Submitted by So, yeah, as we already detailed almost two weeks ago, MorphOS 2.6 has been released. We’ve already discussed this one and its new features last time around, so I’m having a little trouble coming up with stuff to write about, but I’ll do my best to find anything interesting in the detailed release notes – as inexperienced as I am with MorphOS.
The biggest new feature is of course support for PowerMac computers, the models sporting a G4. The following models are supported:
- Power Mac 3,1 – AGP-Graphics
- Power Mac 3,2 – AGP-Graphics
- Power Mac 3,3 – Gigabit Ethernet
- Power Mac 3,4 – Digital Audio
- Power Mac 3,5 – Quick Silver/Quick Silver 2002
- Power Mac 3,6 – Mirrored Drive Doors/FW 800/Mirrored Drive Doors 2003
It’s important to note that only the 3,4, 3,5, and 3,6 models will have their sound chip supported at this point. NVIDIA GeForce2 MX and NVIDIA GeForce4 MX/Titanium video cards are not supported in these PowerMac models. I’m not sure if dual processor machines are supported – most likely, it’ll work, but on one processor alone (MorphOS does not support SMP).
Looking at the rest of the release notes, it appears they’ve been focussing on bug fixes, which is great, of course – but it does leave me a little short on things to tell you. In any case, if you’ve got a PowerMac lying around doing nothing, now would be a good chance to turn it into something useful.
I just bought a Model 3,5 G4 Tower on fleabay for £45 JUST to run this.
“…now would be a good chance to turn it into something useful.”
I ran in on my ppc and it was anything but useful.
Geez what a waste of my time.
Care to give more details? What did you expect and what did not work as stated?
I expected something useful.
Everything worked though. Just not useful.
Maybe it’s because you don’t have a need for an Amiga OS?
What’s a waste of time for you cans be something good for someone else. You can’t trash something just because you don’t need it.
Amiga OS’s are very much unlike Windows, Linux etc…. The learning curve is quite steep if you aren’t used to the way they work.
I had the same experience with AROS and Haiku. They are great to try out, but as soon as you need to sit down and get some work done, something essential is always missing.
There are certain needs that have to be met before any operating system can really be “useful” to even us IT enthusiasts. For me that would be: a Browser that can give the full internet experience, ssh client, usb support, and decent word processor.
1) http://fabportnawak.free.fr/owb/owb-morphos-1.9.readme
2) Built in Remoteshell app provides SSH
3) http://www.platon42.de/poseidon.html
4) https://docs.google.com/ – Use with 1
There you go!
I look forward to trying out Morphos on my old G4 this weekend.
I’m going to try to dual boot with OSX 10.3. I keep panther around since it works with my old Digi-001 recording interface.
I’ve just noticed that MOS2.6 comes with OWB 2.10 which uses a more recent build of WebKit.
Anyone tried it on a PPC iBook/Powerbook? I quite fancy a MorphOS laptop
PowerBook/iBook is not supported with 2.6. It won’t even boot, don’t waste your time trying. (MorphOS refuses to boot on anything but officially supported machines.) However, the development team demoed a version nicknamed ‘MorphOS 3.0’ at some Am*ga show, earlier this Summer, running on an 1.67Ghz PowerBook G4. You can find videos of that particular demo on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=morphos+3.0+powerbook&a…
I have been waiting avidly for this for some time, it’s great news that MorphOS will run on my AGP-Graphics G4. Just read though that sound is not currently supported for these early G4 models. I hope that implies that it will be a feature for the future?! Will give it whirl, all the same!
You can install a Soundblaster PCI card and get sound thru it
Its cheating, but atleast you get sound 
Thanks for the hint! It’s a good thing that I have one or two pulls from older machines lying around. Have downloaded the .iso and will give it a go. Cheers!
The website calls the download a “time-limited demo version”, but it doesn’t seem to describe what this means, or how to get a full version. Can anyone elaborate?
jamesgecko, it comes on an ISO file which is burned to CD for a bootable LiveCD. The LiveCD runs the OS by itself from the optical drive, but may also be installed to hard-drive (which performs better). The installer is a user-friendly tool in the OS, and accessible by GUI (like nearly everything else). The ISO is available for free download by anyone. The 30-minute limit is removed by online purchase of registration/key file. There is a tool in the OS itself that enables the purchase in a user-friendly way. If you choose not to register, you can use the 30-minute version indefinitely, but you’ll be interrupted and have to reboot every 30 minutes.
If you have the hardware, give it a try, you might really like it. Linux has more capable and more numerous apps, but if you think there’s no advantage at all to MorphOS over Linux (or OS X), you just haven’t experienced the responsiveness and fast feel of MorphOS.