Appleaddiction » PPC

FireFox 5 now available for PowerPC Macs!

Luke — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:09:17 +0000

FireFox 5 brings some cool features to the table. Specifically CSS animations. Although only available for Intel Macs through Mozzila, The TenFourFox team has already ported us a PowerPC version.

You can learn even more about the awesome features that TenFourFox features by following the link below.

TenFourFox Five is available here.

Apple drops PowerPC support for iLife ’11

Luke — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 18:16:32 +0000

PowerPC support takes another blow with the announcement that Apple’s iLife ’11 will require an Intel processor and 10.6.3 to run.

The move to drop PPC support is understandable considering all G4 systems and most G5′s won’t have enough power to run the new version of iMovie and Garageband. It’s unfortunate though because higher-end G5 systems have more then enough power to run the new software suit.

I guess I was expecting Apple to support it’s legacy pro machines for longer then 6 years, but in the computer industry, 6 years is a lifetime.

App Review: iBench 1.0.4

Luke — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:38:05 +0000

iBench is a synthetic benchmark program for the Mac OS X operating system. It is constituted by 21 tests (12 of integer workload and 9 of floating point) of real usage that allow to check and compare the CPU and memory performance of your Mac.

iBench is a Universal Binary and works seamlessly on 32- and 64-bit Macs and on both Intel and PowerPC Macs.

The only requirements are 512 MB of RAM or more and Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard”.

Best of all it’s freeware. So, if you are looking to compare the performance of your Mac against other Macs, I suggest you give this nice little app a try.

Download and more info Here.

PPC support to be an optional install for Snow Leopard

Luke — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:26:51 +0000

The recent seed of OS X 10.6 (Build:10A222) to developers has brought about rumors. Rumors of PowerPC support being an optional install instead of being systematically bundled with the OS. This news along with rumors that Snow Leopard may only run on Intel machines is making me and my G4 nervous.

However, most common apps have already become Universal Binaries, which means that they are able to run natively on both PPC and Intel machines. So, even though the last PowerPC machine shipped from Apple less then three years ago, PowerPC users may be quite upset when they find out that their PowerMac G5′s and PowerBook G4′s will not be able to take advantage of the new OS from Apple.

3 Linux Distros for your PPC Mac

Luke — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:56:30 +0000

Last week I wrote an article about bringing life into your old macs. This weekend we are gonna go a step further. Many of you may know that linux distros are perhaps some of the least demanding when it comes to hardware, so, here are the top 3 Linux distros that can put the power back into your PPC mac.

openSUSE – openSUSE 11.0, which is sponsored by Novell, is a linux distro that is aimed at the average computer user. It comes with both KDE 4.0 and GNOME 2.22 (Graphical User Interfaces) as included options. However, if you are using openSUSE on a computer more then a few years old you may want to look into installing less demanding, more lightweight UI’s such as Xfce .
Fedora – Fedora offers a more demanding and cutting edge experience as compared to other distros. It is full of unique an intuitive applications and lots of new features that may not show up in other operating systems for many months. Fedora offers a very powerful and elegant interface that is a breeze to both use and learn. Fedora is a very powerful and flexible system with close to two million users worldwide.
Ubuntu – Ubuntu is a very popular distro that gained its fame through its ease of use. Its popularity makes finding support as well as applications very easy. The bad news however is that Ubuntu recently stopped releasing PPC versions of its distro. April of 2008 was when Ubuntu released Hardy Heron (8.04), the last version that supported PPC processors.

Keep in mind that if you intend to install another OS on a computer that you are currently using, you will either need to format (erase) you existing drive or you will need to use a non-destructive partitioner. OS X 10.5 or any mac with Apple’s BootCamp installed can take advantage of non-destructive partitioning. Good luck and have fun.

If you have any comments, or would like to add your input on this matter, please leave it below in the comment section.