Apfelhammer

Long time ago I found out that someone started a project for Classic Thunderbird, because they were not really happy about the newly established way it goes from then. And on PowerPC based Linux, actual Thunderbird will not build because

Warnung: Kann "libicui18n.so=74-64" nicht auflösen (eine Abhängigkeit von "thunderbird")

libiciu cannot be built. There are some alternatives like Claws-Mail but this is really old, feels really old. It works but it is not in the actual repo of Power ARCH but you can compile it easy by yourself. Anyways. Because Epyrus is based on older classic Thunderbird, there is a change I can compile it on actual Arch with Python 2.7. I give it a try.

Dear friends of PowerPC Linux, Unix and especially the Powermac G5, I’ve not written since quite a time. The reason was my other Webproject [¹] which I managed to melt with another Website and beside that, move it into a Docker Container and run it and adopt everything and so on and on and on… you know - from stick to wood like someone says. :-)

But what I want to say is that I am using Arch POWER ppc64 Linux now for quite some time every day and while I am listening to Navidrome streamed MP3 [²] in my TerminalDrome Client or do some Webstuff with Firefox or sending Mails via Calws-Mail, I am absolutely happy and it never crashed or something like that. It works so well.

As I wrote yesterday, the new ArchPOWER Linux for PowerPC 64 works like charme and with big thanks to (Kernel/Linux)-Hacker René Rebe, Firefox is working on POWER-Architecture (and much more) again after years. So you can use a modern Browser if you want.

But in the last post, I only described how you get your base system up and running while booting from usb pen drive. But you want more :-) A GUI I bet. So if you have a running instance, or when you are still in the live environment of the booted usb pen drive, you can chroot into the freshly installed ARCH Linux and can perfom different tasks. E.g. install a GUI. While the Powermac is not the fastest machine in 2025 anymore and a lot of packages are not available for ppc64, XFCe is a good idea for a good looking and modern desktop environment. My mac has the stock nVidia Geforce 6600GS graphicsboard so we need the driver for this to have 2d-acceleration. This is important, otherwise the gui is not useful because it is too slow.

My bigfat Powermac G5 Workstation running ArchPOWER 64 while compiling Claws-Mail under XCFE and running TerminalDrome

Because of a friendly comment by Powerlinux user Matias, I am willing to try out ArchPOWER Linux for PPC (Link) again. ArchPOWER is an unofficial Port of ARCH Linux for the PowerPC Architecture: It supports: powerpc64le (>=POWER8), powerpc (>=604), powerpc64 (>=POWER4+/G5 & PS3) and espresso (WiiU SMP).

I told you the other day that my PowermacG5 owns an NVMe-SSD-Adapter as a PCI-Express Card with a 1 TB NVME-SSD. That runs great, here is the Benchmark:

[arch@ARCHLINUX ~]$ sudo pacman -S hdparm
Abhängigkeiten werden aufgelöst …
Nach in Konflikt stehenden Paketen wird gesucht …

Pakete (1) hdparm-9.65-2

Gesamtgröße des Downloads:             0,10 MiB
Gesamtgröße der installierten Pakete:  0,24 MiB

:: Installation fortsetzen? [J/n]
:: Pakete werden empfangen …
hdparm-9.65-2-po...   101,0 KiB   394 KiB/s 00:00 [######################] 100%
(1/1) Schlüssel im Schlüsselbund werden geprüft    [######################] 100%
(1/1) Paket-Integrität wird überprüft              [######################] 100%
(1/1) Paket-Dateien werden geladen                 [######################] 100%
(1/1) Auf Dateikonflikte wird geprüft              [######################] 100%
(1/1) Verfügbarer Festplattenspeicher wird erm...  [######################] 100%
:: Paketänderungen werden verarbeitet …
(1/1) Installiert wird hdparm                      [######################] 100%
:: Post-transaction-Hooks werden gestartet …
(1/1) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...

[arch@ARCHLINUX ~]$ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/nvme0n1

/dev/nvme0n1:
Timing cached reads:   2258 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1129.63 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 1384 MB in  3.00 seconds = 461.12 MB/sec

Yes, 1129 MB/Sec, bäm!, this is what PCIE 1.0 4.0 Slot can do. :-) Nicenstein, in a 2005 Computer.

Hello and good morning, I’m back at my Powermac G5, playing around a bit with T2/Linux (all articles).

I recently reported that a current version of Firefox is capable of running on PPC64, making this distro the only one that allows this. Everyone else is having major problems with Firefox right now. Although I assume René, the maintainer of T2, is sending his patches upstream. He does a lot for the community.

So, this post is an update to my “weblog engine” Bashblog. This is a Shellscript wich renders my weblog in static html files, like all the other static website generators like Jekyll or Pelikan or you name it do. But there is a difference: for bb.sh you only need the standard linux tools like awk, sed etc. pp., and this works with a nice css file out of the box really good.

My Powerhouse :-)

A picture of my Powermac G5

• Powermac G5 11,2 with
• 2 GHz Dual Core IBM PPC970 CPU
• 12 GB DDR2 Ram
• PCIe NVMe-SSD with 1 TB SSD
• Apple Cinema HD 23" Display
• Original Keyboard and Mouse

So, the other day I installed a media server to stream my long lost MP3-Archive like it’s Spotfiy, over the air to my Smartphone while I wear Headphones etc. pp and therefore I tested a lot of apps. I ran into the issue that macOS 15 does not let you device to open an unverified app like on the macOS releases before, it is a way harder. But the easiest solution I found is this, type in the terminal:

As I mentioned on my several domains before, I am a great fan of the so called indieweb were you link each other in mentions and talk about topics and you do this on your domain or your website, not on social media pots were your data and your stories and thoughts are trapped. Trapped at them.

So I configured my domain apfelhammer.de as part of the indieweb. I think I can get webmentions and I am part of the indiewebring.