I retired both of my Mac mini PPC systems to the basement today. They stopped working earlier this year. I guess they caught COVID or old age or something. I’m not looking to transfer my MorphOS license to another machine, I don’t mind buying a new one. I have an X5000 but not the right video card. I got to thinking, soon a ton of cheap x86 Mac mini’s will be on the market because Apple is moving to its own CPU. Wouldn’t it be great if MorphOS X86 supported those machines?

> soon a ton of cheap x86 Mac mini’s will be on the market
> because Apple is moving to its own CPU. Wouldn’t it be
> great if MorphOS X86 supported those machines?

AFAIK, MorphOS/x64 is supposed to support boards/machines that will relatively easily and for a while still be available new when MorphOS/x64 is released.

Perhaps then a machine with a small soc could be configured that looked like a Mac mini?

> Perhaps then a machine with a small soc could be configured
> that looked like a Mac mini?

SoC or discrete components shouldn't really make a difference as long as the on-chip/on-board controllers are supported by MorphOS.

Quote:

Most of them only have Intel GFX (and many really crappy Intel GFX), some come with NVidia (still without dedicated RAM), none with anything ATI.

So while Intel macs have already been dismissed as MorphOS-HW, the Minis do get some extra kicks.....

> none with anything ATI

Indeed, no Intel Mac mini with ATI graphics, but there have been a few with AMD Radeon:

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac-mini-core-i5-2.5-mid-2011-specs.html
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac-mini-core-i7-2.7-mid-2011-specs.html

Supporting Intel Mac mini seems like a no brainer for x86 MorphOS to me. I’m not a OS developer though.

> Supporting Intel Mac mini seems like a no brainer for x86 MorphOS to me.

It would have to be models from 2011, then (see comment #6).

Quote:

And moving away from hopelessly old, ancient HW is perhaps *one* of the reasons to migrate in the first place, so...

Speaking of Mac Mini's, the latest one (the early "Apple silicon" development system) is actually based on *ARM*! Food for thought...?

> moving away from hopelessly old, ancient HW is perhaps *one* of
> the reasons to migrate in the first place

Yes, see comment #2.

> Speaking of Mac Mini's, the latest one (the early "Apple silicon"
> development system) is actually based on *ARM*!

Yes, see comment #1.

I’m glad to report that I was able to bring one of my Mac mini’s back from the dead.

I spoke too soon. I can’t get network access to work.

I have a spare Mac Mini PPC without a PSU. If you have a working power supply it should work. It appears to be an earlier model than my silent upgrade model. Are you interested? (I'll pull it out and install MorphOS unregistered first if you like.)

What’s the price for that mini?

I'd better test it first. If it works, I'll sell it to you.

Cool, thanks, these things are getting old.

Quote:
Bill, before you buy another Mac mini, please note that you might still have networking issues even after you buy a similar model.

You have not provided any details regarding your exact problem. Have you tried wi-fi? Have you tried to connect via ethernet?

For instance, if you struggle to connect via wi-fi, there could be a myriad of reasons that are essentially unrelated to the hardware of your Mac mini. Bad reception is an obvious cause for connection problems. Just because you may see a network in the list of detected networks, that does not mean you can necessarily connect to it. This is especially true if there is strong interference from other networks. (This is also an issue with other platforms and operating systems.)

Yes, I’ve tried WiFi and Ethernet. MorphOS lists both in the network Prefs but they don’t work.

Bad news. Both of my spare Mac Minis are Intel models. The one that came with the PPC model was one of these: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac-mini-core-2-duo-2.26-late-2009-specs.html and what tipped me off was the mini-display-port video.

@ discreetfx

Would you mind uploading a screenshot of your network settings to Google Drive and share the link? It seems somewhat improbable that both the ethernet and wi-fi functionalities are broken at the same time.

Perhaps there is a wrong setting enabled.

Sure, I can do that.

Here’s a couple of pics.

https://ibb.co/1XxZWWz
https://ibb.co/1dgDT8h

Test it also from clean instal ... or live cd for example

This is a clean install.

As the WL0 is marked green it looks as if the mini had connected to your network. Have you looked into the connections on the router's interface. Seems to be rather a network error/misconfiguration.

Have you checked this thread: https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=12977&forum=3

Looks like a similar issue.

[ Editiert durch Zylesea 16.10.2020 - 23:54 ]