Re: Let's start a survey on our userbase

On 2025-09-24 at 10:03 John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
> I'm not sure actually what you're trying to achieve with this discussion.
> 
> Is this trying to get us to stop what we're doing?
No, not at all. What you're doing is great, and I thank you for it. If 
anything I would like to make other developers consider PowerPC more. 
But, again, you're the wrong audience since that's exactly what you do, 
to the best of your abilities.

My point is the following: I've been using Linux, Gentoo Linux 
specifically, since the early 2000s. I came from an Intel Pentium III 
<1GHz 32-Bit to PPC32 (a G4). It was impressive how easy it was to 
transition from Little Endian to Big Endian, just copy my /home, and 
move on as if it would be nothing... Instead I had changed from IA-32 to 
PPC32. I was very happy (late 2000s). I then updated to 64-Bit PowerPC, 
a PowerMac G5, and this is when I started to have more and more 
problems. Software wasn't available (Java, only the binary IBM build), 
didn't run as expected or didn't compile. Overall, PPC64 was more of a 
hazzle -- with Gentoo Linux! -- than was e.g. x64. For example, I had 
frequent issues with kernel updates (always cutting edge) and driver 
software (like nouveau, radeon and stuff like mesa). I then transitioned 
to x64 in the early 2010s. (Gentoo is time consuming as it is, on PPC64 
even more so.)

An attempt to get back to my G5 on Gentoo showed how hard it had gotten. 
Kernels were not working (I had to use an older, "G5-tested" version) 
and so forth. The point where I stopped was when I had to move from 64K 
pagesize to 4k due to the graphics driver (I think it was nouveau) which 
was incompatible with 64k pagesize, only to find that Btrfs was locked 
in to the initial pagesize... (AFAIK they later fixed nouveau for 64k 
pagesize, but I was too busy with work at that point.)

BTW it seems like Debian was moving to 4k pagesize as well: 
https://officialaptivi.wordpress.com/2024/08/27/debian-13-will-boost-your-powerpc-64-performance/ 
(with the same caveats, I believe), and with the option to stay with 64k.

This all won't be the case when I start using Debian instead of Gentoo 
on the same machine. And from what I read here, Debian works very well 
too on PPC32 Macs too.

Pointing out the problems shouldn't in any way make you stop doing what 
you're doing. The opposite is the case: I'm here BECAUSE I care. 
Otherwise you wouldn't read from me...

In any case: Thank you, keep doing what you're doing.

Also: message recieved. I'll stop interrupting at this point. If you 
hear from me again it should be because I'm installing Debian on my G5 
or G4... (Or when I know something that might help, despite me not 
actually using Debian/PowerPC at this point.)

So long,
Mac User #330250