Oolite Bulletins

Have to admit I don't like the MacBook quite as much as my old iBook, the keyboard isn't as nice and I prefer the older screen format of the iBook. But it got to the point that a lot of web sites didn't work properly, a lot of software was really old versions because PPC compatibility has been dropped, etc. etc. so I had to bite the bullet.

Now I just have to persuade myself to sell the iMac and the iBook, since I currently seem to own six computers...

ClymAngus wrote:

We all need to buy ourselves some nice new computers don't we? (Me included, I'm still keeping 2 ppc macs running) thing is I've lost the love for apple. They used to be such a better company than they are now. I'm finding a lot of things going that way. Google are slowly becoming evil too.

Problem is I really dislike windows and I'm unsure I have the brain to scratch build a linux box.

Google went full-on evil years ago.. and Apple.. well, the wrong path began there way back when Jobs eff'd Woz over..

If you go with a good distribution, Linux is pretty user-friendly these days.. what precisely do you mean by "scratch build a linux box"? Building from parts, or just the installation and setting up?

(And you can always just nuke OSX and install Linux on one of your Macs.. dual-booting them is a PITA, but a straight over-write is easy)

Maybe you could try running linux on one of thsoe powerpc macs ?

Thius guide should give you an idea what you will ecnounter :
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCFAQ#General_Questions

I've been thinking about linux for a couple of days, but it may be more practical to sell them both on. I'm trying to declutter, several rarely-used computers really don't help.

Further to this - someone on Freecycle gave me an iMac G5! Needed a hard disk, WiFi and a VERY good clean (the previous user must have been a smoker) but once I've finished I'll see what'll run. But it'll be a few days, I'm waiting for a disk cradle to arrive from the USA, and while it works with the disk held in by strips of Meccano, I don't want to tempt fate by using it more than I have to - amongst other things, the cradle incorporates an important temperature sensor.

No, I don't know why either...

What I could also do with is OSX 10.5, the retail version that supports PPCs. But it's like gold-dust, I've already been outbid twice on eBay.

Forgot to say I got a legit copy of 10.5 - doesn't really seem to make a huge difference to performance, but it's a nicer interface on the whole. The drive holder arrived today and I just finished working on the G5; a huge amount of cleaning was needed, inside as well as out. I suspect it was somewhere that there was a lot of grease around, also smokers (and there were blobs of candle wax too!), but I now have a 500gb drive (only £15 from CEX), temperature monitoring, 2 GB RAM and WiFi. Also Bluetooth via a tiny USB pod from Poundland. Not sure yet what I'm going to do with it - probably pass it on to family, or sell it if nobody wants it.

ffutures wrote:

Have to admit I don't like the MacBook quite as much as my old iBook, the keyboard isn't as nice and I prefer the older screen format of the iBook. But it got to the point that a lot of web sites didn't work properly, a lot of software was really old versions because PPC compatibility has been dropped, etc. etc. so I had to bite the bullet.

Now I just have to persuade myself to sell the iMac and the iBook, since I currently seem to own six computers...

Following on from this, the Macbook turns out to have other problems, it's going back to the seller; I'm getting a MacBook Pro instead, the 7,1 version, which will hopefully be a bit better!

OK, that's a HUGE improvement. For some reason it doesn't appear to be possible to adjust the gamma, but everything else is working well. And I have joystick without any pesky driver program!