Is Copland necessary?

[3rdalbum]

I've just downloaded Xubuntu 7.04 PPC with the intention of creating Copland from it.

But it seems to be an excellent PowerPC distribution - my iMac's screen started up immediately which it never did before under straight Xubuntu, there's compositing support in XFCE immediately, my Mac partitions were recognised and mounted out-of-the-box, and the only bug I've found in it was one that I couldn't fix in Copland CP! It's reasonably fast, too.

It looks like the community PowerPC team has created something very impressive; not to mention the XFCE/Xubuntu team. Frankly people, I can't see anything that I can do to improve on this. My wish was for PowerPC users to be serviced properly by a distribution which understands the pitfalls of working on this platform; it looks to my superficial eye like this has already been achieved.

Are PowerPC users left wanting of anything, other than a precompiled Gnash?

Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased and very impressed. But I'm at a loss and I have to reconsider whether I can really add anything to Xubuntu PowerPC.

[reh4c]

3rdAlbum,
When I tried to install Copland beta a few weeks ago, I had some problems with the installer. (Sorry, but I can't remember the exact issue). Anyway, I went ahead and installed 7.04 on my iBook. Out of all the laptops that I've tested, it was the first time the community ATI driver installed automatically and Desktop Effects worked with the click of a button (a few too many bugs keep me from running it). Suspend worked quite well...a few bugs every now and then and a warning like "your notebook failed to suspend properly"??? However, I've been extremely impressed with Feisty on my iBook. I commend you very much for wanting to make the ultimate Linux PPC distro. However, as you've noted, *buntu has exceeded many expectations as a community-driven distro. A separate PPC distro. may not be necessary. With your computing talent, I would ask your assistance in tweaking some aspects of desktop integration or fixing unique bugs for PPC Gutsy 7.10. Maybe you could work primarily on PPC specific *buntu issues/bugs.
My Linux skills are limited, but I try to spread the word about Linux and Ubuntu. Also, I try to report and provide feedback on bugs. That's the least I can do. Thanks for all of your hard work! :D

[pxwpxw]

The question is too hard for me to answer. I dont know if it needs to be necessary to do it.
So I will just ramble on for a while to keep the thread going because it deserves attention. Dont take this too seriously.Thats a splendid effort in getting Copland off the ground.

I have downloaded Copland and seeded it 150% ; not using Copland - I couldnt get the network to go, and I dont like live cds, so I did not try very hard.

Desktop-wise, xfce4 on feisty or debian etch suits me, because it is simple, clear and does basic stufff, and I can fiddle with it a bit, and it doesnt annoy me like kde and gnome. It has a few minor irritations. I have 4 installations on 3 macs I think. Macosx leaves them all for dead for business use, but it bores me. Not to mention windows xp.

Seems to me it is a very hard task to put together a new distribution that is all things to all users and machines, especially if it is a live cd. DIY users like the option of a range of desktop and display managers from mini to maxi - fluxbox to kde and gnome, others want it all there and working, others have very limited funds and so on. So which group to aim for? And how many are there?

Apple powermacs are now history, they are great machines but they are not going anywhere, but software marches on. It would be great to find a fully debugged and reliable basic ( command line ) package for existing powerpcs (from oldworld to new) with some capability to handle a bit more development of dektops and applications, i.e. for me, a sort of faultless xubuntu (for a g5 or g4), with a good mini version for a powerpc7300.

I dont know what Gnash is either.

[Auria]

The idea behind Copland is great, but if you can just get in the PPC Ubuntu team and help fixing bugs, wouldn't it be easier for you and more profitable for everyone?

An idea behind Copland was to make it look like mac os [9] and i really dislike this idea - if i want something that looks like a mac, i will use a mac. When i use linux i expect a different system and am fine with that.

So perhaps Copland could work if there is demand from mac users for a mac-looking distro, but otherwise i think helping ubuntu get better might give the same result only easier and faster

[3rdalbum]

It's settled then: I will contribute to the PowerPC Ubuntu community in better ways. Oh well, Copland was a fun project but very difficult to keep the distro stable and working coherently. I think the OS 9-style desktop was also a good idea, really; I mean, KDE has a Windows-style desktop and not too many people complain about that :-)

[anurse]

Let me say thank you for the work. And, I agree: the OS 9 style desktop was a wonderful idea. Perhaps ... I could be an alternative desktop via the PPC community. Again, thank you.

[Auria]

Well yes OS 9 desktop was a great idea for many people, but for me it just was counter-productive.

Hard to please everyone ;)

[stmiller]

I think Edgy was a disaster for PowerPC: nothing worked right. And if that was the road Ubuntu PPC was going to take, I'd say yes we need something better. But now Feisty is a good release, and everything works! So let's see how Gutsy shapes out.

[walter_f]

Let me say thank you for the work. And, I agree: the OS 9 style desktop was a wonderful idea. Perhaps ... I could be an alternative desktop via the PPC community. Again, thank you.

anurse:
Agreed and agreed. Couldn't agree more.

3rdAlbum:
Considering the classic Mac UI (OS 7 to 9) has been clearly the best user interface concept ever on any platform (straight and slim, among other merits), your work in this field should not disappear.

There should be room for it in the Xubuntu or Ubuntu editions, as an option at least.

Thank you again for all your efforts.

Regards to all,

Walter.

[Auria]

Considering the classic Mac UI (OS 7 to 9) has been clearly the best user interface concept ever on any platform

I don't want to start a flame war, but please don't state opininons as fact. this interface that works well for you would be a disaster for my workflow.

[walter_f]

I don't want to start a flame war, but please don't state opininons as fact. this interface that works well for you would be a disaster for my workflow.

I didn't understand your posting as a bait at all...

Actually, I was primarily referring to the visual qualities of the interface elements, like good contrast, no eye-candy, etc.

Sorry for not having made this clear.

Regards,

Walter.

[aantn]

Good job anyway.

Canonical's PPC support depends on the number of people that are actively developing it. I think that you'll be a great help in that regard.

[3rdalbum]

I think I should turn my attention to packaging for PowerPC :-)

In line with this, here's the second Debian package I've ever made: the AiffInterchange program from Copland. As it's written in Python, it will install on other architectures too.

[3rdalbum]

And here's HFS Browser... this Debian packaging stuff sure is easier than I thought. (They don't conform to Debian policy, but they should work fine regardless).

As with the previous package, it will install and run on any architecture, but the bit which shows you the HFS and HFS+ partitions only works on PowerPC.

[pxwpxw]

Does it resize a well?

[3rdalbum]

Does it resize a well?

It doesn't write to HFS / HFS + at all at this stage - it just allows you to browse and copy files from HFS and HFS+. I'm still working on it :-)