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there are a few power book models that semi work, and 1 or 2 desktop G4 systems. They much have an ati graphics card as I don't believe they system will run at all on an nvidia system. if i recall correctly the graphics much also be on the AGP bus but i am not 100% sure.

(i think, in order. ati model only)
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP106
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP63
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP78
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP62

these are systems that should boot and be "useable" all features (such as firewire and combo drivers) are not likely to work, or at least work properly.

Edited 2009-10-14 22:56 UTC

I've been considering picking up some modern PPC hardware eventually, perhaps a decent cheap G4-based mac would be the ticket if it had a couple OS options to throw at it

Sorry off-topic, but I would like to know.

Open firmware is only found on PPC Macs. Is there something equivalent on the Intel Macs that I could access?

Thanks.

According to a MorphOS team member MorphOS asks at boot what maschine it is running on. In case of Apple hardware the boot will only be continued if Mac Mini hardware is found.
But it seems rather likely, that other Apple PPC hardware will be added to the hardware support list in the middle future.
For the long run another alternative is required anyway...

I tried to boot the livecd on the blue tower g4 and got stuck at the same place Thom did. I will check this out on a mac mini tomorrow.

On a side note I remember looking at morphos when it was still really young and wanting to test it out. However it has always been made for a platform I did not have. Being able to test a livecd is a real treat!

There is nifty a tool to get more use out of EFI on Intel Macs: http://refit.sourceforge.net/

Allows you to create boot menus and access an EFI cli among other things. I haven't installed it in some time but it was helpful when I was trying out BootCamp.

Should have mailed the devs to see if this was a) even possible and b) something they wanted.

I love this article, and I for one are one of those who've been begging for this since years. I'll see how my Quicksilver G4 performs, wish me luck.

C'mon guys, as a MorphOS user I appreciate the coverage but couldn't you give 2.4 a shot on its supported hardware the PPC Mac mini (or Pegasos or Efika) before going off and experimenting with unsupported Macs?

Amiga > Mac 1991

MorphOS Amiga-like-OS > Mac OS 2009

morphos won't run on macs with different northbridge (like peg1 version doesn't work on peg2 and vice versa) than mac mini so only latest powerbooks and powermacs could run it. If morphos tests machine id maybe changing it in OF could help (if this change is available)

So in one article it's mentioned that a)it would be nice to know if MorphOS 2.4 works on non-Mini G4 Macs and b)that there's a dearth of non-mainstream OS articles on OSNews. These comments were made by the article author and editor of the site.

Here's a crazy idea, contact the MorphOS devs and conduct an interview that you could post. This would allow you to get direct and correct answers to your questions and provide you with content for the site. It would certainly be more interesting and informative than asking a random collection of viewers to try an OS on hardware that is not officially supported. The best you're going to get in this fashion is a bunch of comments of "Nope, doesn't work" or "Well, it kind of works". There's no context to those responses, though. No answer to "Why?". The devs could give you your hardware list and explain to you the through process(es) behind the decision.

This article represents a huge missed opportunity, truly.

Yes, a MorphOS developer interview would be fantastic. Would love to read that. Especially I'd like to hear more about the conflict with Genesi, future direction, their favourite applications, Ambient and how that is open source, congratulate them on supporting the Mac Mini, etc..... So many interesting things to write about........

Although we have some of the mirrored door Macs still around at the office, my primary production machine at home is my first gen PPC Mac mini. So I downloaded the test ISO and boot from the disc. My USB Apple keyboard was not detected (the newer, slimline model with numeric keypad, product # MB110LL/A). So I had to plug my mouse in to the back of the mini since it didn't work daisy chained through a non-detected keyboard.

I'll try to remember to take home a more generic keyboard to test it with but that was a bit disappointing as I could launch a lot of apps but couldn't do type anything to even find out if I had a network connection or not. As an owner of an Amiga 500 & 1200, I can't say this is anything like the AmigaOS experience I'm used to. As it is, if I were to install an alternate to OS X, I'd probably go with Yellow Dog Linux or one of the other current PPC Linux builds.

-Gary

I tried to fool the MorphOS' bootstrapper using the following (in OF):

dev /rom/boot-rom
.properties
" Apple PowerMac 10,2 4.9.4f1 BootROM built on 07/12/05 at 16:57:27" encode-string " model" property
boot cd:\mac_ppc32\boot.img

But it continues to refuse to boot.
My machine is PowerMac3,4 and videocard is "0001:10:15.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV100 QY [Radeon 7000/VE]" (it is listed as supported on their site).

Internal developer versions obviously do already support further models (at least partially), thus it seems to be just a matter of time.

Recent photo of MorphOS on an eMac:

http://www.morphzone.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1695

Old photo of MorphOS on a Powerbook:

http://bigfoot.morphos-team.net/test/powerbook_insert_forbidden_mes...

Sorry, it has ATI video, but freezes at the bootloader like Thom's.

Any interesting OS's to try on this machine? The hard drive is dead. I was thinking of booting a PPC linux LiveCD but don't know of any.