Browsers: February 2007 Archives

The G5 CPU is fairly new, super fast ... and fading into obsolescence.

The same is true for the G4 (except the "new" and "super fast" parts).

The G3: down on all counts.

Many G4s can comfortably run OS X 10.3.9, and I bet most will run 10.4.6 and the soon-debuting 10.5. But that will likely be the last Apple OS upgrade that will even be compiled for any chip in the PowerPC family, I think.

A G3 can run OS X, if it's fast enough. But those machines really thrive on OS 9.2.2. Except that there's no modern Web browser that'll run on them. Oh, and there's been no innovation, support or applications coming down the pike for, say ... seven years now.

Did you know that you can bring a G3 Mac into the era of current browsers and more free apps with Linux? Well ... you can, but it's not all so rosy.

There are a few Linux distributions that compile for PowerPC (going back to G3 and previous PPC chips, but not all the way back), the most popular being the fast-rising, easy-loading Ubuntu.

I have burned PowerPC CDs for Ubuntu and Xubuntu. On my iBook G4, Ubuntu ran right away, with sound and Ethernet auto-configured to work. I've never before gotten sound to work on anything without a little tweaking. Would I dump OS X 10.3.9 for Ubuntu? Probably not, but I'd consider dual-booting for the time being. (Since that machine is used mostly by Ilene, I'm going to leave it as is.)

The relationship between Ubuntu (funded by a weathy South African whose name escapes me) and the PowerPC chip is straining. Since PPC accounts for about 5 percent of Ubuntu users, Ubuntu creator Canonical has recently converted the PowerPC versions of all the 'Buntus from fully supported product with twice-yearly updates to a "community maintained" port ... and a more tenuous status overall.

There is much hair-rending and teeth gnashing in the very busy Ubuntu forums over the distancing from PPC, but the beauty of Linux is that there are hundreds of distributions -- and at least a few of them have PowerPC ports and will maintain them. (Yellow Dog and Suse come to mind).

Let me emphasize: If you're running OS 9 on a G3 or early G4, you might want to give Ubuntu Linux (or its less-powerful cousin Xubuntu) for PowerPC a try.

While the live CD of Ubuntu worked perfectly in the iBook, it didn't fare so well on a Power Mac G4 tower, which pretty much screams on OS 9. On that machine, Ubuntu booted slowly (slow CD drive, I think), Ethernet wouldn't work (I did a quick config and got nothing) and upon launch of Open Office, the whole thing crashes. No 'Buntu live CDs would even load on the iMac G3 500 MHz. Many commenters have said that using the alternative install CD of Xubuntu allows installation to the hard drive, and that method does work.

The upshot: If Ubuntu, or any other distribution, can bring a modern Web browser to G3 Macs, that is huge.

PowerPC -- it's not the beginning of the end. It's more like the middle (of the end).

By now it's old news that Apple abandoned the IBM-made PowerPC line of CPUs in favor of Intel inside (or is it Inside, capital I?). For the first time, Apple shares a processor family with its Windows-running bretheren. Now if the market share between Mac and PC was 50-50, or even 20-70, this would be even bigger news than it already is. But Apple is still in single digits when it comes to percentage of market share in the computing landscape.

What would really turn the computing world on its ear? An official Mac OS X port for the PC platform. It could be done. Apple could make billions.

They'd piss off everybody in Redmond, and Microsoft might pull the plug on Office for Mac. But Apple has already seen that kind of "trouble," with MS orphaning Internet Explorer for Mac. In that case, Apple thrived with its own Safari browser and the widely used Firefox, now the only browser to run on OS X, Windows and Linux (and yes, I am counting all the Mozilla derivatives as part of the Firefox family, even if Mozilla's the daddy and Firefox the fast-growing baby).

While on the subject, any software that has versions for all three major platforms -- Mac, Windows and Linux -- is a-OK by me. In addition to Firefox, the Abiword word processor and the Open Office suite are fine examples. It just makes it glaringly obvious how badly iTunes needs a Linux port. Keep it closed-source -- I don't care, just get iTunes on Linux already

Now back to our regularly scheduled computer whining ...!

Anything Microsoft did to "punish" Apple in the unlikely event that OS X for Windows is ever released would be dwarfed by fanfare, sales and sheer market-changing force by a real Windows competitor. After all, OS X 10.4 is the product upon which Windows Vista is modeled.

Hey, wasn't it the Classic Mac OS that drove Microsoft to develop Windows in the first place? (Answer: yes, for those of you too young to remember.)

OS X on a PC? You can already run Windows apps on an Intel Mac with Bootcamp or Parallels, and that has -- in some way -- boosted the esteem for Mac in the greater Windows-dependent world.

But a full OS X for PC can be done -- and should be. The fact that it hasn't, though, probably means it never will.

My previous Ubuntu post on my inability to boot from the live CD of Ubuntu (or Xubuntu) on an iMac G5 500 MHz has sparked a few comments from G3 users who installed both Ubuntu and Xubuntu directly to their hard drives.

The best report was for Xubuntu -- something I'd second due to its lighter graphics load on the system. Unfortunately, I don't have a G3 on which I can do such an install ... but I will be on the lookout for one.

The situation isn't so dire for most older PCs, as they can run Firefox and IE6, even with Windows 98, but these older Macs have basically been thrown under the bus by both Apple and the browser makers. Hell, Microsoft doesn't even allow its IE for Mac to be downloaded anymore. And I am disappointed in the people behind Firefox for not porting to classic Mac.

But with Xubuntu, you can bring modern browsing back to the G3, plus get apps for writing, spreadsheets, photo editing and just about anything else in the Linux world. It's the best solution today for keeping a G3 relevant and ready for action.

I wrote a long post (not up here yet) about how Ubuntu Linux for PowerPC could potentially save G3 Macs from OS 9 obsolescence, principally because modern browsers won't run on anything older than OS X.

Boy was I wrong.

Ubuntu ran great on my iBook G4, which shipped with OS X 10.3, by the way, and for which I really don' t need Linux to save it. It was the smoothest boot of a live-CD Linux yet, on Mac or PC, but for a laptop designed from the ground up for OS X, and which runs quite well on it, the use of Ubuntu is strictly a geek curiousity.

So I tried Ubuntu on two Macs that could actually benefit from Linux and the modern apps that go with it.

An old Power Macintosh G4 tower booted Ubuntu all right, although it did take awhile (slow CD drive). Sound came through fine, as it always does with Macs and Ubuntu. I couldn't get Ethernet working, but I also didn't spend a lot of time on it. But when I tried to start Open Office, the whole thing crashed. It does have at least 128 MB of RAM, by the way.

Today I tried an iMac G3 500 MHz slot-loader with 128 MB RAM. I got the sound, but after 20 minutes, nothing from the CD, not even a full boot. Now I could have let it run for an hour, and I just might do that at some point, but not booting off of a live CD after 20 minutes?

Maybe Xubuntu will work better, but I'm not holding my breath.

No, Ubuntu is NOT a saver of old Macs. If there's a lighter Linux for PowerPC, that might be worth trying. Otherwise, try to shoehorn OS X in there, or stay with the swift and the brave OS 9.2.2.

That's this doctor's recommendation ... and yes, I only play one on TV.

I'm addicted to Puppy Linux and its ability to boot from CD, run entirely in RAM and save to a connected USB flash drive. You could unplug the hard drive and throw it out. New apps that aren't on the CD are saved on the USB drive.

But everybody needs a couple of Windows apps to keep the peace. For me, they are Internet Explorer (one Daily News system requires it) and our networked publishing system, Unisys Hermes. Oh ... and I guess Palm Desktop, unless J-Pilot for Linux happens to work.

So this means I'd need Wine, the Linux program that runs many but not most Windows applications over Linux.

I'm already screwing with the ethos that is Puppy, but if I could get, at minimum, Wine to work with IE 6 and ... shudder ... Hermes, then I could have my entire computing life on a CD-R and USB flash drive to carry with me at will -- and which could turn most PCs into my own personal workstation for as long as I needed it.

Total weight: about 2 ounces. Lighter than any laptop.

This is my dream system ... could it happen? It's my new project.

Since Mozilla is derived from Netscape (no ...
Netscape didn't die ... it was just reborn as Mozilla
and then Firefox), SeaMonkey -- the browser in the small, CD-booting Puppy Linux -- wisely kept Netscape
Communicator's ability to read and send e-mail, read
and post to Usenet newsgroups AND ... my personal
favorite at this very moment ... create Web content
with Composer.

Man ... I've got nothing on my Windows machine to
write HTML, and now I've got the rudimentary but very
useful Composer (love it on This Old Mac) at my
service.

Again ... you may pet the Puppy.

The SeaMonkey browser is a Mozilla derivative, just
like Firefox, but in this case leaner and ... you know
... meaner.

But back to Puppy. I was pleased to find mtPaint, an
image editor that both sizes photos and puts borders
on them. So I'm definitely good.

The great thing about Linux on a CD or USB drive, is
that if you can boot off of them, you can take the
Linux you know with you and work anywhere with a
familiar set of apps and, if the PC cooperates, a
place to store your data (either on a USB drive or the
open CD itself). It can really change the way you view
computing.

But while it's assumed that PCs can boot off of USB drives, this Dell Optiplex GX520 won't do it. I don't think Macs can boot off of USB (they do boot from Firewire). Does anybody have PCs that boot from USB? One workaround is a boot floppy. I think both Puppy and Damn Small Linux offer images for boot floppies. But by the time you have a boot floppy and a USB drive, isn't it just easier to carry a CD instead of a floppy? Just asking.