I am thinking about buying one of these. Comes with licensed MorphOS 2.7, 128MB video, 128MB ram. Tell me, is the 128MB on these just too low to do any computing with? Meaning, web browsing, playing a MorphOS game, watching a DVD connected via USB port from external USB DVD drive, things like that.

Is this EFIKA 5200B board reliable and a nice little setup to tinker with MorphOS?

tj

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I have one, it was my first MorphOS experience and I still like it for its small size and low power usage.

The USB is slow and sometimes buggy, but for the most part, the Efika 5200b is a good low end starter system for MorphOS, with only a few limitations. It is most likely NOT a system that anyone would be happy using as their only computer.

If the offer is really really cheap (like in the cost og the licence+postage), your on a tight budget AND don't have the space for a tower system it might make sense.

Even the lowest supported Powermac G4 will outperform it by quite a margin on the CPU-stuff and those can be bought for less than 50$. Add a decent Radeon-GFX-card (most will come with an Ati-Rage) and you'll have a system crushing the efika in any aspect.

If you are concerned about space you might want to into a MacMini, the 32MB-VMEM models are quite cheap, and not useing enhanced-layers is the better compromise than having the limited processing power and main memory of the Efika.

There are offcourse the 1.5GHz,64MB-VRAM MacMinis which are IMO the best HW to use MorphOS on (at least at the moment) but these tend to still catch some price when offered.

Or in short:
Better check your options on other supported HW.

@macsociety:

The EFIKA is a nice geek toy, and although it has quite limited resources, you could do some amazing tasks with it. But especially the limited RAM is a real downer, IMHO MorphOS really needs a system with 256MB RAM or more. Additionally, the EFIKA only has USB 1.1, so DVD playback via USB will be a pain, if even possible.

As most other ppl already said the Efika has its own charm, but is rather limited by the RAM amount. For most tasks the 128 MB RAM is enough, except webbrowsing with OWB and viewing high res pictures. Showgirls fails on 8 MP pics on Efika, when using OWB you always must monitor the available RAM. Some sites are too heavy to get loaded completely.
The hdd interface is also ery slow.
While my main machine is a G4/1500 I use mine quite a lot, it is my MorphOS maschine at the other appartment. Especially OWB performs rather nicely on it (if it doesn't run out of RAM that is!!), even youtube is pretty useable (if it doesn't run out of ram again...) Which is for such a little and low end computer a nice thing.
I use mine mostly for emails, browsing, as jukebox, for Hollywood, website maintaining (CubicIDE and ftp) watch my photos (downscaled) und such. It all works, but with constraints.
Most of the fun of an Efika is the tinkering around, if you just want to use a system, I 'd rather suggest a Mac G4. Way faster and more RAM.


[ Editiert durch Zylesea an 2011/3/10 12:44 ]

> my main machine is a G5/1500

;-)

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Oops

-1

@ Macsociety
if you happen to be from the US there is a Powermac G4/733 waiting for a new owner for only 20 (twenty!) US$.
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7747&post_id=82291&order=1&viewmode=flat&pid=82276&forum=38#82291

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A G5/500 ??

It was my first MorphOS experience, the Efika. And I hated it. USB is buggy, UAE barely useable, not enough ram for all the eyecandy ... in my opinion nothing for a new user.

I am very happy with the powermac. As someone else says here, even the oldest, slowest supported one is visually faster if you have a Radeon in it. And you can upgrade them when you have the cash for it later on.

The Efika is still the only hardware I use for MorphOS - mainly due to my lack of space for any other computer. Although I'm already prepared for a switch to MorphOS on PowerBooks if/when that happens. In my experience, MorphOS on Efika has improved a lot since 2.0 and I'm quite satisfied with 2.7 The most intensive application I occasionally run is OWB - it's fine as long as I don't get carried away opening tab after tab... It'd be nice to watch some reasonably high-res video on it without the audio sync issues but that's not really a big deal for me.

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I agree completely, but as others have stated, if someone is going to buy a system to run MorphOS, the Efika is not a good choice, unless the price is almost free, since most people can find cheap G4 PowerMacs, eMacs, or MacMini's that are much more capable at running MorphOS. The only advantage the Efika has is that it can still be found and purchased brand new, but then you are paying more that what you could get a better performing G4 Mac for.

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[ Edited by Velcro_SP 06.09.2011 - 07:22 ]