[sf-lug] SF-LUG meeting notes for Sunday, January 6, 2019

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):

[Fatdog64 release 800 beta:]

> It even has GSmartControl which is a very good tool if you have had
> the same disk for awhile and need to check it for problems due age or
> accident.

For those curious what the heck that is, it's just a gtk+ 3.x-based
graphical front end to the standard smartmontools.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/S.M.A.R.T.

Also:  Fatdog64 is yet another installable live distro, in this case
originally derived from Puppy Linux, and more recently based on
Slackware.  2017 review:  https://www.linuxinsider.com/story/84433.html

> Joseph P. came in and carried along a flawless G4 iBook.  He is having
> problems connecting to WiFi.  After some experimentation I found that for
> the Cafe Enchante, he did not have WAP available.  I have suggested he go to
> the SFPL and use an Internet cable to do some updates.  But Apple had
> the style for the iBook down even back in G4 days.

I note with appreciation your separate attempt to help Joseph with the
WiFi-connetivity problem, which I gather involves the necessarily very
outdated MacOSX preload.  And, my point is about that:  The final
release of OS X for PowerPC was version 1.05 'Leopard' in 2007, whose
final release was 10.5.8 on August 13, 2009, over nine years ago.  Of
course, the G4 iBook's OS load is at _best_ that outdated.  Maybe a lot
worse.

The best solution, IMO, to Joseph's problem is:  Linux.  Not finding
ways to limp along a dangerously unmaintained OSX.
https://distrowatch.com/search.php?architecture=powerpc

The writing has been on the wall since Tthe mid-2000s, however, that
PowerPC (except for some niches that PPC Macs aren't in) was going away,
and it's best to not bank on them.  Nostalgia for computer hardware has
practical limits, and IMO PowerPC Macs are far past their day.