Byte's "Serving with Linux" columnist Moshe Bar writes a brief review of his new G5, the new 15" Powerbook & Panther. Read more for some feedback on the article from contributor Diganta Saha.
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is the motor will eventually get worn out and will develop a noise that may annoy the listener. My understanding is although ball-bearing fans are quieter, they have a shorter life time than normal fans.
The linked article says by Moshe Bar not Moshe Jordan. Can someone clarify?
I remember reading somewhere that if you log into single user mode on a G5 the fans turn on full power because the advanced thermal system isn't availeble in single user mode.
If the fans turn on full power the G5 can produce a lot of noise I guess.
just my 2 cents
I wish he'd go into more detail about his speed comparison by way of compiling a linux kernel. What version or the kernel? Did he make sure that the config were the same? What options were set as modules, and what were compiled into the kernel? Did he include platform specific kernel features? All these things could affect the speed of building a kernel but he just concluded that the G5 system was faster.
The best Apple article I've seen in the mainstream press in some time. While my dual G5 certainly isn't as loud as a hairdryer most of the time, I do know that some people have received machines with various odd noises. At best, however, the G5 is extremely quiet.
Yes, the G5 is a great machine -- fast and built for the future. Yes, Panther is a super OS (except for some Samba networking quirks which I hope Apple fixes soon). Yes, the new Dual 1.8 G5 is a great value. Hmm, let's see -- I think that about covers all of the usual argument territory, right? 
Cheers,
Jared
I recall one of the 'demo' G5's at WWDC had very loud fans in comparison to all the other machines in the G5 tuning lab. It was explained by 'faulty sensors'/'early hardware' when I asked an Apple rep.
I know that if you boot the G5 into target mode (hold down the t key) then the fans run at full rate since the software thermal control is not activated (its built into the OS not the firmware).
Certainly the G5 can be very noisy if the fans are running at full speed, however I've never had that actually happen on my machine except in unusual circumstances (such as above) in general it's one of the quieter machines in my office.
I suspect either faulty hardware or 'selective writing'.
WTF? Noisy fans? The only Dual G5 I've ever used I could barely hear. Now my Athlon XP system at home, that's loud. Obnoxiously so.
I'm pretty sure that 10.3's userland is mostly based on FreeBSD 4.7. The only thing from 5.0 is the libc. It was used to have support for wide char, which the 4.7 libc did not offer. I suspect Apple marketing chose to highlight FreeBSD 5.0 instead, since it is a newer version.
Hopefully we'll see full sync with FreeBSD 5.x for 10.4. Things like IPFW2 would be nice to have.
How does this link work? I would like to read Moshe's earlier articles too 
What do you have to run to compile a Linux kernel?
LINUX!
Does Linux have support for the thermal chips and the SOFTWARE CONTROLLED FANS in the G5?
No.
From Gentoo's G5 release:
It runs at 100% speed, with fans currently also at 100% (kernel developers are working on slowing down the fans when not needed)
You'll see here exactly when that happens:
http://ppc.bkbits.net:8080/linuxppc-2.5-benh
I heard that the most noisy fan is actually the ati radeon 9800 pro's fan
=o/
Moshe Bar.... PPC... OpenMosix???
http://openmosix.sourceforge.net/
Any relation or is Moshe Bar just quite common name in india?
(think Mosix on G5 farm)
Moshe Bar is not a common name in India as far as I know. Moshe bar is an Israeli. Moshe is a bliblical Jewish name, Let my ("people go...")
Moshe is the main developer behind Open Mosix, the leading clustering solutuon today. He is working for qlusters.com , a small company based in Tel-Aviv,Israel.
Actually it's the other way around. Sleeve fans are quieter but they wear out significantly faster. Never noticed how fast graphics card fans go?
