Re: [gNewSense-users] gNewSense for PowerPC?

[Karl Goetz]

Rich DAddio wrote:
> ...
>> The POWER architecture is NOT dead by any means it's
>> just exposed a lot
>> less now that Apple is using "regular" chips.
> You mean "irregular"... :)
> 
>> As a note, I'd like to encourage everyone who values
>> freedom to just
>> LOOK at the Power architcture - IBM provides a lot
>> of specifications and
>> does a ton to keep the platform hackable. They're
>> not (to my knowledge)
>> developing DRM (like Intel) or adding restrictions
>> to their video cards
>> (like AMD's framebuffer lock). They offer developer
>> access to virtual
>> machines - it benefits IBM for your application to
>> run, so they have a
>> nice developer program.
> Also Freescale(former Motorola) has provided pretty
> good and widely available documentation for developers
> over the years. 

Power and Sparc both have open standards bodies, iirc? not sure how that
works with the 'open' sparc project.
> 

> 
>> It's not "as simple" as fixing builder though I
>> understand that work IS
>> being done on that and progress IS being made. Keep
>> in mind that once
>> the installer works, packages need to be built for
>> the architecture -
>> gNewSense does not currently have a PPC repository
>> for changes to be
>> central.
> I assume the goals of the PPC Gnewsense project are
> similar to those of the x86 side. I am not sure of
> this --I would have to go take a look-- but there may
> be some firmware in the drivers that Apple folks are
> going to dearly miss. Do you have any indications so
> far?

i didnt extend the firmware removal routines on ppc, so anything that
wasnt auto removed will still be in the build i made.

> 
>> If anyone would like to help, and owns some kind of
>> GNU/Linux capable
>> PowerPC system I'd urge you to install Dapper
>> PowerPC on it and offer it
>> up for testing. If you rely on the system to
>> function, perhaps it's not
>> the best way, but we could test packages on
>> different machines.

I have a bunch atm, because of the work i was doing on ppc, but not sure
if/how long i'll keep them.

> Has there been any thought given to an "embedded"
> Gnewsense project? Since "slimmed" down completely
> free packages for PPC may have a lot of takers in that
> domain.

I think we need to get ppc+amd64 before slimming :)
kk

> 
> Do you have a project pointer??
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> Rich d
>> - -Kevin


-- 
Karl Goetz
User of gNewSense: Free as in Freedom - http://www.gnewsense.org
Australian Ubuntu users team - http://wiki.ubuntu.com/AustralianTeam
User of Debian, The Universal Operating System - http://www.debian.org

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