Claim your computing freedom

Computing in 2012 is full of more fluff and BS than at any point in the past.  It’s all so pathetic that it sometimes makes me physically cringe.  Not only is most of it silly but it’s also very constricting and limiting.  Too many technologies today force you to be locked into certain OS or hardware.  The only reason the industry gets away with all this is because regardless of people’s displeasure with things they still continue using them.  This is a habit that too many practice and the only way any of us can change this is to change our habits and the devices and/or software we grow attached to.


Hardware, Software and other things

The only thing that I have attached myself to is the PowerPC architecture and this is for no reason other than reliability and longevity.  When you have used something for 18 years and it has never failed you there is no reason to stop using it as long as it can still achieve all you need it to.  In terms of OS X everything after Snow Leopard is covered in horrible.  Since 10.5 is so similar to 10.6 I find it a capable OS option for PowerPC while still not needing Intel hardware.  As a Mac tech I have no faith in 95% of the Intel hardware Apple has produced.  The early stuff in 2006-07 is still to this day the most reliable.  I am seeing a lot of 2009-10 model MacBook and IMac the last few months.  I have seen SATA controllers on unibody MBP just up and die about 4 times so far.  One failed intermittently and the others worked one moment then died the next.  The Mac Pro and Mini are the only current Macs I can recommend to people in good conscience and those are easily the two least purchased.

Not only is much of the newer Intel hardware lacking in quality but Apple has turned MacBook screens into glossy overdone iPad look-alikes.  It’s as if the cast of Jersey Shore helps design things at Apple now.  Everything is covered in a horrible tacky dithered mess.  Anyone with any computing needs beyond basic consumer stuff should be repelled by a dithered glossy screen.  I find them unusable personally and the style is now well saturated in the desktop LCD market also. 

This deals with some of the things I mentioned in my “Why the Sawtooth is the greatest Mac ever” post.  I am referring to choosing a device based on it’s usability rather than it’s aesthetics.  No matter how pretty you find something like a computer or tablet it needs to be a tool before anything else if you ever hope to get any practical use out of it.  If you’re really that obsessed over the look of something then it would be far more practical to have a high res photo printed for your wall above your computer and buy a device that will give you all the computing ability you actually need. 

People need OS and software selection whether they realize it or not.  You never know what needs will come along over the years so having hardware that lasts and offers software flexibility is ideal looking forward. 

All the people still running PowerPC hardware would all be very wise to start adopting Linux into their computing world.  This is the best thing for all of us looking forward because the more of us that use Linux the more the OS will grow on the platform.  Apple dumped the architecture 7 years ago now so it's time for those of us still using it to pave our own computing path at least in regard to achieving new abilities we don't get from old Mac software.  There is no reason to abandon the Mac OS versions our systems can run but in terms of modern secure software Linux is the most logical choice.  BSD is an option also but it is in no way user friendly so anyone cutting their teeth on *nix for the first time is better off on Linux. 

Clinging onto Mac OS and it's associated devices at this point is a bit of a fools game for PowerPC users.  You're just inevitably going to sink further into the New World Order Apple trash can.  More on this in a moment. 


iOS/Android

I can understand the need some have for an iPhone but an iPad is really obnoxiously bad and limited in so many ways.  It may be more capable than an iPhone but as a portable computing option an iPad is one of the most limited and incapable devices that exist in the portable market.  Exactly how much capability are people willing to give up to own a certain device?  Apparently quite a lot. 

A 10 year old PowerBook is actually far more capable than any tablet other than web or h.264 video.  If all someone wants to do on a tablet is video and web then go for it.  You will still be limited to what browsers and technology is available to you.  For those that want to do more than waste time on YouTube and actually need some real computing ability a PowerBook or any portable that allows multiple computer OS is a better option.  iOS is not a legitimate OS and I will argue that to the grave.  It’s really Apples attempt at stroking the lowest common denominator that is the general market trend now and they started it. 

Apple has turned people into apes that are so caught up in dragging their fingers around and using the motion sensor that they don’t realize how much they are getting screwed.  When I say screwed I mean by the price they pay combined with the limitations that come with it.  Is embracing a gimmick or social status symbol worth all you give up?  Is a true computing device like a PowerBook really so much bigger and is flipping a screen up that you cannot drag your fingers across really so bad for all the extra ability it gives you?  You could buy 2-3 quality used laptops for the price of an iPad.  This allows you to shape what OS and software you want working together which puts you in the drivers seat of your computing journey where you belong.  Even the best tablet OS cannot touch a full computer OS in any regard other than touch access.  The truth is that the whole touch technology craze is as much a gimmick as anything else.

I compute so much at home that when I go out I use that as a break from technology.  This is why I don't need portability at all.  For those that truly do need portability you're far better off with a full blown computer like a laptop.  A netbook is also far more capable than a tablet.  


The problem with some PowerPC resources online

It's obvious that anyone who writes PowerPC related content in 2012 does indeed care about the architecture but most of them deal  with things in a way which is influencing the reader to stick to this dead end Apple path.  The MacRumors PowerPC board, Low End Mac and My Mac Collection are good examples of this.  All are done with good intent but they are really just pushing people further down the dead end one way street.  I say that because all they do is point their readers to solutions for making their way in a dwindling market rather than point them to liberating and forward thinking options such as Linux. 

The other aspect of this is that many of these sites and blogs only point people to things and offer little practical knowledge or thinking outside the box in how to get things done other than limited on their way out for PowerPC technologies.  In 2012 you need to offer people practical know how and different ways of thinking and using things because that is what is required these days. 

With rapidly dwindling PowerPC support on OS X people can no longer just get by playing follow the leader any longer by using whatever the industry spits out for them.  If you intend on continuing to use your old Macs you need to think outside the box and learn how to adapt without giving up capability.    We all need to stop adapting methods to keep being a slave to something no longer supported and focus that energy on true alternatives which often use different technologies but produce the same end result. 

I have even seen some of them point people to the modified flash pluggin which made me cringe.  This is still the very non-secure Flash 10 but with a modification to the version it reports so that sites that need 11 or higher will work.  It is still Flash 10 in every way and to recommend this to people is just ignorant and shameful.  The key is to look for flash alternatives and if some day there are none then we should all just stop trying to watch online video on PowerPC.

From what i see around the web only PPC Luddite, iFix Old Macs, PenguinPPC and myself ever deal with true alternatives and future thinking options like Linux.  My comments about the other sites are not to insult but rather to encourage them to look into content that will put some dirt back in the hole rather than dig it deeper.

Apple started leaving us in the dust in 2005 and these days even an iPod shuffle needs an Intel Mac for goodness sake.  Apple left us for dead so I really don't get the PowerPC users who are Apple fanboys to this day.  Stop loving your PowerPC because it's made by Apple and love it instead because it has the best computer architecture ever inside and Apple had very little to do with it's creation. 


Closing thoughts

All of us in the PowerPC community need to focus on what can move our hardware forward and Open Source OS is the best way to do that while still keeping Mac OS around for other needs where security isn’t a concern.  Linux and BSD are the only OS still developed for our platform and the more of us that embrace it the more it will grow.  Simple cause and effect. 

There is a learning curve involved but once you learn Linux or BSD then you have truly empowering computer skills that will give you a clear road directly around any limitations the industry throws at you.  The expression “knowledge is power” is particularly apt for computers.  Gain the knowledge and you have the power to compute the way you want rather than how the industry tells you. 

I’ve got a fever and the only cure is Linux growth on PowerPC.  I think Dan at PPC Luddite is going about things perfectly with his Linux content and we should all look to his amazing example. 

The Linux content here will only grow over time as I am totally dedicated to getting all I can out of it and helping others do so. 

Kupfer

I recently discovered a great Quicksilver alternative for Linux thanks to this post by Dan at PPC Luddite.

Kupfer is very similar to Quicksilver on Mac OS X in both look and behaviour.  For my readers that have installed Lubuntu I highly recommend giving it a try.  My experience with it so far is limited as I just started using it, but as a long time Quicksilver user I find it an almost seamless transition.

For me this makes the Openbox window manager so much more usable because I am not a fan of the menu dominant access.  Kupfer allows me to keep my hands on the keyboard which I prefer in that environment. 

The easiest way to install it is to launch Synaptic or whatever package manager you prefer and search for "kupfer".

Kupfer site: http://engla.github.com/kupfer/

Combine the power of multiple Macs

If you’re like me then you have several systems because of how affordable PowerPC Macs are these days.  The issue many PowerPC users have in 2012 is not having enough power to do something with heavy CPU use and still be able to multitask effectively.  These CPU hungry tasks could be anything from a script heavy site to playing video and it’s nice to be able to do other things without holding back something that needs to use a good chunk of the resources.

It’s nice to be able to browse the web or do whatever while you wait for some heavy lifting to finish up.  Whether you have a G3 or a Quad G5 having spare CPU cycles at your disposal is what will really make any computing experience all it can be.  If you have another system you can use it to take excess load and tasks off your main system. 

The easiest way to do this is with two screens but one is enough thanks to VNC/Remote Desktop technology.  I use a combination of two screens and the built in “ScreenSharing” app in Leopard and I do this on a daily basis with my two main Sawtooth systems.  This allows me to offload anything I want onto my 1.0 GHz system which keeps my 1.8 GHz open for business. 

In certain ways the VNC option is actually more efficient because it keeps everything on one screen while still offloading work to other systems.  The ScreenSharing window gives you a Mac within a Mac somewhat similar to virtualization but better.  What makes this method better is the other OS isn’t running on the same computer like it is in a virtual machine so the two are not slowing each other down besides a tiny bit of resources to keep drawing the remote window.


Methods

Rather than tell you how you should do things I will explain my methods, which can then inspire you to shape these concepts to your own personal needs.  The ideology is to spread load over systems that are not clustered and therefore not limited to cluster software. 

An average computing session for me starts with checking my email which is run on my secondary Sawtooth.  I keep it on a desk which is close to my main system.  Although it has it’s own LCD I normally prefer to access it through ScreenSharing.  The main thinking behind this is that all the tasks I run on the 1.0 GHz are background 24/7 type things and none of them need a lot of attention.

The things I run on it are:

• Apple Mail
• Transmission (bit torrent)
• Disk Drill (data recovery and SMART utility)
• iCal
• MS Word
• Noise (white/pink noise utility)
• iTunes (music server)
• Stickies
• Alarm Clock
• Meteorologist
• Frogblast (intranet client)
• SHXD (direct support intranet server for my clients)
• HandBrake
• Media Converter
• Occasional web browsing

When not using the system via the attached 24” LCD (which is most of the time) I keep the second Sawtooth at 1024x768 which doesn’t take up too much room as a remote window.  None of the apps listed above really need higher than 1024x768  and that size window fits well into 1920x1200 while not hogging too much space.  I use command + tab rather than the dock to get to the app I want.  I also run Quicksilver on the remote system which works great from the remote window.

With all those things running on the 1.0 GHz it allows my 1.8 GHz to be devoted to whatever I am actively doing.  I generally leave it for video playback and web along with the daily image editing I do in Pixelmator.  If I am watching 1080p in CorePlayer  it will use most of the CPU so this is an occasion where anything else I want to do is done in the remote window.  If I am watching 720p or higher I use the remote window to browse the web so it doesn’t hold back the 1.8 GHz.  If I am watching 600p or lower video then my main system can play that fine while I browse without dropping frames.

Think of it as balancing load over multiple systems with your tasks and computing habits rather than within the code.  The remote window within a preexisting system can give you an immense ability beyond what just one can do.  As I mentioned already the only resources the remote window uses are a very small bit of CPU and GPU to draw the window contents.  ScreenSharing never uses more than 3-4% CPU on my 1.8 GHz and less than 2% most of the time.

Having gigabit ethernet really helps a lot but I have gotten by fine on 100BT and .11b wifi in the past.  The advantage of gigabit is that the flow of the remote window will be much smoother. 


Not on Leopard?

If you're running Tiger then you don’t have the built in ScreenSharing app and will need a third party alternative.  When I’m running Tiger I prefer an app called “Chicken” which is a side project from “Chicken of the VNC”.  Chicken is better and was last updated in 2011 but Chicken of the VNC is the only 10.3 Panther option from these developers.  It has not been updated since 2006. 

I use Chicken myself when I have my Storm Trooper B&W G3 running (10.4.11) and I use it to control the 1.0 GHz Sawtooth running Leopard just as I normally would from my 1.8 GHz.


Closing thoughts

I have done this on and off for a long time now but for the last three or more years I do this 100% of the time and find it very productive.  Two single CPU systems working together is the ultimate dual CPU setup since what you do on one doesn’t hold the other back.  No matter how powerful one computer is you still cannot avoid slowing it down with every task you add to it’s resources. I normally just do this with two systems but there is no limit to how many Macs you can use this way.  If the other system is in another room then VNC is the perfect way to utilize it.



Software:
Chicken (10.4.11+) – Chicken of the VNC (10.3.9+)

Lubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) daily builds

It's very good to see the PowerPC builds getting as much attention as the rest on any OS.  The fact that this is a great OS to boot makes it all the better.

These are obviously not final builds so don't expect perfection.  The GUI is a bit more sleek and cleaned up compared to 12.04 which is the current stable long term support version.

Please note any issues or successes in comments so it can help others make sense of issues and more importantly send bug reports through the OS when prompted.  It really helps the developers get things right for as many systems as possible.

Link: 
Lubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) Daily Build 

Warning: Don't attempt to buy CorePlayer!

I heard about this a few weeks back but wasn't sure about the details.  I received an email from a reader today who's money was accepted by them, but he is not able to acquire his copy because Mobihand has now ceased operations.  CorePlayer was one of their products and it had been under heavy neglect for a while.  They never answer anyones emails and 2009 was the last time the app was updated.

The truly sad fact is that you can still go to the CorePlayer site and purchase it.  They still have it setup to sell and take money but they cannot give you your product any longer.  This is so sketchy that it's hard to take. 

Luckily I bought my copy earlier this year when they were still selling it and I have it backed up three times just to be sure I never lose it.  It is sad to see what is the most efficient playback app for PowerPC Macs fall dead.

On OS X each version of CorePlayer is locked to the Mac serial number that was given by the buyer.  I have gotten a few emails about this so I want to really emphasize that you cannot get around this.  If you do not already have a copy of CorePlayer that is registered to one of your Macs then you are 100% out of luck to ever get it to run.  There seems to be a few out there that think some magic wand can be waved to make this limitation go away.  These people need to give up hope because there is no way to access code which isn't open.

So CorePlayer's own dual Mac and product serial method forces this app to die with Mobihand.  Sad but true.

More on Lubuntu

It's been a couple weeks now since I started using this great OS and I have grown to love it more every day.  I make a point to use it for at least 1-2 hours a day because diving right into something new is a better way to learn about it.  This approach may overwhelm some at first but once that passes a lot of things start to really make sense. 

The built in software is complete enough that I only had the need to add 3 apps to make it useful for all I need to do in daily computing.  The apps I felt the need to add are GIMP (image editor), VLC and LibreOffice.  Lubuntu/LXDE include Abiword but I have never been a fan.  LibreOffice is based on OpenOffice and I find it very capable. 

For video playback I really like GNOME Mplayer which is built in but VLC is a must have for me.  Mplayer is a bit more efficient but VLC gives you so much more control over your playback so it's a necessity.  All my Apple Partition Map hard drives with video work perfectly over SMB networking. 

With browsing I have not explored any options outside of the built in FireFox which after updating is at version 15.  It's all I need since it's the most capable and customizable browser on any platform.  Chrome seems to be the current default browser for the x86 version of Lubuntu and where it sits by default in the task bar is a red circle with a line through it on the PowerPC version as anyone who has tried it will know.  I never felt the need to look for a PowerPC alternative on Linux since I much prefer Mozilla browsers. 

The experience has not been without growing pains but for the most part it has really sparked my attention.  After about 6 or 7 years of playing around with Linux on occasion I am now sold on keeping it along side of OS X and BSD from now on.

You should use the Synaptic package manager to find and install all your apps.  The Lubuntu Software Centre is a resource hog and has a less intuitive interface compared to Synaptic in my opinion.  LSC has also crashed on me several times.

Based on my experiences you could get by fine on as low as 128-256 MB RAM which is mostly thanks to the LXDE GUI.  I say that because I have never seen memory consumption go over about 230 MB and that was with 5 apps running and playing a video.  Very impressive for modern software which points to just one of the many best of both world benefits of Linux. 

More on this as my Linux journey continues.

Video on PowerPC: Part 3 - Ripping

Having things just the way you want them is a rare thing in life.  Video ripping is one of those rare have it just the way you want things.  The only limitations are in the software you rip with and the capability of the hardware the video is intended to be played on.  The software you will use for playback should also be taken into consideration so that what you rip will play flawlessly.

In my opinion there are two PowerPC compatible apps on OS X  worthy of keeping in your ripping toolbox, Handbrake and Media Converter.  The Handbrake team ceased PowerPC development during the 0.9.4 - 0.9.5 transition a but Media Converter continues to have G4/G5 support.  Both are very capable and allow fine tuning of rips beyond what anyone would ever really need.  Many will find Media Converter a little more user friendly because once you have all the presets fine tuned just the way you want it’s simply a matter of drag and drop.  Handbrake is a bit more high maintenance in terms of usability but it’s more capable in terms of video filters like deblocking and deinterlacing. 

In regard to audio both have different strengths.  Media Converter has a wider codec range while Handbrake is better at properly dealing with audio channels.  You obviously need to setup how you deal with audio channels based on the audio setup your playback hardware has.  These normally range from 2:1 to 5:1 so be sure you set things according to your needs.  Once you find your preferred settings in either app make a preset so that you only have to do that fine tune once. 

Versions to use

With Handbrake you shouldn't go past version 0.9.3 on Leopard because 0.9.4 and up drop XviD codec and avi wrapper support so they are not nearly as flexible.  0.9.3 was the last build to still offer full FFmpeg and XviD (avi) options alongside h.264.  It also is much more MP3 and AC3 friendly.  Tiger users cannot go past 0.9.1 which is a very solid build also.

For Media Converter just use the most recent build or any version you tend to prefer.  I use the current 1.2 version and other than a few small tweaks I needed to make the built in presets are quite good out of the box.  Once it’s all setup the way you want all you have to do is open it and drag whatever you have to rip onto the window.  Easy as pie.  Not that I can bake a pie but that’s beside the point.

A practical approach and the hardware in question

No matter if you're ripping DVD's or re-ripping compressed video there is a sweet spot for all G4 and G5 hardware.  Anyone on a slower G4 with the will and patience to watch something their hardware can't handle can down-rip videos to a codec and resolution more fitting their hardware playback capability.

Before doing any large quantity of ripping it’s best to first figure out the codec/resolution sweet spots for your playback hardware.   As noted in the playback articles you need to work within the capability of your hardware.  It would be quite a waste to spend days or even weeks ripping stuff that won’t even play well on your Mac. 

In terms of what hardware is suitable for ripping it would be wise to only use G4/G5 on OS X.  A G3 could take over a week to rip what a slower G4 could rip in a day or two.  Just like with playback Altivec has a big part in the performance of ripping.  It’s just the kind of operation that Altivec excels at as well as L3 cache.  I use my secondary Sawtooth to do all my ripping and it’s equipped with a G4 1.0 GHz 7455B which has 2 MB DDR L3 and it rips video at least 10-20% faster than the G4 1.25 GHz 7447A in my old PowerPC mini did.  There are many tasks a computer does that L3 doesn’t help at all with but anything that deals with heavy lifting a large file is where it really earns it’s keep on the CPU card.

The G4’s which will struggle most with ripping are actually more in the mid range in regard to clock speed.  The early eMacs and iMac G4 are somewhat crippled with a 7450 chip that has only 256 KB L2 and no L3.

A laptop is not the best piece of hardware to use because they are simply not built for running at 100% CPU consumption for the hours or even days it takes to rip a big que of video.  Towers can do this with ease for months if needed.  If all you have is a portable then simply use it in moderation for ripping for it's own sake but a nice cheap dual 450-500 MHz Gigabit G4 would do an admirable job for well under $100 and could also be used for file serving, torrents or whatever else you think of.

Ripping quality and time

Once you know the codec and resolution sweet spots for your hardware the thing to consider with each thing you rip is what bitrate is the best all round for the video and audio.  Things like animation can get by with a low video bitrate and video with a large amount of dialogue can get by with lower audio quality. 

If your hardware deals with h.264 playback well enough then you can get by with lower bitrates because it’s inherently less blocky than DivX.  It also takes 2-3x longer to rip and 60%+ more CPU to playback.  My fastest hardware is my 1.8 GHz Sawtooth which can rip DivX (FFmpeg) faster than real time vs about 2x real time on h.264.

I have ripped h.264 animation as low as 300 kb video and 64 kb audio which actually looked very good considering.  The key was keeping a decent resolution such as 480p or higher.  This ripped in real time or faster and the video only used about 150 MB per hour.  Keep in mind that this low quality would look horrible with anything but animation or if I used DivX rather than h.264.

For typical video like films or television shows h.264 can be kept under 1000 kb/sec and look amazing.  The 700-1000 kb range is perfect all round for quality and low file sizes. 

With DivX the advantages are many.  It rips faster, plays back with less CPU and there are a few great tricks to make up for the slight increase in blocks and artifacts.  I encode all my DivX to be at least 400-600p which when combined with using the deblocking filter and 1000-1500 kb makes for very nice looking video.  I use either MP3 or AAC audio at 128 kb minimum which I push to 160-256 kb for video that has a lot of music in it.  You can go as low as 64 kb for pure dialogue content but I only do that with animation. 

People with G4’s under 1.0 GHz would be wise to stick with the FFmpeg option in Handbrake.  It rips the fastest and looks just as good as XviD which takes about 30-40% longer to rip.  FFmpeg in Handbrake is very close to DX50 DivX and I am a big fan of it.  It’s not only the fastest codec in Hanbrake but it also performs better than Media Converters DivX preset even after several attempts to make it faster.  Handbrake also allows you to put an iOS compatible mp4/m4v wrapper on FFmpeg which brings DivX efficiency to iPod/iPad/iPhone.

The moral of the quality story is that it’s a combination of hardware playback capability and personal preference.  Find your own niche that makes both you  and your hardware happy and stick to it. 

The best setting ranges for different hardware

G4 single 350–933 MHz

DivX:  200–500p (vertical pixels) @ 800-1500 kb/sec with 64 – 256 kb audio

h.264: 180–360p @ 500-1000 kb/sec with 64 – 256 kb audio

G4 single 1.0 GHz+ - Any dual G4 - Single G5

DivX: 400–720p @ 800-1500 kb/sec with 128 – 256 kb audio

h.264: 360–600p @ 800-1200 kb/sec with 128 – 256 kb audio

Dual/Quad G5

DivX:  720-1080p @ 1200-2000 kb/sec with 128 – 256 kb audio

h.264:  600–1080p @ 1200-1500 kb/sec with 128 – 256 kb audio

As I already mentioned you need to find your own niche in the video settings but the above guidelines reflect good overall results.  They are all based on leaving some CPU free for other tasks when playing these rips back.  If you want to go a bit higher feel it out and see how it goes.  Trial and error is a great way to learn. 

Software

HandBrake

Tiger (0.9.1) - Leopard (0.9.3)

Media Converter 1.2 (10.4.11 or higher)

32-bit - 64-bit - Presets

Lubuntu 12.04 is very impressive

Last weekend I setup my Linux Sawtooth to dual boot Ubuntu and Lubuntu.  As I wrote about last week I used the GNOME GUI in Ubuntu to replace Unity which has really improved performance and the overall usefulness of the OS.  Running Lubuntu makes Ubuntu (even with GNOME) look like a sick dog.  The difference is very much night and day on the G4 400 MHz chip.  When running Openbox there isn't even a proper comparison that could be made because the difference is so vast.

For those who don't know of Lubuntu it's a lower resource and more streamlined version of Ubuntu but with LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) and Openbox as the built in GUI's rather than Unity/GNOME.  LXDE is a very capable GUI while still without any unneeded fluff.   All the built in apps are very light on the system but if all this isn't light enough for you just logout and go into Openbox.

Openbox is about as bare bones a GUI as you will find but it screams like a banshee.  It makes this old Sawtooth seem like a modern system which is enough to cause at least a few to give Lubuntu a go I would hope.  When it comes to being new to Linux this is a very good place to start.  All the Ubuntu based OS are all very easy to install because they provide a full GUI install if you download the desktop images.  Debian and Mint are both very solid OS but they are not nearly as easy to install for a Linux newbie.  I luckily have command line skills from BSD which has helped me a great deal but for those that don't these GUI installs are very helpful.  A person who is Mac only is used to the GUI installs and most would have no idea what to do at any type of text prompt so the most seamless way into the open source OS world is a nice easy 100% GUI install. 

I would put performance about 20-30% faster than Tiger/Leopard when running the LXDE GUI but when running Openbox the performance is noticeably better than that.  Linux is the best way for people running PowerPC hardware in the modern world to get modern secure software where it really matters like the OS and browser.  No need to give up Mac OS either because you can dual boot as you make the transition to Linux. 

The performance is so good on my 400 MHz that I am contemplating making my 1.8 GHz G4 dual boot this and Leopard.  Lubuntu also seems to have better PowerPC support vs Ubuntu which makes sense because it's geared for older hardware.  Give it a try because it may just convert you when you see how well your old Mac can run new software. 


Download:
Lubuntu 12.04 PowerPC (G3/G4/G5)

 
More Info:
Lubuntu - LXDE - Openbox

SeaMonkey 2.12 PowerPC

After using this for a few days now I am pretty much convinced this is the best overall Mozilla option for OS X 10.5 PowerPC.

For a couple years I have been using Camino and TenFourFox/AuroraFox in combination.  The reason for this is that Camino is much more efficient in terms of CPU consumption and memory footprint but it's stuck on older Mozilla tech.  TenFourFox and AuroraFox both use the modern Mozilla tech which helps make the entire web work as it should but they need work on their resource hogging.

TenFourFox is a resource hog because even when idle and with no windows open it can still use 20-30% CPU under 10.5 at least.  AuroraFox really improved on this for 10.5 users but it's still far from perfect in regard to using CPU when it doesn't even need to. 

SeaMonkey combines the best of both these worlds.  Very efficient use of the system while offering Mozilla 5.0/Firefox 15.  Too good to be true right?  It isn't.  I am slightly blown away to be honest while at the same time sad that I didn't try this sooner when these PowerPC builds first came out in June.  I would say it is on par or even slightly better than Camino with CPU consumption when active or idle.

The only knock against it is that it really lacks any type of proper bookmark importing but other than that it's the champ of how things should be in a PowerPC browser.

10.5 (Leopard) is the only OS supported.

Links:
Download - About Screenshot

Kill the spindle monster

Anyone who is anywhere near the video nerd I am does a massive amount of downloading, collecting and backing up.  Those who still buy DVD spindles but have evolved past needing to burn DVD's to watch video do so to archive their collections and watch the video from a hard drive instead.  This is clearly a good route for anyone wanting to keep their collection (or at least part of it) in one place.  This method allows very efficient access to your video collection rather than physically looking through a massive amount of DVD's.

The natural disaster which struck a very important hard drive parts factory in Asia was about 2 years ago now and for the last few months drives are finally starting to really come down in price.  This now makes it a better investment to buy 2 TB hard drives since the equivalent in optical media storage is now more expensive.  A 100 spindle of quality single layer (still not archive grade) DVD -/+ R is $30-45 these days which equals 439 GB in real world space.  Archive grade optical media is at least 15-20 % more expensive.  It would take 4.14 spindles to equal a 2 TB drive which formats to 1.82 TB.  Even if you use the 30 dollar low end of the spindle price scale it would come to over $120.  A  2 TB WD Green can be bought on sale these days for $80-90.

My method these days is to use HD's for both collecting for playback and also archiving all my video.  Not only is this option cheaper in the long run but it is far more convenient to drag 1.82 TB of stuff to a drive over time to back it up rather than burning 400+ discs.  Another crucial fact to consider is that a drive which is kept stored away unpowered and unmounted on a computer will live almost forever because you never put any wear on it.  A drive that is powered on 24/7 can live between 3-7 years normally so imagine how long one will live if only running for a couple hours a couple times a week when backing up video.  Burned optical media that isn't archive grade can often lose it's data integrity after a few years.  It happens more than most would think.

It's time to slay the spindle monster and embrace the convenience and longevity of using hard drives as both active storage and an archive medium.  All my hard drives are dedicated to one or the other.  I based this around the concept of video as thats what I use most of my storage for but these same methods can be adopted for any type of mass data backup need.

This is where a hard drive dock like the Thermaltake BlacX Duet I have really comes in handy.  No need for external enclosures (although I have 2) since I can just plug a drive into the dock when needed.  Since the Duet model I have holds 2 drives it's also a great piece of hardware to have for mirroring drives.  When unused I keep my archive drives in a parts closet and in their original anti-static bags.