2026 PowerPC Challenge, is it happening?

[phunguss]

This website looks useful.

Yes, as it turns out I was confused. The single pump LCS I was working on is actually from the dual 2.5GHz that I converted to air last year. I thought it was the quad G5, because of the large metal plate on the bottom. But it does not line up with the G5 Quad... so looking at the dual pump LCS from the quad, it appears I don't have the bottom plate. I either misplaced it, have it in storage somewhere, or recycled it. So I ordered some PC air coolers and will convert the quad to Air Cooling using some MacGyver tricks.

 

[PowerRCP-G3]

VLC or HandBrake should be able to transcode to something DVD Studio 4 could handle?

Thanks for the advice. I am rather new to DVD Studio 4. So, I am open to suggestions on which video format is best suited for DVD Studio 4. I tried .mp4, .mov and .ts. I’ve read somewhere where it recognizes .mpg files tho.

 

[iBookSpeedster88]

I noticed that, for some reason, people on the MacRumors forums insist on continuing to use, or even set up for the first time, w1ckn1x's Lubuntu 12.04 Remix and 16.04 Remix distributions, long after they have been deprecated. I took it upon myself to subject my 1.5 GHz Mac Mini G4 to this experiment, one that absolutely proved wrong the idea that w1ckn1x's Lubuntu spin-offs (while a great band-aid solution when they were new) are inappropriate for today's use, and all Linux attention should be directed toward Void Linux, which pretty much works perfectly out-of-the-box after you get past the hurdle of manually partitioning your boot drive. It was even said by w1ckn1x in 2020 that Lubuntu 12.04 Remix "absolutely FLIES on my mac mini G4 and G5" (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/lubuntu-16-04-remix-updated.2204742/), but I had found in 2025 that 16.04 Remix was actually a superior experience over 12.04 Remix (spoiler alert for my next post). Furthermore, these spin-offs were released in 2020, which is now the better half of a decade ago, and like with anything dependent upon the internet to access some faraway server for updates and software installation, like Linux heavily is, the entire thing essentially becomes a paperweight and comes crashing down like a deck of cards as it is dependent upon the contributions of strangers online and can hardly function by itself offline as a capable operating system like Mac OS X and Microsoft's Windows (pre-10). This wouldn't be a problem if w1ckn1x continued cobbling together new updates to his Lubuntu projects, but he has long since moved on. So, scratching my head as to why that Lubuntu thread on MacRumors still sees activity from users who ask for help on something regarding to Lubuntu 12.04/16.04 Remix installation and compatibility with some desired Macintosh model, I sought out to see for myself why, and the results are utterly incongruent with how Lubuntu 12.04/16.04 Remix was praised for when it was new, for reasons I have already mentioned. Over time, any particular Linux distribution that stays unmaintained breaks and becomes unusable. One day, the Void Linux repository mirrors, too, will be taken offline and you will be left with nothing, whereas Mac OS X Leopard, for example, will continue to function offline and be 100% just as usable with its vast collection of software in 2040 as it was in 2007 for so long as there is a functioning PowerPC Mac out there. Well, 2040 is the limit to how far HFS+ can count time and I don't know how one can fix that blemish, but I digress. I can still install my collection of 500+ .dmg installers on Mac OS X whenever I please whereas with Linux/BSD, if you're not connected to the internet or if you are connected to the internet but you have no software repository to connect to, then you're screwed.

Case in point: the experience with Lubuntu 12.04 Remix in a nutshell:

This is a capture of the stock programs within the live CD environment. I set up a user account and installed the operating system and set out to attempt to install software from an obscure mirror of Lubuntu's now 14-year old version to get additional software not included on the disc, heavily outdated software that we cannot upgrade to newer versions probably because of the old kernel or something that launches the user into escaping Linux dependency hell, but additional software nonetheless. A mirror like old.lubuntu.something or whatever it might have been called. Well? NOT POSSIBLE. Nearly all of the software threw up an error. I have no photograph for this, but let's just say that I tried at least 15 programs I wrote down in an .rtf document that I wished to install but the Lubuntu mirror failed to fetch. I know qmmp was a program that actually DID fetch and install to my Lubuntu 12.04 Remix system, but for whatever reason the audio was glitched and thus audio playback was all but worthless.

First, a list of detriments I noticed that I had written down in a .txt file I made on that day:

1. the Caps Lock key doesn't light up when pressed (I personally used Apple's tenkeyless
2. the Mac Mini is in a constant state of overheating as the fan ramps up constantly
3. over half of the software I attempted to install are, from what I could tell, not available from Lubuntu's repository mirror any longer, which happened sometime between 2021 and 2025, apparently
4. Qmmp's audio playback is reduced to a screeching static sound
5. Lubuntu 12.04 Remix does not "fly" on any Mac Mini if it was as sluggish and stuttered as often as as it did on mine
6. The cross-platform software that is actually able to be installed here is often even OLDER than its counterpart on Mac OS X Leopard
7. I had to turn off my Mac Mini because Archive Manager hung the entire system when failing to extract a tar.gz file

So, in my next post, I'll be giving you all the rundown of when I then next tested Lubuntu 16.04 Remix to see if it warranted the continual use by individuals on MacRumors who still wish to attempt to use it over using the superior Void Linux and then still complain to w1kcn1x when something naturally breaks on their system when using Lubuntu 16.04 Remix.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Wouldn't this post be more effective over on MR? - The forum where the thread is actually located with the folks using/talking about it? Have you looped in wicknix to discuss your concerns directly with him? I recall @wicknix was using Void for his PowerPC Linux experience last time we chatted which was probably 2 years ago now? I am sure he would be in full support of you committing your time and energy to an up-to-date PPC Linux solution (maybe Void based?) for PowerPC based macs.

 

[wicknix]

Just chiming in.

1) Yes both remixes are now both quite old. Still newer and slightly more secure than 10.5.8 Leopard (including Sorbet) however. Also the browsers included, though now outdated themselves, are still using a newer code base than anything available for 10.4/10.5 which are based on Firefox 45/48 (tenfourfox/interwebppc/aquafox). The browsers in the remixes were based on Firefox 52/60 (except for Arctic Fox). So there’s that.

2) I think people still recommend the remixes because of the “live” cd / installer. They can be tested before install to see if it works with their hardware. Also the installers do all the hard work of automatically partitioning and setting up the boot loader unlike most of the other newer distros that require work-a-rounds or dropping to console to do that stuff. They make it easier for a “linux newbie” to get started with.

3) Void Linux PPC has been unmaintained with no updates since 2023. So by suggesting to somebody to use that instead is a double standard. You claim my remixes are old and unmaintained (which they are), but so is VoidPPC. Why not suggest something like Debian or ArchPower that are current and actively maintained?

4) Yes, people still complain about this or that on those old remixes. It’s the nature of the beast. Even if they were still updated and/or current, there would still be “those” people. Once you develop or create something and make it publicly available be prepared for both praise and hate. That’s how the internet works.

5) Not my fault Ubuntu moved, then lost, chunks of their archived repositories. There was a time when those repo’s worked.

6) 12 Remix does fly, and has many posts agreeing with my statement. You might have just forgot a few tweaks or boot parameters during or after install. I know it’s a lengthy thread to read through, but the answers and testimonies are there. Some had great results, some didn’t. I put all the tweaks in for various machines that i knew of at the time. I also didn’t have every PPC Mac to personally test with. Results will vary.

I have long since removed myself from doing anything PPC related and most of the PPC community. I donated 5-ish years to creating or porting multiple apps, remixes, etc for free because i found it fun. Life changes, priorities change, hobby's change, etc etc. If people still enjoy my free products great. If not, i don’t really care. I’ve moved on to other things.

Enjoy the rest of the 2026 PPC challenge. I’m out.

 

[PowerRCP-G3]

Day 12: While my DVD continued to process, I played around with two emulators and watched some YouTube to pass the time.

 

[Trash80toG4]

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Accursed MDD'03 just took another step backward on day twelve! USPS dropped off the Amazon package with a pair of the same DVI -> HDMI cables I'm using for the two HP Docking Station on the KVM Switch. I'm not getting video from either monitor on the KVM switch from either of the two position I've tried.

Hooked up VGA to the old 4:5 panel and I get a signal there and eventually flashing question mark and finally it booted from the MacOS9Lives installer. Set that as the boot drive and I'm back to waiting interminably in front of a blank screed . . .

. . . so it goes.

 

[Trash80toG4]

LOL! Yep, it's hilarious, buddy. But I think I've noodled it out. Having VGA hooked up to the the 4:5 panel and DVI running through pestiferous ADC(?) via converter looks to have been the problem. DVI output to HDMI cable was creating a "ghost screen" along with VGA output to the 4:5 panel, whilst defaulting to DVI as the (Blank) startup screen #1. Hence the forever wait on the blank VGA driven 4:5 panel.

Wanted to troubleshoot the system's problems before moving on to the most generous Christmas gift from obsolete over at the MLA.
Swapping in the AGP Radeon 7000/32MB has done the trick!





It'll drive the 1440p (currently at 1080p) or the 1920x1200 vertical (likely @1080p) panel from DVI through the switchbox!

Obsolete is currently working over a VTK-400125 VisionTek ATI Radeon 9250 DMS59 PCI VidCard for me to drive the second display over DVI to HDMI converter cable on the USB3/HDMI KVM Switch.



Hoping the 128MB PCI card will drive the 1440p screen at a higher resolution than the 32MB AGP card. According to the RADEON 7000 MAC EDITION (32MB) user Guide, that one tops out at a 1920x1440 pillared at the screen's native resolution? Right now it's stuck at 1920x1080 before driver installation, but may be a problem when installed:

The easy-to-access, easy-to-use ATI Config Menu (available
only with Mac OS 9.2.1), on the menu bar, provides access to
ATI Guide, giving you instant access to help, and the ATI
Displays control panel, providing quick access to all of
RADEON 7000 MAC EDITION easy-to-use features such as
TV/Video Out. Specific help in Mac OS 9 can be accessed from
the Apple Help in the menu bar.

Hopefully that only means a MINIMUM of OS9 2.1.1?

Also installed the flashed Kuroutoshikou SAPARAID-PCI SATA/PATAcard I bought from him, gotta find some cables now!



Feeling a bit better about this machine's prospects. May close out Day 12 on a high note . . .


. . . back to identify the culprit: Apple 600-9144 630-3799 NVIDIA P40 32MB



Not my card, but this one's missing the heatsink, revealing the nVIDIA controller info. ADC port on that card with Apple DVI Converter Cable is incompatible with my specific, known good DVI->HDMI cables or the KVM Switchbox intermediary? Point of info, card seems to be fine otherwise. Never gave me a problem in the QS.

Hope nobody buys that one off eBay and runs it sans heatsink!

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

LOL! Yep, it's hilarious, buddy. But I think I've noodled it out. Having VGA hooked up to the the 4:5 panel and DVI running through pestiferous ADC(?) via converter looks to have been the problem. DVI output to HDMI cable was creating a "ghost screen" along with VGA output to the 4:5 panel, whilst defaulting to DVI as the (Blank) startup screen #1. Hence the forever wait on the blank VGA driven 4:5 panel.

Wanted to troubleshoot the system's problems before moving on to the most generous Christmas gift from obsolete over at the MLA.



Swapping in the AGP Radeon 7000/32MB has done the trick!

View attachment 26011

View attachment 26016

It'll drive the 1440p (currently at 1080p) or the 1920x1200 vertical panel from DVI through the switchbox!

Obsolete is currently working over a VTK-400125 VisionTek ATI Radeon 9250 DMS59 PCI VidCard for me to drive the second display over DVI to HDMI converter cable on the USB3/HDMI KVM Switch.

View attachment 26012

Hoping the 128MB PCI card will drive the 1440p screen at a higher resolution than the 32MB AGP card. According to the RADEON 7000 MAC EDITION (32MB) user Guidethat one tops out at a 1920x1440 pillared at the screen's native resolution? Right now it's stuck at 1920x1080 before driver installation, but may be a problem when installed:

The easy-to-access, easy-to-use ATI Config Menu (available
only with Mac OS 9.2.1), on the menu bar, provides access to
ATI Guide, giving you instant access to help, and the ATI
Displays control panel, providing quick access to all of
RADEON 7000 MAC EDITION easy-to-use features such as
TV/Video Out. Specific help in Mac OS 9 can be accessed from
the Apple Help in the menu bar.

Hopefully that only means a MINIMUM of OS9 2.1.1?

Also installed the flashed Kuroutoshikou SAPARAID-PCI SATA/PATAcard I bought from him, gotta find some cables now!

View attachment 26014

Feeling a bit better about this machine's prospects. May close out Day 12 on a high note . . .

Neat Pata/Sata card. I've never seen one before. I have a Visiontek 7000 pci in my B&W running Tiger. Ive not played with that ATI config menu before. Sounds like a fun reason for installing & dual booting os9lives 9 dmg in my B&W.

 

[iBookSpeedster88]

Soon after I had installed and retired Lubuntu 12.04 Remix on my Mac Mini G4, I continued seeing why hubbub continued surrounding it and Lubuntu 16.04 Remix by installing Lubuntu 16.04 Remix for myself for reasons I already listed in my previous post. While Lubuntu either moved or killed off their old repositories for the 12.04, 14.04, and 16.04 releases, one can still connect to a functioning mirror of Void Linux's software repository, meaning the software that you get prepacked with these elder releases of Lubuntu leaves the user dead in the water, whereas with Void Linux, the mirrors are still operational, so you can continue installing "new" (new to you) software just as normal. I really wish Void Linux had continued to be maintained for PowerPC, but seeing that the "16.04" in "Lubuntu 16.04" is in reference to its release date of April of 2016 and Void Linux for PowerPC was maintained from 2021 to 2023, there's therefore no contest as to which is newer, more up-to-date, and secure, if that is a concern to any one, but the fact that we all use 15+ year old versions of Mac OS X online goes to show that security isn't in the forefront of our minds, but an argument can made for the concept of "security through obscurity". An up-to-date version of the SeaLion web browser is also continuing to be made and hosted on GitHub for Void Linux, so web browsing is covered. The same cannot be said for any Lubuntu Remix, as Arctic Fox, for example, will not compile for it. Cobbling together an instance of Debian or Arch for PowerPC is not for the faint of heart, either, and since both distributions use systemd as the default init system, I refuse to even attempt to drag my feet into such a deep trench of sleepless nights compiling in dependency hell. It's the same reason I and many others don't bother with MacPorts for Mac OS X, either.

Here is an image of me burning Lubuntu 16.04 Remix to an optical disc and the readme file w1ckn1x included. I can't remember if I followed it or not, but I think the recommendations were temporary/timed, meaning that they were only relevant when it was new and can no longer be replicated.
Moving on, Lubuntu 16.04 Remix presented an initial obstacle to the installation that was not present in Lubuntu 12.04 Remix. As many within the Linux world are aware, this is not because of something w1ckn1x did to it. Rather, as I recall, it is because of something deprecation is graphics drivers in subsequent versions of the Linux kernel that are present in Lubuntu 16.04 onward, I think. In practice, at the yaboot prompt, one must type "radeon.agpmode=-1" (without quotations). If not, then the installation process will freeze every time.

I apologize, but I can't remember the context behind this image of mine. From what I can gleam, I appear to be applying 2021 ca-certificates for Arctic Fox. In any case, I enjoyed using Lubuntu 16.04 Remix more than my short time with Lubuntu 16.04 Remix. To clarify what I meant earlier about the user experience being sluggish on Lubuntu 12.04 Remix, I'm certain it was something to do with the graphical acceleration. Dragging windows left a "trail" of sorts and the CPU bore the grunt of having to redraw windows. That wasn't the case in Lubuntu 16.04 Remix. I don't know if anything was to be done about it on my end.

Attempting to connect to the Debian Sid software repository to install new software, as was claimed possible in the same MacRumors thread about Lubuntu 12.04/16.04 Remix, my entire installation ran into software/dependency incompatibilities and resulted in Lubuntu 16.04 Remix being in an utterly unusable and un-bootable state. How lovely. Granted, w1ckn1x warned that this was a possibility, but don't we welcome challenges? You know, like POWERPC CHALLENGES? I'm bad with humor, sorry. Unaware of what software would result in a broken system, I went ahead and installed icewm, which gave me a rather new version. Satisfied, I continued, but, if I recall correctly, I didn't get far before I was given a broken system. Well, bummer. So, no, unfortunately neither Lubuntu 12.04 Remix nor Lubuntu 16.04 Remix may be used in any sort of serious manner. Until Adelie Linux finally gets out of Beta development, there is essentially NO up-to-date Linux distribution for PowerPC owners.

Speaking of Adelie Linux (how do you pronounce it?), last year I also attempted to installed the latest Beta (warning: you must be connected to Ethernet to install it, just like with Void Linux), and....

Installing the latest Beta of Adelie Linux results in an un-bootable system. See what I mean? Apparently, after I scoured MacRumors forums for answers that day, a user by the name of "Doq" warned others that the latest Beta is SUPPOSED to result in an un-bootable system and recommends that we use the PREVIOUS Beta release of Adelie Linux. Good night, folks, isn't that swell? Well, regardless, I don't normally meddle with software clearly marked as "Alpha" or "Beta", since it's not expected to work flawlessly, but after trying to install Debian 7/8/Sid, Lubuntu 12.04/16.04, and Fienix Linux (it refuses to install on both my PowerBook G4 DLSD and my Mac Mini G4 even with typing radeon.agpmode=-1), it was looking more and more dire. Out of maybe 9 PowerPC Linux distributions (there aren't that many at all to begin with), only w1ckn1x's Lubuntu and Void Linux actually installed successfully to a bootable and usable state. That's .... pretty sad.

Spoiler alert: Fienix Linux did end up surprisingly installing on my iMac G5 iSight, but I'll save that day in 2025 for another future post.

I ended up stepping away from PowerPC Linux and switched focus toward OpenBSD! I'm surprised OpenBSD on PowerPC isn't talked about as frequently as I would think it to be amongst our small PowerPC Mac community, as OpenBSD 7.7 proved to be not only easy to install (the command-line installation sequence is very straightforward and, with a tutorial, is practically foolproof), but it ACTUALLY installed CORRECTLY, period! It's sad that that's actually a proverbial selling point that must be made, but that's the world we live in. Yes, I am unaware whether you, reader, know or not, but you are more likely than not to run into broken operating systems for your Mac than functioning ones.

Not pictured are the finnicky commands you have to feed Open Firmware to make it automatically boot into OpenBSD 7.7 once installed from the CD. I do believe OpenBSD 7.8 has since been released after I installed to my PowerBook last year. I followed the "OpenBSD Wiki" provided by z970 on the MacRumors forums (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/the-openbsd-wiki.2196940/) and got icewm installed so I can boot into a graphical environment upon logging in to OpenBSD. A few command-line sequences later and presto!

Here is my obligatory neofetch screen.

OpenBSD on PowerPC isn't all sunshine and rainbows, unfortunately. A big issue for many is the complete lack of FireWire support and the paltry selection of software, even less so than PowerPC Linux, if you can believe it. Another, which DroneCatcher noted in that thread I just linked, is the total lack of audio support, which irritates me the most to the point that OpenBSD just isn't an option on PowerPC at all, at least for my use case. I'm sure as a server, OpenBSD excels at that. To avoid myself from making this post any longer, here is my sorrowful end with OpenBSD in the following photograph with an angry note of grievances:

STAY TUNED NEXT TIME TO SEE IF MY SITUATION IS MET WITH A HAPPY ENDING!