[G4] Ubuntu... And Qemu!

[Eric Wood]

Aside from Ubuntu's Debian roots, using it is certainly a lot like using
Fedora. Actually, the lack of a root password is Ubuntu is a nice item
borrowed from OS X. Fedora still uses root, and configuring the system
in any serious way requires that password.

I've found Ubuntu to be a little less functional for me, though I
couldn't easily say why. One item, however, is Fedora's default to using
LVM. I like to install multiple hard drives in a system, and to have an
OS automatically use all available drives as one, large volume appeals
to me.

I am tempted at this point to install another hard drive and test the
latest Ubuntu PPC release, and possibly Tiger again. Then I could have
the best of both worlds. It is indeed nice to let it drive itself once
in a while! I have a bunch of awesome Mac games that I start to miss
after a while, such as Halo and Warcraft III. It's too bad there's no
non-uber-geek method to make Wine work on Linux PPC. I suppose Darwine
still requires an Intel Mac, as well. Qemu on Linux and just "Q" on OS X
is a great program, potentially. It offers both system emulation and
"user-space" processor emulation that'll let one run an app for a
different architecture on your system. That is to say, you could run an
i386 Linux program on Linux PPC. I think it's being used to make
Intel-native OS X apps work on PPC now, as well, though I don't know of
any apps yet that are Intel-only. Good way to keep a G4 or G5 alive,
though!

Actually, I'm a real emulator nut. I love emulating anything on anything
else. Were I a programmer, that'd be my kind of project, along with
games of the Daggerfall (Elder Scrolls II) persuasion. That game
modernised would be such a treat. Too bad the source code isn't free...

Eric