After running Mac OS X as my primary desktop operating system since 2001, I’ve determined that I am bored with it. Even with Mac OS X Leopard around the corner, I am not very excited. Certainly not $129 excited, anyways. I’m tired of everything just working flawlessly in Mac OS X. I feel like I haven’t been learning anything new about operating systems lately, since there is not much of a need for me to tweak or debug things in it. There isn’t a lot of experimentation in Mac OS X, because by the time you have a feature available to you, it’s been debugged and blogged about for two years already. Kind of boring.
some of the proprietary apps I rely on…
Yesterday, Ubuntu Linux 7.10 was released. I’m running an older version as my desktop at work, and it works fairly well. It stays out of my way when I don’t want to experiment, but has all sorts of neat features waiting under the hood for when I want to learn more. This got me thinking, that maybe I could install it on my PowerMac G5 at home. This is a particular challenge, because the PowerMac G5 is quite unique: It doesn’t use Intel processors like the new Macs, nor does it use 32-bit PowerPC processors like the old Macs. It’s powered by two IBM PPC970 processors, similar to the IBM OpenPOWER machines, and has an unofficial port of Ubuntu 7.10 available.
The problem with running Linux on such a strange platform is that it really limits your application availability to open-source software. Almost all proprietary software for Linux runs on x86 machines only. I can’t run Mac applications, because Mac On Linux only supports older 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh computers. I can’t emulate Mac or Windows applications with VMWare Workstation, because it doesn’t have an Intel processor like the new Macs. One alternative I have that I never had before was using online web applications to supplant the lack of native software.
So, I began making a list of proprietary applications I rely on, and my planned alternative if any:
- Adobe Flash Player → Gnash
- Bibble Pro → ???
- Delicious Library → LibraryThing (Web)
- Eye-One Match → ???
- Google Earth Pro → NASA World Wind
- Graphic Converter → GIMP
- iTunes → Banshee
- OmniGraffle → Dia
- Photomatix Pro → ???
- Skype → ???
- Textmate → Vim
Going with Linux on an rare architecture is going to be difficult, but at least I already rely on several open-source applications, such as Firefox and OpenOffice, so it won’t be that much of a change for me. I think a good goal for running Linux on the G5 will be to last one month without rebooting into Mac OS X. The biggest challenge will be the change in photography software, as I don’t have Bibble or Photomatix pro available. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t have an incompatible hardware for now.
Have any recommendations for alternative software packages to try?
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