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Snow Leopard on Unsupported PowerPC Macs
- Thread starter Larsvonhier
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Wish i could pinpoint squids issue on 10.4/10.5. I've gotten squid4 to build on tiger and not crash as often as the leopard build. At times i can browse for hours without issue. Other times it'll crash within minutes. When it works it's great with tenfourkit and leopard-webkit.
I do also have a mac mini running squid under Linux, and even though LWK is old, it still renders better than tenfourfox/interwebppc on select sites, and its faster to render. It'd be awesome to get a newer webkit to build, even without the security framework. Squid proxy fixes that, and having a browser that could render github properly would be awesome.
A bit off topic, but i want to know how the dev for the wayfarer browser on MorphOS was able to build current webkit for powerpc with the updated security frameworks. Unfortunately his source isn't publicly available to look at.
Cheers
I do also have a mac mini running squid under Linux, and even though LWK is old, it still renders better than tenfourfox/interwebppc on select sites, and its faster to render. It'd be awesome to get a newer webkit to build, even without the security framework. Squid proxy fixes that, and having a browser that could render github properly would be awesome.
A bit off topic, but i want to know how the dev for the wayfarer browser on MorphOS was able to build current webkit for powerpc with the updated security frameworks. Unfortunately his source isn't publicly available to look at.
Cheers
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Yes, it's already in macports. However i build outside of macports because i don't like the canned configure options on a lot of things.
So strangely now OpenCL doesn't show up in BOINC anymore with the HD 4650 in ppc64 Debian, it definitely used to. I will try with the HD 4870 again. But still shows up with the HD 5770!
You're facing two major challenges with WebKit for PowerPC MacOS.
- The JavaScriptCore framework needs to work almost perfectly or the browser becomes virtually unusable.
- The WebCore and WebKit frameworks are deeply integrated into the OS, so one needs to backport many OS API calls to either private, often slightly incomplete API (so called SPI) calls to other OS frameworks or maintain and extend existing workarounds.
Furthermore you'll not be able to directly update to the current release. You would have to update release by release. That would mean 6 months for the first year's release update and 1 month for each subsequent year of WebKit development, if you're able to invest 2-4 hours of daily work.
Oh i have no doubt it'd be a lot of work. Thats why i never bothered trying. I looked at webkit / blink code and its completely foreign to me compared to mozilla based browsers which i at least partially understand.
Yeah, this looks like a no-go. Anyone with sufficient expertise will not have that much of a free time on an ongoing basis, and for anyone without it just becomes unfeasible.
Do you have an idea about Mozilla-based browsers? What will be needed to update from TFF to something contemporary?
Have you tinkered about with Interweb-PPC? It is probably the most current, Mozilla-based browser one can use on PPC these days. It’s my go-to browser on SL-PPC.
As long as unaccelerated rendering and unaccelerated JavaScript is supported by the code base it shouldn't be too difficult to get something up and (slowly) running.
BTW, if anyone interested to build TFF on 10A190, here is what you need:
TFF: https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commit/c09a943db62650704ead224d156be625eadde5c2
strip7: https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commit/ebd0fd8c6c66baa4ac5829590161065fe23b5862
While these are not yet in the master, it works, and reproducibly so.
gcc48: https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commit/20e36f577a62a5b59bc2af022fa51cfbca098d5a
Other SL PPC fixes, as usual, here: https://github.com/barracuda156/macports-ports/tree/snow-ppc/lang
P. S. On 10.5.8 you only need TFF and strip7 portfiles, obviously.
TFF: https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commit/c09a943db62650704ead224d156be625eadde5c2
strip7: https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commit/ebd0fd8c6c66baa4ac5829590161065fe23b5862
While these are not yet in the master, it works, and reproducibly so.
gcc48: https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commit/20e36f577a62a5b59bc2af022fa51cfbca098d5a
Other SL PPC fixes, as usual, here: https://github.com/barracuda156/macports-ports/tree/snow-ppc/lang
P. S. On 10.5.8 you only need TFF and strip7 portfiles, obviously.
I think it is just a simplified version of TFF, no? But I can check it, likely gonna build fine. Arctic Fox is arguably more interesting though.
As I recall @wicknix describing it, Interweb-PPC code departs from Cameron Kaiser’s approach with TFF (which was: to have TFF behave most like that which Mozilla produced for the current version of Firefox) by removing/disabling a few elements in TFF which, on vintage Macs, did a lot to really slow them down (and without much of a noticeable gain or benefit for most users).
I don’t have an itemized list of those removed/disabled elements (do a search for the Interweb-PPC thread on here, which ought to outline things a bit better), but the strategy of nearest-possible feature parity (i.e., the “feature-parity releases, or FPRs) with Firefox is what made, over time, TFF slower and slower for older Macs. It’s something I really came to notice when using TFF and assorted web sites on my lone iBook G3.
In practice, I find Interweb-PPC, out-of-box, with a new user profile, tends to run a bit quicker and with less processing penalty than TFF did. It does reasonably well with HTML5 benchmark tests — especially considering the age of both OS X in the L/SL period on hardware last refreshed 17 years ago. With user-based tweaks, like the ones @eyoungren and others hashed out during the TFF period, Interweb-PPC is fairly snappy, all the just-described things considered.
As for Interweb-PPC, wicknix has a rolling release schedule of, I think twice or thrice a year to include security-parity release updates — SPR — in the same spirit as the last several TFF updates released by Cameron, but continuing those with Interweb-PPC where Cameron halted doing the same with TFF in 2021.
Obsession Hotline client builds for PPC now!
The developer kindly switched to Qt4 in order to expand support to older OSs.
Portfile: https://github.com/barracuda156/macports-ports/blob/obsession/www/Obsession/Portfile
There are some glitches still, but it works.
The developer kindly switched to Qt4 in order to expand support to older OSs.
Portfile: https://github.com/barracuda156/macports-ports/blob/obsession/www/Obsession/Portfile
There are some glitches still, but it works.
I got Sonnet Tempo card, and here is the problem: while it is recognized and works in Leopard, 10A190 fails to boot – KP on start-up.
Ideally, I would like to have it working in 10A190.
If that is not possible, at least I want it to be ignored by 10A190, so that I can use that disk with Leopard or FreeBSD.
Obviously, pulling the card out every time is not a feasible solution.
Any ideas?
Ideally, I would like to have it working in 10A190.
If that is not possible, at least I want it to be ignored by 10A190, so that I can use that disk with Leopard or FreeBSD.
Obviously, pulling the card out every time is not a feasible solution.
Any ideas?
I don't know. It might be available upon request as i've seen with other projects.
Update:
1. 10A96 also fails with KP at the boot. Any idea how to fix the kernel to enable support for PCIe SSDs?
2. This makes booting 10A190 possible (removing PCIe card from the current boot):
Code:
dev pci3
" reg" delete-property
" interrupts" delete-property
" none" encode-string " compatible" property
device-end
mac-boot(Device path depends on the slot used.)
Not yet sure. A quick review (without testing) of kexts from the retail version of 10.6 doesn’t suggest much, other than maybe IOPCIFamily.kext (as it’s not anything noted on Table 4, you might want to compare versions of this kext between 10A96/10A190 and, say, 10.6.0 and 10.6.8. As memory serves, it was the same version supplied with 10.5.8, which is why it was not included in the table.
Safe boot did not help, so I assumed kexts are not responsible. Or safe boot does not disable these?
I would imagine safe boot would not load those kexts, but you ought not to quote me on that.
I know very little about the Sonnet Tempo or what it generally relies on for running on OS X. I presume it’s plug-and-play (with no drivers/frameworks/kexts supplied by Sonnet), but I’ve never looked into it. My PCI-related experience with OS X and G5s is limited to FirmTek’s SeriTek’s products. Although they made several PCIe cards, I’ve only worked with their PCI-X products.
The Sonnet Tempo is PCIe 2.0-compliant. Are the A1117 G5s PCIe 1.0 or 2.0?
PCIe 1.0. That is 250 MB/s per lane.
PCIe 2.0 only came with the 2008 Mac Pro.
Hrm. Thanks for that clarification.
Adding to the reply I posted for @barracuda156 — I’m aware the PCIe 2.0 SATA products FirmTek sell only have booting capability from 10.6.8 and up. I don’t know if this means a drive connected to one of their PCI 2.0 SATA products, between 10.5.x and 10.6.7, on a 2008 Mac Pro, can mount a drive, sans bootability. I’d need to look into what Apple added, probably from 10.6.7 onward, which supports their products completely.
There you go https://www.pcworld.pl/ftp/producent/mac/joel-barriere.html
It's a online PC mag in Polish. (Who would have thought it). Just keep clicking on red buttons with download logo.
Also, to add to the current 10.6 SDK discussion - take a look at Pacifist's plist and at DTSDKName specifically
I also assume you guys are familiar with these:
XcodeVersionInfo – MacPorts
trac.macports.org
Link to OnyX 2.2.5 is dead, unfortunately. We have to re-upload it elsewhere and update the Wiki.
UPD. Uploaded here: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/onyx
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