard for internet video). There are  
still some PPC optimizations in OS X apps and maybe even some Altivec  
usage (which allows Quicktime to smoothly run at 1080p on my PPC  
machines). The tasks involved in writing my book would have been  
enormously greater if I had used linux instead of OS X.

I notice an increasing dominance of ARM in low power portable devices.  
This is unfortunate, since ARM simply doesn't have the computational  
power that PPC has - I am not sure it even has a floating point data  
type. It is too bad that IBM did such a poor job of promoting PPC; we  
will need to reinvent the wheel with ARM when we could have had  
advanced multi-purpose chips with low power consumption from the PPC  
manufacturers (such as PA semi, which Apple bought and converted to  
ARM).

Anyway, the improvement in the performance of Apple products since the  
switch has been less than stellar, much less than expected from  
Moore's law. My 4 year old G5 has a 1.15 GHz memory bus and an 16x  
dual layer superdrive, which is very competitive with the best that  
Apple can come up with now (for reasonable prices). It cost much less  
than a current machine and doesn't require a several thousand dollar  
investment in software, which I would need to make if I use one of  
Apple's intel superboxes.

Cheers,

Warren Nagourney

On Dec 24, 2009, at 2:28 PM, Derick Centeno wrote:

> You may want to know that you may find decent parts for your system
> from http://macsales.com/
>
> I think we may have to really keep our PowerPC running for longer than
> that although I did hear of someone developing a multicore PowerPC
> laptop a month or so ago.  I've got to search for who this fellow is
> again as I lost track, but I did hear of a fellow who created a  
> working
> Cell based laptop which ran the GameOS and had the OtherOS option.
> Pretty neat!
>
> Caveat:  If you replace the power supply or other support parts you
> shouldn't have trouble running YDL from it.  Be careful regarding  
> other
> components however such as DVD drives: if those go it may be wiser to
> consider an external DVD drive in that situation.  I'm unsure if  
> anyone
> we knew remains at Fixstars from TSS; it may not be so easy to get the
> kind of support we became accustomed to.  In any case, I'd advise you
> to consider reviewing what notations remain regarding their advisories
> regarding which hardware works with YDL and which do not.  As best I
> recall, the past emphasis (by TSS) was to support original Apple  
> parts.
>
> So the problems to watch for may not be RAM as much as internal
> associated devices, such as a newer hard drive or modem or something
> similar.  It may be better to just get an HD which resides on a PCI
> card which your system should recognize with no problem as an external
> system; I don't think such a drive would be able to be booted from
> within YDL.  It would be interesting to try that out as a concept
> though.
>
> Anyway enjoy and all the best!!
>
> On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:57:49 -0800
> Warren Nagourney <warren at phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>
>> Thanks, Derick. I  still love the PPC architecture and recently
>> bought an Apple dual core 2.3 GHz G5 for very little money and am
>> finding it to be absolutely as fast as I could ever hope for. I will
>> keep it for the next 3-5 years (assuming I can keep the power supply
>> running) and maybe then, the dominance of x86 may have lessened (it
>> can't last forever!).
>>
>> Merry Christmas and Happy 2010,
>>
>> Warren N
>
>
>
>
> =========
>
> Refranes/Popular sayings:
> The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga.
> There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom.
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