Will it be possible to run MorphOS on a stock Apple G4 400MHz G4 Cube with 22" Apple Cinema Display? Thomas

Only Mac Mini G4 is officially supported from Apple hardware for now but there are people here who might elaborate more since it seems that support for PowerMac G4 and PowerBook G4 is coming soon...

Interesting question though, a quirky machine that cube was... It would make a nice MorphOS box although maybe a bit slow...

At the moment there are no plans to support this piece of hardware. They seem hard to get as well, so first of all we need to get access to such a machine. For now the focus is on more capable hw.

Out of curiosity, I tried to run MOS 2.4 on my upgraded Cube (it pretty much is near mac-mini spec. :P)

Not surprisingly, it didn't work.

A few months ago I managed to get hold of a top-of-the-line (2005) PowerBook G4 (1.67Ghz), and would also like to be able to run MorphOS on it. On the MorphOS ML I was told (by one of the developers, I think) that the only thing not working for the PowerBook was 3D GFX of the built-in ATI Mobility Radeon 9700.

Now I can live with that just fine, if I can get the rest of MOS 2.4 (or higher) working on the PowerBook. What would it take to get that going?

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An official release with PowerBook support would probably be your best bet. I think there might be a bit more missing than 3D support for the radeon. But another option is to add support for the PowerBook yourself, let us know if you figure out how to do that.

I remember the developer said (on the MorphOS ML) that 2D for that GFX card was working just fine - just no 3D. As far as booting the PowerBook from the MorphOS v2.4 CD goes, I seem to remember him saying it shouldn't be that much trouble (I might be wrong, too bad I lost most of my MorphOS ML with a stupid action from myself - if someone does a search on 'PowerBook' or 'wlamee' in the MOS ML, it should come up as an answer on one of my last mails).

If I try to boot the PowerBook G4 from the MorphOS v2.4 CD, I get a grey screen with two lines of text, 'Quark/OpenFirmware' and '_'. After that nothing happens. If someone (maybe the MOS developers?) can get me any further on this, I would greatly appreciate it (and buy another MOS license, of course).

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Right, that would be because it does not detect the system you're booting it on as a Mac mini, do keep in mind that PowerBook support has not been announced yet. I think maybe you've read too much into some replies you got on the ML. I certainly don't recall any developer stating what you seem to indicate.

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There is simply no way to run MorphOS 2.4 on PowerBook. It only is intended to work on Mac mini, Pegasos1/2 and Efika.

Do the devs even improve on the legacy ports, if so, I'd say it is almost a waste to improve those ports so much when there are so many models of macs to port to. I'm by no means alienating the owners of the efika and pegs, nor the devs, but it is kind of backsliding to do much more than make a few new drivers and compile the OS for those platforms. And also, why will you support the peg 1 and peg 2 g3 if not to support the powermac g3 and ibook g3? They have OF and I would gladly buy a developer one in a few months if they were up to it, or for that matter, any other mac models, even a single core powermac g5 if a few other members would go in on it?

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Perhaps because the code to support that hardware is already in place? I cannot imagine there is much incentive to start writing drivers etc. for old inferior hardware.

that makes sense, never thought of that.

Ok, understood. What are the current chances of this [a PowerBook-compatible MOS release] happening sometime in the (hopefully near) future?

I think the PowerBook G4 should stand quite a good chance in world of second hand PPC Mac hardware:
- The last PowerBooks were G4s, opposite to only the very first MacMini being a PPC version.
- G4 PowerBook features are max 2GB of RAM, an internal harddisk of (currently) max. 320GB, external USB2, Bluetooth2+EDR, Wireless 802.11g / Firewire 400 & 800, gigabit copper network, DL DVD burning, built in speakers & microphone, S-Video out, composite out, DVI out (and this is dual-link DVI, so it can drive the Apple Cinema HD 30" at 2560x1600 simultaneously with 1680x1050 on the laptop, both in full colour)
- AND it's a laptop.

I just did a search for 'powerbook g4 17' on eBay Germany and UK, there's a couple of nice choices there. I think that quite a few people would like that. It would be the MorphOS laptop then ...

[ Edited by wlamee on 2010/1/18 23:02 ]

IMHO?PowerMacs are better choice than Cubes because you can only fit a new gfx card and you are stuck with USB1.1... not fun. It's better to invest that time supporting better Apple hardware like powerbooks or big towers...

I would prefer AMP support for dual machines rather than Cube support.

wlamee
Hopefully there will be a PB mac version of morphos 2.x soon. It would be fun to hack around with.. I love this PB g4 1.25ghz especially since it runs passive cooling no fans! 1gb Ram and Radeon 9600 gfx!

@wlamee

the 15" 1.5ghz pb g4 uses ultra ata 100mbit, 48-bit lba makes maximum size: 128 petabytes.

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I suggest not to expect that before late this year. Maybe we will experience a nice surprise by the team, but expect the least to get not disappointed.
The cubes are pointless IMHO - old and rather expensive.

I think these are your options: If you want a little, cute box, get a mini.?If you want expandability get a Pegasos or Power mac G4. If you have a Powerbook use it with OS X or/and just have loads of patience. If you happen to own an Efika, do something special with it.
I am quite confident we will see a release for the PowerBook, but I think it will take quite a while still. Next update (spring? maybe around eastern?) will bring support for Power Mac G4 and probably some selected eMac G4 revisions.

> IMHO?PowerMacs are better choice than Cubes

The Cube is a specific PowerMac model.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP116

> because you can only fit a new gfx card

You can also upgrade the CPU and RAM for instance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube#Modifications_and_upgrades

> the 15" 1.5ghz pb g4 uses ultra ata 100mbit, 48-bit lba makes maximum size: 128 petabytes.

1. It's 100 MByte, not MBit.
2. All PowerBooks since November 2002 use Ultra ATA/100 with 48-Bit LBA.
3. Largest 2.5" HDD with PATA connector is 320 GB.

my bad, I had no idea of that... I'll have to get one eventually, my 80gig is running out slowly..

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They sell on eBay all the time for cheaper than Mac Minis so there are tons out there for sale cheap. But yes, it is older and slow than minis so I do understand. Would be cool though. An MorphOS Cube.

> Would be cool though. An MorphOS Cube.

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=654246

Intesting, I bought a boxed Cube for not that much recently, I shall try it this weekend.

G4 Cube is actually the only machine we left enabled in MorphOS 2.7 but didn't really promote it due to lack of audio and proper network support. MorphOS 2.7 CD should boot ok from it, though. Even with the ATI Rage card various Cubes have.

Everything apart from network and sound* seems to be working from CD I shall try installing it to the hard drive..

*Cube has no onboard sound but uses an external USB sound card/speakers things, I don't have them, so even on MacOSX my G4 cube is silent...

It didn't seem to like dual boot, but I think that was more to do with a bigger then 128MB hard drive that was fitted, but a single boot works great, with the exception of the network card of course. 5.1 Powermac apparently.

[ Edited by stephen_robinson 12.08.2011 - 21:43 ]