PowerPC Dead? or still Thriving?

[McFrostey]

I was in the Xchat asking a question about PPC when my answer was "McFrosty not to discourage you but PowerPC is dead and developers don't care about it"

My question is what do you think? are they Dead or still thriving?



Considering 60% of the post are about PowerPC Linux...
on the Apple Users section :guitar:

[NewsAndHistory]

It's not dead, but I've seen rumors like the one you mentioned in XChat. Fedora Linux still develops a PPC-compatible operating system/Linux distro.

[dai_vernon]

Fedora's PPC support is pretty legendary, and it doesn't seem to be going anyplace, so while it may be leaving the limelight it's not gonna disappear anytime soon.

[stream303]

Well, although ppc is not commercially supported any more, there are still community-based ports from Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse, Gentoo etc that try to keep up with the latest.

I'm not sure what a vote will accomplish, but what you do with ppc is up to you. You'll get a lot of FUD, intentional and unintentional, from those who don't even run the architecture, or have other agendas that have nothing to do with wanting to aid a fellow Linux user, but more to do with Apple politics and marketing - as if Apple were regular readers of these forums and even paid attention to it. :)

Follow your own path when it comes to running what you want on your own hardware. The only vote that really matters is your own.

[ElectroGhandi]

I don't run Ubuntu on my Macs, I run it on my PCs, but I know my PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz with a gig of RAM is hella powerful.

[McFrostey]

I know a vote won't accomplish anything but I just want to see your guys opinion... Thanks for Sharing!

[Doctor J.]

My answer is "C) All Of The Above". Obviously the machines are not dead, and they will run some sort of OS until they stop running or are replaced. However, i don't think many of the FOSS developers care too much for the platform. It's just not as sexy as newer chips. The fact that PPC processors are still being designed and sold today is overshadowed by fact that no general purpose home computer made now uses them. But look where PPC is still being used: supercomputers; minicomputers; embedded versions in many cars, airplanes, and spacecraft; Cisco routers; all major game consoles.

So clearly, there's a lot PPC programming going on. It's just not being done by people who typically volunteer with linux. The ray of light here is the game consoles. The fact that there are already plenty of hackers interested in running linux on their PlayStation3 just about guarantees that some sort of PPC development will continue to come our way, even if it's not as much as we'd like.

[boydrice]

No offense but the choices in your poll don't really make sense. Is PowerPC dead, how do mean? Obviously for people with old macs, or PS3s no. Is PPC thriving, again how do you mean? Obviously in the desktop/laptop market the answer is no, but in the video game business its doing fine. If you are asking from a developer standpoint I'm not one so I wouldn't know. Obviously PPC users are a small minority, then drill-down to PPC users who run Linux and you are talking an even smaller group. There will continue to be PPC users until all the PPC machines give up the ghost. Unless a company chooses to use PPC on desktops and laptops eventually it will disappear from "desktop" landscape.

[jrusso2]

Its dead for Apple, IBM still uses some though.