Apfelhammer

Because I just started to build a new x86-64 Linux Gaming/Coding-Rag, I stopped with Linux on the Powermac G5, for now. But not forever.

Mein PC Build 2026

The Browser is called BrassMonkey and is a fork of legendary Wicknix’s SeaLion from Linux. The version we are talking about is from Nov 2025 but was only available for Intel Mac 10.6 and got now his way to 10.5 PPC. It is also based on the modern UXP Engine like Powerfox (Link) is, and has a new updated code for even better compatibility with logging into websites. It also doesn’t have a JIT Compiler, so script heavy sites will be very slow. But it is written that people on the MacRumours Forums are currently in the process of porting a JIT to Powerfox. Maybe it will also be available for BrassMonkey.

Embedded Engineering Meets Cross-Architecture Desktop Ambition

T2/Linux has released version 26.3 “Desktop Edition,” marking a significant milestone in delivering a modern, cross-architecture desktop experience.

The distribution distinguishes itself by providing a fully reproducible KDE Plasma Wayland session across nine different CPU architectures, including x86, ARM64, PowerPC, and RISC-V. This achievement is built on T2’s long-standing foundation as a system development environment engineered for strict cross-compilation, architectural correctness, and deterministic builds.

Anyone who reads my blog from time to time is familiar with my PowerMac setup. I have two SSDs connected to the internal SATA ports: a 512 GB SATA SSD for Mac OS X 10.5 and a 128 GB SSD for Linux. I also have an NVMe SSD connected to the internal PCI Express x4 port.

The 128 GB SSD for Linux runs Debian 12 SID, and its primary function is to boot the actual Linux distribution from the NVMe SSD. The PowerMac, specifically the Open Firmware, doesn’t have drivers for NVMe, and neither does Mac OS X. Therefore, it boots Grub from the internal SSD to load the correct kernel and partition from the NVMe SSD.

So today I thought about my small apfelhammer.de Powermac G5 Weblog and what else can I do to have more fun with it. And than I decided to try out 11ty or another cool shiny Static Site Generator I barely used in for a while and after a little research, I thought Poole and from this Hyde is still in 2026 a great Blog Theme when one only want to blog and share thoughts so I ported the Hyde Theme to my Bashblog Engine and changed nothing.

I just stumbled across a new browser that promises to bring a current version of Firefox to Mac OS X 10.5 PowerPC (and Intel).

Attentive readers of my weblog will know that I have a great passion for trying out modern browsers, usually paired with modern Linux PPC distributions, on my PowerPC 64-Bit PowerMac G5 and integrating them into my daily routine. Of course, this is only possible to a limited extent with a computer from 2005, but it is possible.

I just played around a little bit and found out that Gnome Browser Project Epiphany (Gnome Web) is also installable within Arch Linux for PowerPC on my Ppwermac G5. I tried out just to see that it works. But it soon crashes, because OpenGL Rendering is broken. But when you start the Browser in a Terminal with the URL behind, like this:

epiphany https://de.wikipedia.org

than it starts and renders the website and it is pretty usable. Here is a small screenshot I just took:

This article is mainly because I want to know when the server movement is done. I want to say I am moving with apfelhammer to another server, not the server to another place. I want to leave the old server behind me.

If you can read this post, you are on the new server :-) Otherwise, DNS is cached.

(webmention-sender-test)

My Powermac was a Powerbeast back in the days, but for gaming, Macs are always and forever the wrong choice, til today. But with the stock NVIDIA GeForce 6600 LE I am able to play Doom 3 (one of my favourite Ego-Shooters of all time) on low settings or Quake III Arena pretty good and pretty fast.

And I was curious if I can install dhewm3 on PowerPC Linux to play Doom 3 with this modern implementation for the old game. But with the one from the package manager, there were no luck. It had a problem with the menue, I think with the Fond and this is a known problem with other than x86 builds. It soon after start crashed. So I deviced to built in from scratch and that worked. After some tweaks I am able to start Doom3, but it doesn’t work as expected. The graphic is completely broken and I think it has something to do with Mesa and 3D and Drivers and so on.

Master hacker René Rebe, known to everyone for T2/SDE Linux, writes in a recent article about the media’s proclamation of the end of 32-bit Firefox—and verifies this claim on his own system.

Of course, the world isn’t black and white, and René describes how, although…

while Mozilla has ended official 32-bit Linux builds for the upstream binary release, but the underlying source code remains portable. Downstream projects such as T2 SDE Linux, which pride themselves on building Firefox natively for every architecture from i686 and PowerPC G5 to MIPS and RISC-V, already have fresh 32-bit builds running. In fact, the broader ecosystem of independent distributions continues to demonstrate that so-called “obsolete” architectures can live long, productive lives when supported by efficient cross-compilation frameworks.