Why am I fantasizing about buying an old Mac PPC and installing #OpenBSD on it?
... Probably because despite having a fully modern (x86) computer I still get lags constantly. I thought we were promised newer and faster is better??
I can highly recommend that. Few years ago, I had a PowerMac G4 (if I recall correctly) running OpenBSD. Ditched it in favor of more recent hardware - but with the recent vulns in x86, I really regret that.
@uranther @h3artbl33d PPC (G4 and up) is affected by Spectre too though...
@uranther @h3artbl33d @galaxis
Package selection on #macppc OpenBSD is limited compared with i386 and amd64.
@starbreaker @uranther @galaxis
Yeah it is. But I didn't care, I used it as a more secure fileserver. As to desktop usage, XFCE is supported. Chromium, Firefox seem to be missing/unsupported. One should do a bit of reseach to see whether favorite apps are available on powerpc - before switching arch.
@h3artbl33d @galaxis @starbreaker Chromium/Firefox not supported is a feature.
@uranther @starbreaker @galaxis
Totally agreed! Just like OpenBSD doesn't have a Bluetooth stack - it isn't missing, it's a feature. With good reason!
@h3artbl33d @uranther @galaxis
I just use my iLamp for writing using console apps. It runs joe and wordnet, so that's good enough for me.
@starbreaker @uranther @galaxis
By iLamp, are you referring to one of those older iMacs?
@h3artbl33d @uranther @galaxis Yeah, the G4 with the hemispherical base.
@starbreaker @uranther @galaxis
Always lovely to see Puffy on 'less common hardware' 👍
@h3artbl33d @uranther @galaxis I couldn't resist. I wanted a low-end machine for the living room where I could write while keeping my wife company if she wanted to watch Netflix, and I saw this on Ebay for a hundred bucks. Since the router is in the same room I just needed 20ft of CAT5 and a pack of blank CDs.
@starbreaker @uranther @galaxis
That is how simple it can be!
@h3artbl33d @uranther @galaxis Well, I did fuck up the installation at first because I didn't put the boot loader in the MBR, but that was obvious and easy to fix on the second attempt.
@starbreaker
@uranther @galaxis
Yeah - and the fact that OpenBSD is installed within the timespan of brewing a decent coffee, prevents a major amount of frustration. Compare that to, eg, installing a Linux desktop distro.
@starbreaker @h3artbl33d @uranther @galaxis In other words, the best damn Mac that Apple ever produced. I still regret giving that thing away!
@gme @h3artbl33d @uranther @galaxis
Yup. Got the original keyboard and mouse, too. Only thing that doesn't seem to work is sleep/resume.
@uranther Totally serious: why? I'd love to stop using both, but I'm not aware of any alternatives.
@christianbundy Starting to feel like I am turning into RMS who gets web pages archived by email where he reads them with the convenience of his mail terminal.
@uranther Nothing wrong with that if it works for you! Have you had any trouble doing online research that way?
I currently spend a lot of time serfing the web looking for information, and even with a browser (and occasionally using The Goog) it still feels underpowered. I can't imagine working without a browser, but maybe I'd manage?
@christianbundy I haven't tried it yet, no. But simpler methods seemed to work when that's all was available.
@galaxis @h3artbl33d Then I guess the answer again is to buy the SiFive #RISCV Freedom board and start development. 
"#Spectre is still not a very feasible mea㎱ of attack on Power Macs though the possibilities are better on the G5 & later Power ISA desig㎱ which r faster & have more branch tricks that can be subverted．But the G3 & the G4，because of their limitatio㎱ on ㏌direct branch㏌g，are at least somewhat more resistant to Spectre-based attacks because it is harder to cause their speculatⅳe execution pathways to operate ㏌ an attacker-controllable fashion (particularly the G3 & the 7400，which do not have a l㏌k stack cache)
@uranther POWER4 through POWER9 (including PPC970, the G5, as it's a POWER4 derivative) are quite vulnerable to both Meltdown and Spectre, FWIW.
IBM released firmware and OS updates for mitigations for POWER7 and newer, but that doesn't help on a Mac.
@galaxis @h3artbl33d