Apple also announced today the release of faster G4 PowerMacs. The PowerMac G4 is now available in uni-processor configurations of 733MHz, 667MHz, 533MHz and 466MHz and dual processor 533MHz G4s are also available. Apple are also offering a DVD-R/CD-RW Super Drive option with additional software. Check for more details.

This talks about Mac OS X only supporting real G3 machines, and not upgraded ones, and how forced obsoletion is bad. Of course, if you have tried running Mac OS X, on a 233 MHz iMac, you will see why it requires at least a G3 (it is slow). That said, PowerPC Linux, along with a nice lightweight window manager such as Blackbox, works great on the desktop, as long as you have enough memory.

The newest version of LinuxPPC has been released. LinuxPPC 2000 Q4 is LinuxPPC Inc.'s first three CD-ROM set. Its innovations range from new graphical boot software to software that can dynamically repartition a hard disk. Also, if you order it directly from LinuxPPC Inc., FWB Hard Disk Toolkit*PE is included at no extra charge.

This release includes new versions of yaboot and miboot. They both have a graphical interface.

The official announcement is on .

has many steep price cuts for Apple's more expensive PowerMacs. The PowerMac Cube has dropped $300 in price, the PowerBook G3 450 MHz has dropped $800 and the PowerMac G4 500 MHz server with Mac OS X Server preinstalled has dropped $1000. Clearly in an effort to clear out old models before Macworld San Fransico, it should be interesting to see what replaces them.

CNet has an on the new PowerMacs that are to be introduced at Macworld NY. It's good news to see Apple's finally upgrading their dated models, with 466 MHz to 766 MHz single processor G4s, along with a new PowerBook G4 (codename Mercury) that will feature a slimmer design and a G4 proccessor. Except for the lowend iMacs and iBook, Apple has no more plans for the rapidly becoming obsolete G3 proccessor. Apple also plans to phase out standard DVD-ROM drives, for DVD/CD-Rewritable drives, which are in high demand by users.

As of yesterday, LinuxPPC 2000 Q4 is now . They say it may move, so you should check first. There are lots of new fixes and improvements, including KDE 2, an test version of Linux 2.4, a new yaboot version, a new installer, and more.

Macweek has an article about the . Clearly their policy with Mac OS 9 will relect those users who dislike or can't run Mac OS X, and might be looking for something more stable (such as Linux ;).

writes "The folks at CPUscorecard did a round up of PC processors and surprise, surprise the 1.13 Ghz Pentium III topped the list but the G4/500 was a fast as fast as a 1Ghz AMD Athlon and only 20% slower than the top of the line Pentium, not bad for a 10-month old processor! Take that, PC Scum! You see the results here." Well interesting to see how it preforms against the other major processors. Now if a 10-month old processor can still swing with the big boys, imagine what would happen if us mac users had a new, faster, higher-clocked chip! Oy, c'mon Motorola....... please...

Motorola said Tuesday it would boost its G4 processor to 1 GHz and beyond, although it is unclear when or if Apple Computer will adopt the faster chips.

With the upcoming "Apollo" processor, Motorola's G4 processor family will be able to join the 1-GHz club, David Bearden, senior member of the technical staff at Motorola's Somerset Design Center, told an audience at the Microprocessor Forum taking place this week in San Jose, Calif. Read more

The buzz in building around Mac OS X. If early signs are any indication, OS X will be the hit Apple hopes it will be.

A good indicator of the popularity of the new operating system is the demand from the Wintel side to have OS X ported to their hardware of choice. With this demand, Apple has a real opportunity to make deep inroads into Windows territory. Read more

MacCentral asks the question, is the ? Once the reason why the m68k was abandoned, now the PowerPC is showing it's age and problems. PowerPC processors have lower MHz then there Intel counterparts (even though PowerPCs get more done per instruction), there value chips are avaliable at lower and lower prices, the 1.4 GHz P4 is on the horizon while PowerMacs still ship clocked at less then 500 MHz, and Intel/AMD are putting big bucks into 64-bit x86-like Linux development.

The O'Reilly Linux developer center takes a look at the ins and outs of . To install Linux, they add an additional HD, and set it up for dual booting between Mac OS and Linux.

Linux.com at the PowerMac platform as an inexpensive alternative to other RISC machines. The author takes an look at Altivec and the G4, and the problem with the lack of a standard. serial port.

A malfunction in early PowerMac G4's Power Switches may cause the switch to ware-out in a short time, requiring replacement of the switch. CNet has an article . PowerMac G4 owners who notice problems with there G4 models' power switch should try to contact Apple as soon as possible, as it is under warranty for at least an year (if it's proved to be a defect in manafacturing, Apple may extend it).

Everybody, except for Debian, no longer "offically" support the 'quik' bootloader on "Old-World" PowerMacintosh, prefering that you use BootX or miBoot. Click below to read about both sides of the issue, and to discuss it.

Jeramy B. Smith at PenguinPPC has at the most exciting and most disappointing new PowerPC Linux hardware. The Power4 and the TiVo were the most exciting new advancements, while Apple hardware was lackluster at best, with only minor improvements with the event of dual G4 machines.

CNET has an comparing Yellow Dog and LinuxPPC PowerPC Linux distros. They tested on relatively modest hardware, a PowerMac 7500 with an added 64 MB of RAM (as X Windows basically demands it nowdays) and an extra 2 GB external SCSI Hard Drive. CNET finds Yellow Dog the winner in this match, as the installer is fast and reliable, along with the install. The LinuxPPC installer had several problems installing on this configuration, although it's graphical installer is a plus.

There is a new Linux distro out called "ASP-Linux." It is available for both Intel and PPC systems, including Apple PowerMacs. I am downloading the free ISO image for PPC right now; I am curious as to whether anyone else has used this distribution yet.

The web site is .

This Sunday evening, the topic of machine-specfic PowerPC Linux sites came up in #ppclinux on IRC. I was thinking about making a page devoted to running PowerPC Linux on Tazania-based PowerMacs (a few Apple PowerMacs and Starmax Starbase machines). After discussing it for a while, we decided it would be a waste of effort, and it would be just duplicating content.

PenguinPPC has posted a short . Titanium PowerBook users should look at , written by Ian Roxborough for PowerBookLinux.net. Finally, Jake Goulding has a to check out.

733 MHz G4 vs. Dual 533 MHz G4 -- which is faster, asks .

For multiprocessor aware Mac OS applications (such as iMovie and iTunes), the Dual 533 MHz G4 proved to be much faster then the 733 MHz G4.

The dual G4 also scored better then Pentium 4 1300 MHz machines, in Cinema 4D XL, Photoshop, and Ureal Tournament. It also beat the Pentium 4 1500 MHz at Quake3Arena, but was slightly slower then a Pentium 3 886 MHz machine (as Quake3Arena was optimized for the P3).

According to the review, the reason why the 533 MHz Dual G4 is so much faster then the 733 MHz Uniprocesser G4, is the 750 MHz G4 uses 7450 chip which is slower then the 7400, and that Mac OS 9.1 doesn't support the 7450 cache fetches well.

If you have an older PowerMac 4400, you may want to see my . There are instructions for using Quik on this machine, general quirks in the the hardware, pre-compiled kernels, history, and more.

The new (2001) pmacs have been listed as having questionable or no compatability with Linux. However, we all know that this can't last. Alas, it can be very difficult to boot linux onto a "new" G4 with any of the existing kernels.

reports that Apple Firmware 4.1.8 has some incompatiblities with certain RAM chips, that cause them not to be used when booting (or seen at all). It sounds best to avoid this Firmware update until Apple gets around to revising it. A more detailed look into the problem can be seen .

According to , Apple will be discontinuing the PowerMac G4 running at 667 MHz, due to lack of chip supply at this speed. The 733 MHz chips are now in higher demand, and they are much easier for Apple to obtain. This article also notes that the 667 MHz model was not a worthwhile buy for most, as the 733 MHz was only 100 pounds more, and for lowend machines, there was the 533 MHz ones.

Linux Journal has an article on . This article points out the advantages that come with using a PowerPC processor over an x86, and the different machines you can get (or someday hopefully can get).

Mac OS Rumors is , that the next generation PowerMacs and iMacs will be closer to the look and feel of the new iBook and PowerBook G4 -- less curvey, less translucent, less prominenet handles. These newest models will go for the bare metal sleekness, smallest possible size, slicker smaller curves.

has run some cross-compiler benchmarks and put the results up on his website.

For those with newest Macs that include ATI Radeon video, Mark Guertin has posted a on PenguinPPC. It requires recompiling X, so it's not for newbies or those who are impatient for things to compile.

Steve Jobs just announced at his keynote address three new PowerMac models. These are 733MHz, 867MHz and dual-800MHz models. There is also a second generation super-drive.

PowerMacs are expensive to use only as webservers, so they are not very common (even though they are used for many other purposes).

iMacLinux for quite a while has been served on 800 MHz Duron machine, because the hardware on that platform is fast and cheap. Of course, we also have an indigo-iMac which is going to be used for PowerPC Linux development.

is now also served on a 750 MHz Duron, due to it's low price (LinuxPPC's budget is very low now) -- the old 233 MHz G3 motherboard died. Developers still have access to dev.linuxppc.org, which is a 500 MHz G4 briQ (which is very cool).

recently moved from a 266 MHz G3 to a 500 MHz G4 hosting it.

Ani Joshi has released a set of patches for rivafb and XFree86 4.01's nv driver, that adds PowerPC Linux support for the GeForce2 found on many newer PowerMac G4s. You can find the patches .

I recently installed Debian Linux on my 7200 PowerMac. Due to various hardware quirks, this can be a little tricky. Here are my notes on the subject.

It has been a very silent introduction, Apple has updated the pages worldwide over night to introduce a new set of PowerMac G4.

Little has changed look-wise, but the insides have been greatly improved with features such as dual 1Ghz G4, 1.5 GB SDRAM, NVidia GeForce 4MX and more...

Full specs within...

Apple announced today that they will be using the GeForce4 Titanium in their PowerMac G4 line starting next month. The GeForce4 is likely to contain 128MB of DDR ram, the ability to power dual Apple flat-panel displays, and will be available through the "build-to-order" option through the . You can read the press release . Existing G4 owners will be able to purchase a kit that is expected to retail around US$399.

Over the past few weeks Apple have released several new products, the long anticipated LCD based G4 iMac, iBooks with larger displays, and new PowerMac G4 towers. We asked Kevin Anderson, President of , Apple Specialists, about the availability of these new products. You can purchase the new PowerMac G4 towers and new iBooks from , they have them in stock and available for immediate shipment. See the next article for information on the iMac G4.

We have added a for older PowerMacs. It should run fine on all SCSI based OldWorld PowerMacs. Nubus PowerMacs or IDE based ones (PowerMac G3 and later) are not supported. Supported machines include the 4400, 6400, 7200, 7300, 7600, 8500, 8600, 9500 and 9600.

have an interesting article about using high capacity ATA-133 drives in Apple systems. You can find the article . Apple IDE interfaces can only address up to 28 bits, limiting the maximum disk size to ~137GB. UDMA/100 interfaces can address up to 48 bits, allowing for larger disk sizes. So if you want a drive larger than 137GB, you'll need a PCI UDMA/100 or UDMA/133 adapter for your PowerMac, Ultra160 SCSI drive (if you have scsi), or a Firewire based drive. Apple may be able to fix the problem with a firmware update, but that is unlikely, when they can sell new machines instead! Well worth a read if you like to upgrade.

Apple have launched all new Power Mac G4s. All the G4s are dual processor starting at $1699. The models are shipped in 867MHz, 1GHz and 1.25GHz models. All the new PowerMacs come with MacOS X 10.2. You can read about the new Power Macs . You can find , , and on Apple's web site.