[ydl-gen] quid ps3 linux after 2012 - addendum

[Derick Centeno]

Thanks, I appreciate the correction.

The question however remains in terms of the quality of PowerPC support.

There is a bit of a difference between support for IBM POWER server
architectures, which institutions (corporate and educational) tend to
use versus consumer grade computers such as the various older Apple and
other PowerPC desktop/laptop products which yet remain available on ebay
or elsewhere becoming increasingly more expensive to replace when one or
another of these consumer grade products break down.  This situation is
something I'm very familiar with by the way, and I can testify to the
challenge and difficulty of an individual justifying the expense of
hundreds of dollars to repair a component needed by a home-based PowerPC
system one owns versus what institutions can pay or afford out of "petty
cash" or other easily available funding or other sources.

The economies of scale are very, very different.

Between the choice of expenditures a sole individual must consider
essentials such as food, or child support or other responsibilities -
car/bus fare to search or find work, rent, produce résumés, etc. -
versus replacing an expensive component for an aging machine utilizing
Linux software which no longer receives primary support (example Fedora
nor Ubuntu provide primary level support for PowerPC systems).

Many will switch to x86_Linux running on Intel or Cygwin or Cygwin-X
(which runs within Windows 7 while recreating the Linux environment)
because for the same hundreds one would spend on a PowerPC component one
can acquire either a new duo- or quad-core system which incorporates
IBM's advances past the PowerPC/Cell era!

The independent individual when their system is broken cannot bother
with the nuances of the superior architecture of the PowerPC/Cell
because it is no longer a platform which they can work on instead one
must face that it has become something which must be replaced if they
are a student or even other professional experiencing various stages of
financial stress where money is sparse.  Replacement for the
professional is even more important in any attempt to keep one's skill
set even close to current; again in such a scenario individual's cannot
choose as easily as those associated with corporations and/or academic
institutions or research centers.

Although I appreciate learning that Gentoo Linux (and others) are active
in supporting the PowerPC the repairs I, and I'm sure others, need to
make on the PowerPC one has are such that it is actually cheaper to
acquire an x_86 system removing myself, and others similarly affected,
from using any PowerPC Linux thereby causing in effect an ever smaller
pool of PowerPC Linux users.

The financial realities are such that although I'm happy to learn that
at least three distributions continue to develop for the PowerPC, the
finances independent individuals face, who are not connected to research
or academic or corporate institutions, are forcing a greater contraction
of users away from PowerPC Linux.

Oddly enough support for Linux mobile systems via Android are growing,
but that is a different technology platform entirely which doesn't
matter to the independent individual whose system requires repairs.



On 3/9/2011 5:54 AM, nello martuscielli wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Atro Tossavainen
> <atossava+ydl at cc.helsinki.fi> wrote:
>>> There are no Linux distributions actively developing either for the
>>> PowerPC or the Cell.  Linux has moved on to develop for multi-core Intel
>>> and similar systems.
>>
>> The recently released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 continues to be
>> supported on IBM POWER server architectures, which are "ppc".
>>
>> This is of zero interest and no consequence to PowerPC workstation users,
>> but it does invalidate the point that there would be no Linux distributions
>> actively developing for the Power architecture.
>>
> 
> indeed, there are also Gentoo, CRUX PPC and Archlinux PPC.
> 
> 
> cheers,
> nell
> --
> Power Mac G4 AGP 450MHz - CRUX PPC (32bit) 2.7

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