Quadra 660AV what's with the "PowerPC" label?

[Liam Proven]

On 15 June 2016 at 20:39, Swift Griggs <swiftgriggs at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Jun 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
>> In Ireland, "gear" means hard drugs, so maybe it's safer!
>
> Whoa. I didn't know that. You are right. I'll have to convert to using
> "kit" exclusively next time I'm in the UK. I'm usually just in Heathrow or
> Gatwick waiting to fly out to Oslo. I still have some friends in Norway I
> visit every 5-10 years. They speak British English, too. So, for all I
> know they might think the same in Oslo. However, I don't remember hearing
> that particular term there when I lived in Norway about 15 years ago.
> However, I lived in a little town called Moss, and there wasn't much in
> the way of hard drugs to talk about, hehe. :-)

There wasn't a lot in Oslo either, as of about 15y ago, either.

> Rock on. That sounds fun. Those are some cute little micros.

TBH I never use 'em. :-(


> I cite the similarities between 'svchost' and 'systemd'. [...]

No, I don't buy it.

I think fairer comparisons are Apple's launchd and Oracle's SMF.

It's a modern init. Most of panic is just headless running around. No,
it's not an old-fashioned simplistic Unix utility. Hey, newsflash,
neither is GNOME, neither is KDE. Neither is much of modern Unix.

If people wanted to keep to the simplicity of Unix and bring it into a
more modern world, they had Plan 9. Plan 9 brought networking & the
GUI into the Unix everything-is-a-file model.

But everyone ignored it, pretty much. Some wrinkles got copied later.

And Plan 9 went one better, and (mostly) eliminated that nasty old
unsafe mess, C, and it eliminated native binaries and brought
platform-neutral binaries to the game.

Everyone ignored it, too.

Unix-heads, you *had* your chance. Your own godlike leader, Dennis
Richie, gave you something better. You didn't want it.

So he gave you something better still, something more focused than his
acolyte James Gosling's effort, Java.

You all ignored that, too.

Everything isn't a file. It isn't all ASCII. It hasn't been since
System III or something, about 35y ago.

Life goes on. Unix had grown into a bloated mess long before I came to
it. Even FreeBSD, which is why NetBSD exists, and I suspect that by
the standards of Unix v 7, NetBSD is pretty bloaty too.

No, I don't accept the wailing about non-text logging and monolithic services.

Andy Tanenbaum was right. Linux was obsolete in 1991. A new monolithic
Unix back then? You're kidding. No. It's a rewrite of the same old
1960s design, with the same 3 decades' worth of crap on top.

Today, it's mainly an x86 OS for servers and an ARM OS for
smartphones, with a few weirdos using it for workstations. So stop it
with the crocodile tears about "it's all text" and so on. Move on.
It's over. It was over before I left Uni and I'm an olde pharte now.

> That's a good and healthy perspective. I think the core problem with the
> systemd drama is that it's created a schism in an area that some naive
> folks like me thought there could/would never be one.

It's fostered a divide between those who want to modernise the OS and
those who favour the old-fashioned ways.

</rant> :-)

>  My last NetBSD -current install a
> week or two ago was @280M (full install, uncompressed). So, there are
> still very lightweight choices available.

Eben Upton of the Raspberry Pi project got a private showing of an
early alpha of RISC OS Open on the Pi 1. (I saw the same test code. It
was driven by a netbook's keyboard and mouse as they hadn't got the
USB stack working yet.)

It had the Desktop, the WIMP, the Icon Bar, it had an apps folder with
the core apps -- !Edit, !Paint, !Maestro etc. in it. It had a file
manager, a clock, etc.

He was blown away.

"How big is it?" he asked
"Six meg," they told him.
"No, I don't mean the kernel. I mean the whole thing."
"Yes, so do we. Six meg. 6MB. We, er, we haven't got the SD card
support working yet. This is running out of an image of the boot ROMs,
copied into RAM by the GPU."

He was stunned.

"If I had known this still existed and was maintained, I'd have
bundled it with every Pi as the firmware!" he said.

This is from memory, but I know a couple of the ROOL team.

280MB isn't bad, but it is _not_ a small OS.

Ever seen the QNX demo floppy? _That_ is a small OS.

>> From what I've seen, systemd makes things like enabling/disabling
>> services _simpler_ for your average Joe.
>
> Well, I work with both consulting gigs and direct client support for other
> Linux admins. So, I directly work with systemd and with users who struggle
> with it. I've written some in depth documentation for systemd. It's about
> the same from the user point of view. I mean, "service mysqld start" isn't
> much different from "systemctl start mysqld". If you mean that it'd be
> easier for a user to setup a unit file than a script; probably so.
> However, most packages/software come with a script or unit file anyway (or
> both in some cases). I don't think systemd is significantly easier or
> harder for users, honestly. It's just different at that level. It's what's
> under the hood and the way it was done that's more controversial.

That's your knowledge speaking.

As I said, I've been using Unix for about 27y now. I'm not a noob.

I never fathomed the SysV init.

And compared to many of the 20something sysadmins I meet today, I am a god.

The Six Stages of systemd [linux.conf.au 2014]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-97qqUHwzGM

No. If you don't know what you're doing, systemd is easier, I think.
And most people don't know, and that is OK, and it is how the world is
trending. Look at iPads. Look at Android phones. You think those
billion+ people know what an APK file is, or what the difference is
between Java and Dalvik? Don't be silly. Of course not.

It has to be safe, reliable, easy. Yes it's big and complex and
monolithic. So is Linux. You want simple, small, clean, functional
isolation? Go help the Minix 3 team. That's what they are doing. Linux
is all about sticking it in one big lump for performance.

> They might see what they are doing as "moving on", but
> folks who revere and respect UNIX as a set of ideas see that as a betrayal
> of those ideas. Ie.. like saying you are "moving on" from your wife to
> your mistress. It's definitely a change, but it's also breaking faith with
> someone who trusted you. Right or wrong, justified or not, that's how a
> lot of people felt.

Fine. If they want continuity, they can use *BSD. If they want real
improvements, they can go help Minix 3 get there.

Andrew Tanenbaum - MINIX 3: A Reliable and Secure Operating System -
Codemotion Rome 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiGjp7JHiYs

> Well, neither am I, really. It's just super-uber-geek stuff and probably a
> tempest in a teacup to everyone else. Linux has incredible momentum right
> now.

Exactly. As was Unity vs GNOME 3.

They're smaller than rounding errors given the main user bases of,
well, anything any non-geek has heard of.

> That's a fair point. Also, I was repeating/quoting something I'm seeing on
> forums and Reddit, I'm not sure I'd agree that OSX + BSD encompass the
> ultimate solution to all problems either.  There are definitely some
> people who feel more comfortable with those values. Plus, Linux is free
> and that has a ton of value that OSX can't compete with also. Schoolkids
> in 3rd world countries are much better served by Linux than OSX, as far as
> I can tell.

Exactly.

> The Apple hardware and licensing is just too expensive for
> some uses.

True. Me, mostly. All but the one I'm typing on were freebies. This
one, I paid about $200.

> Sure, but as a desktop or server OS, Android, oh man, I don't even know
> where to start. I'll just say that you won't find me buying any Android
> desktops or servers in the near future, no matter how many lemmings run
> off that particular cliff. I like my illusion of *some* privacy, too, but
> I digress.

Well, OK, true, but you know what, I used a better OS. I bought a
Blackberry Passport. Lovely device.

But it bombed, and the OS is dead in the water now.

> Yes. IRIX is dead as a doornail. Also, with the way it died, I'd give
> about 1000:1 odds of any legal form of IRIX ever re-surfacing. However, I
> noticed that the source is floating around several places. Maybe some
> illegal/hobbyist/illicit stuff might eventually see the light, but I doubt
> it. It seems to me even the forums on Nekochan are slowing down. I still
> use it and love it, and I have no problems securing it for "real world"
> stuff. However, it's nothing but a hobby, nowadays.

Was it really different enough? What did it do other Unices don't?

I wonder if it's a bit like reading the Unix Haters' Handbook now.
Much of the stuff they rage about is long long gone, just went away as
the tech improved. But dear gods, they'd be appalled at the size and
performance of Linux in 2016.

> Yes, and I wish both of those projects well. I've actually donated money
> to both projects.

Oh wow! Good for you!

> Cool; you're a true scrounger, then!

Well, I was, but mainly because I was very poor. :-(

>  The real
> problem was the PRAM battery. Once I replaced that, the machine booted up
> fine and the monitor powers on once it sees the video signal. It's a bit
> out of focus, but I took the cover off and adjusted the pots on the CRT
> logic board to my liking. It looks very nice, now.

:-)

Yeah, those PRAM batteries were a PITA. *That* was bad design.

> Cool. That's longer than me. I started in 1992 with HPUX, then 1993 with
> Linux, then @1997 or so with BSD and went nuts with tons of other
> variants, too. That was my "UNIX World Tour" time (the mid-1990s). I
> wanted to learn them ALL (and I'm still trying). I've been pretty
> obsessed with UNIX since day-one. It was definitely love at first sight.

You've learned a /lot/ more than me, though, that's obvious. Most of
my career, Windows has paid the bills. :-(

> Hmm. I think you'd fly right through it, Liam. You are a smart guy, I
> doubt you'd have any significant problems these days.

Nah. Last time was FreeBSD 9. It'd not improved much by then and I
don't think it has now.

PC-BSD I like, but there's nothing in it to drag me over from Linux.

I also failed to get an OpenSolaris install online.

> Yeah, I'm not quite intrepid enough to want to collect any 68000-based
> macs. They didn't start to interest me until the Mac IIfx/IIci days and
> the 040' came around. You can all get a belly laugh from the fact that the
> main reason I got a Quadra 700 is that it looks so damn cool in Jurassic
> Park (and it runs A/UX). :-P

I wanted one compact Mac, one high-end '040, one transition-period,
last-gen G3. Not sure I have the space or ever will again. I'm close
to selling /everything/, getting on my bike and becoming nomadic. If I
can't carry it, it goes.

It's a dream for now but I don't know for how long...

> Ugh. When I saw that on OSnews or Slashdot or wherever, I let out a big
> sigh, because it's *hard enough* to find 68k-related stuff. Market-droids
> these days can only act on previous programming. That's why we have so
> many Marvel movies and "reboots" / "re-imagined" versions of older movies.
> Real creativity must be approved by the corporate board (and doesn't get
> approved).

True that!

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
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