hello
is there a powerpc linux version? or can i build one from source?
thanks
powerpc verison
Moderators: jelco, bert_the_turtle, Chris, andy, John
thats is a shame
you dont tell x86 linux users to just run windows.
would it really be to difficult to but linux on one of your test macs and compile a powerpc binary? your code must be very clean for it to work well on 3 platforms already. it is rare to find a linux program that wont compile on powerpc linux these days.
you dont tell x86 linux users to just run windows.
would it really be to difficult to but linux on one of your test macs and compile a powerpc binary? your code must be very clean for it to work well on 3 platforms already. it is rare to find a linux program that wont compile on powerpc linux these days.
ssam wrote:thats is a shame
you dont tell x86 linux users to just run windows.
Actually, I would. If there were a game out that ran on Windows and not Linux, and someone wanted to play that game, I would suggest that this person get Windows. This is not a value judgement about the operating systems, simply a statement of fact. "If you want to play game X on your machine, you must have Windows."
ssam wrote:would it really be to difficult to but linux on one of your test macs and compile a powerpc binary?
I really can't speak for IV, but here is the situation, as I see it: there are basically two people coding -- Chris and John (have I left anyone out?). Chris writes the code, John ports it to Mac and Linux. The history of Darwinia looks something like this: Windows release, wait a month, Linux release, wait a month, Mac release (more or less). We are still waiting for 1.3 for the Mac. A LinuxPPC version of Darwinia, I would imagine, is more than just a simple recompile. I don't know how optimised the code is, but there may be some endian problems, as well as processor related problems on the Mac -- it runs dirt slow in some areas on the Mac as it is.
There are differences between the processors, and the operating systems that run on those processors. I do not think that recompiling Darwinia for LinuxPPC is a trivial matter.
ssam wrote:your code must be very clean for it to work well on 3 platforms already.
You're new here, right? The code for Uplink was a mess, though, and it ran on all three platforms. NeoThermic tells us that Darwinia's code is cleaner, but IV does not have a reputation for clean code. I think Darwinia running on multiple platforms can be attributed to the hard work of John, more than anything.
ssam wrote:it is rare to find a linux program that wont compile on powerpc linux these days.
Yes, but that is because a lot of people have put in a lot of time getting things to compile. I ran LinuxPPC back in the day (2.1 kernal), an many, many things would not compile -- most people did not care to write code that ran on the PPC, because there were only a half dozen people in the world that would care. I am heartened to hear that things run a bit more smoothly now, but that does not mean that getting things to cross-compile is easy. It still takes a fair amount of work.
Now, I agree that it is a shame that Darwinia will not run on all platforms. However, there are only so many hours in the day, and only so much code that can be written. LinuxPPC is a niche market inside of a niche market -- current estimates show that the Mac OS has less than 10% install base -- what percentage of those are running Linux? When we are still waiting for the 1.3 patch, can you justify further expenditure upon a LinuxPPC version that only five or six people are actually going to care about?
xander
On a purely practical basis, what kind of graphics card do you have that could handle Darwinia, but also has drivers for PPC Linux?
I doubt there'd be endianness issues, as the MacOS and Linux codebases are mostly the same, and use mostly the same libraries, so cross-platform code is already in mind.
I doubt there'd be endianness issues, as the MacOS and Linux codebases are mostly the same, and use mostly the same libraries, so cross-platform code is already in mind.
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