Petition for Snow Leopard in PowerPC G5 flavour

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I want to start a petition for a version of snow leopard that supports the PowerPC G5 architecture.

The G5 is 64bit and still are extraordinary workhorses.



Many people have put expensive upgrades into them, in my case the most expensive was a AJA Kona LH card. Many people have other audio and video equipment in their G5's that are also very expensive.

Everyone knows that those machines can work at full steam a few more years and with the full 64bit support they would work better.



My problem is that i'm not very comfortable with english (i'm Portuguese) and if there's more people that think like me we could make a text for the petition together and exchange ideas.



What do you think?



p.s; there's a site for petitions http://www.petitionspot.com

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 20
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Schmeknicolor View Post


    ...Everyone knows that those machines can work at full steam a few more years...





    And they can do that running 10.5 Leopard. (It will also be a perfectly fine OS for a few more years.)

    Why waste your time with some silly petition when everyone know darn well that Apple's not going to change their mind.
  • Reply 2 of 20
    You may be right, but i'm not taking this petition full time, i have a lot more to do but i think that we could try.

    Any G5 wasn't fully "used" because of the lack of a full 64bit OS, now that one is almost out it doesn't support that architecture for the first time.

    And it's almost certain that Apple has a ppc version in-house.
  • Reply 3 of 20
    It is almost certain that Apple did not waste resources of making a PPC version.



    And you seem to misunderstand the the concept of 64 bit computing. On the PPC platform it is not nearly as advantageous as it is on the x86 one. This is not because the G5 was a bad 64 bit processor, but because the 32 bit implementation was not hamstrung like the x86 one.



    The only way that a G5 could be considered impaired by the 32 bit OS that it is running is that you cant really use more than 4 GB of memory (the hardware can take 16 GB in theory) without going through some gyrations. In every other way it does not matter at all (well.. minus the ability to have a GUI in the same process as your 64bit code).



    There is simply no economic reason for Apple to put in the amount of work to validate its new OS on 4 year old designs.
  • Reply 4 of 20
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Keep Leopard or move to Linux. That's your answer.
  • Reply 5 of 20
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Schmeknicolor View Post


    I want to start a petition for a version of snow leopard that supports the PowerPC G5 architecture.

    The G5 is 64bit and still are extraordinary workhorses.



    Many people have put expensive upgrades into them, in my case the most expensive was a AJA Kona LH card. Many people have other audio and video equipment in their G5's that are also very expensive.

    Everyone knows that those machines can work at full steam a few more years and with the full 64bit support they would work better.



    My problem is that i'm not very comfortable with english (i'm Portuguese) and if there's more people that think like me we could make a text for the petition together and exchange ideas.



    What do you think?



    p.s; there's a site for petitions http://www.petitionspot.com





    Yes a G5 is a good computer for Leopard.



    And yes people do have expensive hardware but the problem arises where you really only get 36 months from a computing hardware when you're talking about value. If you have high end hardware you need to make your profits and write your hardware off in 36 months and refresh your computer. Mind you this is in the US where we can write off a small portion of hardware/software business expenses.



    Here's another issue.



    In order for Grand Central Dispatch to effectively work the CPU must have good cache snooping ability. For a while even Intel's Quad Core chips could only snoop two caches even though there were 4 cores available. With Nehalem the cache snooping went to 4 way which is much more efficient. Thus I presume that Grand Central Dispatch will recognize this and keep threads quarantined to one CPU and each of the 4 cores will know which has the hot data.



    Now look at G5. They have small L2 caching and they cannot snoop more than two cores which means you're likely going to have a lot of cache thrashing or misses because they're basically blind to the other cores. They do have excellent FPU performance though and that's what keeps the G5 competitive.



    Lastly they aren't PCI Express and now the Intel Macs are PCI Express 2.0 which means the bandwidth for things like OpenCL and more just isn't there.





    Also keep in mind that if Apple was to deliver a PPC Snow Leopard they have to



    Test a Snow Leopard PPC 32-bit build

    Test a Snow Leopard PPC 64-bit build

    Test a Snow Leopard Intel 32-bit build

    Test a Snow Leopard intel 64-bit build



    Do you honestly think they want to do this? Especially consider that your PPC Macs are 4+ years old? You are asking as much of Apple as they are asking of you. You want them to preserve your investment at the expense of more time testing and building and they are asking you to upgrade to a new Mac and reap performance benefits.



    You could storm the gates of Mordor and kick Sauron's ass faster than you'll get Apple to deliver a PPC Snow Leopard.
  • Reply 6 of 20
    ok, ok, case is closed. Just asking.

    Nothing to look at!
  • Reply 7 of 20
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Schmeknicolor View Post


    ok, ok, case is closed. Just asking.

    Nothing to look at!



    Hey no worries man. When you get an Intel Mac it'll run like a dream.
  • Reply 8 of 20
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    Hey no worries man. When you get an Intel Mac it'll run like a dream.



    I already have a Macbook pro.
  • Reply 9 of 20
    kaiwaikaiwai Posts: 246member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Schmeknicolor View Post


    I want to start a petition for a version of snow leopard that supports the PowerPC G5 architecture.

    The G5 is 64bit and still are extraordinary workhorses.



    Many people have put expensive upgrades into them, in my case the most expensive was a AJA Kona LH card. Many people have other audio and video equipment in their G5's that are also very expensive.

    Everyone knows that those machines can work at full steam a few more years and with the full 64bit support they would work better.



    My problem is that i'm not very comfortable with english (i'm Portuguese) and if there's more people that think like me we could make a text for the petition together and exchange ideas.



    What do you think?



    p.s; there's a site for petitions http://www.petitionspot.com



    You chose to purchase a G5 knowing full well it was a dead end - why should anyone have any sympathy for you. If I told you not to cross the road because you might get hit by a car - and then you did get hit by a car, is it any ones responsibility other than your own? of course not.



    When the first Intel based Mac's came out, the general consensus was unless you really, really, really needed the speed of the G5 immediately and that what ever project you were doing would pay for the machine in a few months, you were better off waiting for the Intel based Mac Pro's to arrive.



    You failed to listen to advice - and I say tough luck; suck on a popsicle.
  • Reply 10 of 20
    ssquirrelssquirrel Posts: 1,196member
    The card you mention is still usable in a new system. it isn't like you spot welded it to the motherboard In the Windows world, Microsoft just loats the OS to the degree that a PC under X amount won't be able to run things anymore or an older machine of X can run it, but it will be dreadfully slow b/c of increased overhead and such.



    I've noticed that usually the new OS releases for Macs might have restrictions based on which chip (ie when they said no more G3s, etc) rather than having a strict processor speed minimum. Snow Leopard is the last step in a long line of steps to remove themselves fully from the PPC world.



    Kaiwai>I felt your harsh tone was really uncalled for. He didn't say he just bought his G5 last week or anything. It could well be a 4 year old machine (Intel transition announced June 6, 2005) bought before the announcement. I understand his wanting the new OS to be compatible w/his machine if his machine is still functioning well, even if that isn't the most realistic desire he could have. There is no need to bitch him out about dead ends.
  • Reply 11 of 20
    kaiwaikaiwai Posts: 246member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SSquirrel View Post


    The card you mention is still usable in a new system. it isn't like you spot welded it to the motherboard In the Windows world, Microsoft just loats the OS to the degree that a PC under X amount won't be able to run things anymore or an older machine of X can run it, but it will be dreadfully slow b/c of increased overhead and such.



    I've noticed that usually the new OS releases for Macs might have restrictions based on which chip (ie when they said no more G3s, etc) rather than having a strict processor speed minimum. Snow Leopard is the last step in a long line of steps to remove themselves fully from the PPC world.



    Kaiwai>I felt your harsh tone was really uncalled for. He didn't say he just bought his G5 last week or anything. It could well be a 4 year old machine (Intel transition announced June 6, 2005) bought before the announcement. I understand his wanting the new OS to be compatible w/his machine if his machine is still functioning well, even if that isn't the most realistic desire he could have. There is no need to bitch him out about dead ends.



    4 Years! come on mate; if he was running a business he would have written it off against his tax over a period of 3 years, by the forth it has become a liability rather than an asset; infact these days alot of countries have sped up the rate in which you can depreciate capital so that there is no reason for not upgrading. What ever red herring you keeping pulling out of no where - it can't stand up to scrutiny.
  • Reply 12 of 20
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Worthwhile or not, it would seem this petition is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too late to accomplish anything. Apple would have had to have been working on PPC compatibility all the way through the development of 10.6.
  • Reply 13 of 20
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kaiwai View Post


    4 Years! come on mate; if he was running a business he would have written it off against his tax over a period of 3 years, by the forth it has become a liability rather than an asset; infact these days alot of countries have sped up the rate in which you can depreciate capital so that there is no reason for not upgrading. What ever red herring you keeping pulling out of no where - it can't stand up to scrutiny.



    It's so easy to talk isn't it? When you don't know the real situation it's easy.

    I was just asking for an opinion i wasn't asking for pity, i'll still work some more years with that system whatever happens.



    SSquirrel; the card is a PCI-X version, so it's not usable in the new machines, the machine was bought in 2004.



    As i've said before, the first opinions were valid and i have to agree with them, Kawai's opinion is way off and doesn't help in anything.
  • Reply 14 of 20
    ssquirrelssquirrel Posts: 1,196member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kaiwai View Post


    4 Years! come on mate; if he was running a business he would have written it off against his tax over a period of 3 years, by the forth it has become a liability rather than an asset; infact these days alot of countries have sped up the rate in which you can depreciate capital so that there is no reason for not upgrading. What ever red herring you keeping pulling out of no where - it can't stand up to scrutiny.



    How is my pointing out that you were being a dick a red herring? You just laid into the guy as if he had bought the system a month ago and now chose to whine about it. I have no way of knowing the OPs financial situation. Not everyone can just up and buy a new system whenever they want, I know I certainly can't. If you already have a lot of loans out, the banks won't always give you more credit.



    If you had read what I said, I did point out that his card is completely able to be removed and put into a new system. I also said that while I can understand his desire to have what he feels is still a viable system, fully capable of running the new OS, actually get that update...it doesn't really mean that's going to happen.
  • Reply 15 of 20
    mcarlingmcarling Posts: 1,106member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dfiler View Post


    Worthwhile or not, it would seem this petition is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too late to accomplish anything. Apple would have had to have been working on PPC compatibility all the way through the development of 10.6.



    That's right. Also the cost to Apple would have been greater than most people think. It's not just the cost of maintaining a testing environment and the engineers and technicians to run a PPC testing program. It would also slow down development because the builds would take longer on the old G5 hardware and because fixing G5-only bugs would sometimes hold development back. Even if the release of Snow Leopard would be delayed by only one week, it would not be worth it.
  • Reply 16 of 20
    taurontauron Posts: 911member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Schmeknicolor View Post


    I want to start a petition for a version of snow leopard that supports the PowerPC G5 architecture.

    The G5 is 64bit and still are extraordinary workhorses.



    Many people have put expensive upgrades into them, in my case the most expensive was a AJA Kona LH card. Many people have other audio and video equipment in their G5's that are also very expensive.

    Everyone knows that those machines can work at full steam a few more years and with the full 64bit support they would work better.



    My problem is that i'm not very comfortable with english (i'm Portuguese) and if there's more people that think like me we could make a text for the petition together and exchange ideas.



    What do you think?



    p.s; there's a site for petitions http://www.petitionspot.com



    Shutup and buy a current mac.
  • Reply 17 of 20
    dp101dp101 Posts: 9member
    I must say that I'm disappointed that everyone thinks Apple should drop support for PowerPC G5 users. Some of this systems are less than four years old and are very capable of running the next release of the operating system. Remember, Apple has been running Mac OS X on Intel since Mac OS X Beta (internally). This has got to be the shortest support cycle that I've every heard of.



    I would definitely sign a petition to release Snow Leopard on PowerPC as I am also effected. I already have an Intel Macbook Pro; but I do all my photography on the PowerMac G5 and no I'm not about to replace my PowerMac with a Mac Pro any time soon.



    I think there is too much Apple cheerleading going on here and not enough critical thought.



    p.s. Also worth noting is that Apple sold the G5 as a 64 bit platform but they're leaving us with a 32 bit kernel.
  • Reply 18 of 20
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dp101 View Post


    I must say that I'm disappointed that everyone thinks Apple should drop support for PowerPC G5 users. Some of this systems are less than four years old and are very capable of running the next release of the operating system. Remember, Apple has been running Mac OS X on Intel since Mac OS X Beta (internally). This has got to be the shortest support cycle that I've every heard of.



    I would definitely sign a petition to release Snow Leopard on PowerPC as I am also effected. I already have an Intel Macbook Pro; but I do all my photography on the PowerMac G5 and no I'm not about to replace my PowerMac with a Mac Pro any time soon.



    I think there is too much Apple cheerleading going on here and not enough critical thought.



    p.s. Also worth noting is that Apple sold the G5 as a 64 bit platform but they're leaving us with a 32 bit kernel.



    I have thought of this on a more critical level. Historically Apple has supported their computer architectures for quite some time. It wasn't uncommon to be able to run the latest OS on a computer six years old. The difference here as compared to today is that computers weren't commodity items then. You didn't walk into a superstore chain like best buy and see a wide selection of computers. One could say that as computers became more and more of a commodity the price erosion inevitably led to fast refresh cycles.



    Today Intel releases a new microprocessor architecture every 2-3 years. The only way to capitalize on the advancement is to know when to cut legacy and move forward. Anyone with a 4 year old PPC knows that it was a lame duck architecture as Apple boldly announced the Intel transition early 2005.



    I think that those with PPC that are still doing a fine job should view this as "a glass half full" scenario. While running Snow Leopard might be appealing the fact that you still have a computer running well allows you to squeeze out another 18 months or so and wait for 10.7. You win either way because although you feel smitten by Apple the Intel optimizations will eventually benefit you and dare I say far more than Snow Leopard would have benefitted most PPC owners had it been delivered on PPC.
  • Reply 19 of 20
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Rather than because of the rise of commodity pricing, I'd say something else is the reason...



    PPC is a completely different architecture and supporting it with all of the massive code base changes would be incredibly expensive in terms of time, money, and implementation compromises. I think apple as well as the public both bennefit from dropping support in the next release. Not everyone benefits but the vast majority do. And running version 10.5.x isn't really that bad for the remainder. Those computers will continue to work just as well as they always have.
  • Reply 20 of 20
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    They have moved from PPC to Intel and ARM. They don't want to maintain 3/
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