[besson3c]

Some very interesting 3D GUI ideas here. Not simply a prototype either, I've seen some people here running Beryl:

YouTube - XGL Desktop for linux... The future is now!

The 3D virtual desktop cube idea looks pretty well designed, as well as possibly the window peeking thing. I'm not sure about all of the flapping and fluid motion stuff, although it looks pretty seamless here...

Thoughts?

[Gossamer]

My roommate uses Ubuntu as his main OS and has xgl and beryl installed. It's mostly eye candy, but the combination of multiple desktops and the transparency does allow for some cool things.
BTW besson, this belongs in the Alternate OS forum

[BlueSky]

You can shake 'em like a Polaroid picture. Hey ya.

[Aron Peterson]

XGL has been around for about 18 months in that form. Beryl is newer. Last I heard neither has been ported to Linux PPC.

The next version of Yellow Dog for the PS3 will have full graphics acceleration and Open GL. If you want a supremely powerful Linux box that can play games and watch HD movies on you can't go wrong with a PS3. Anyone who complains about the price now that it really does live up to its promise as a powerful and fully featured desktop computer is thinking too much about gaming.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

XGL has been around for about 18 months in that form. Beryl is newer. Last I heard neither has been ported to Linux PPC.

The next version of Yellow Dog for the PS3 will have full graphics acceleration and Open GL. If you want a supremely powerful Linux box that can play games and watch HD movies on you can't go wrong with a PS3. Anyone who complains about the price now that it really does live up to its promise as a powerful and fully featured desktop computer is thinking too much about gaming.

Supremely powerful? Yeah, ph34|2 my 512 MB of RAM.

[Aron Peterson]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Supremely powerful?

There's nothing comparable on the desktop spec or performance wise in that price range.

This is a Geekbench run. An unoptimised app on an unsupported flavor of Linux (Sony is only throwing support behind Yellow Dog).

Geekbench also isn’t able to exploit the eight vector processors on the Cell processor. Any program designed and optimized for the Cell processor should be a lot faster than one designed for a generic processor (like, say, Geekbench). So while the Geekbench results might seem disappointing, keep in mind that Geekbench can’t exercise the PlayStation 3 to its full potential.

IBM will soon release their Octopiler which will allow apps to be compiled for all of the Cell's SPUs.

One benchmarker did manage to write some crude code to benchmark a single SPU and said it was comparable to a 2.5Ghz G5.

I just learned the very basics of SPU programming and ran the same tests on a single SPU of my PS3. Crudely, the performance of a single SPU appears to be in the same ballpark as that of a high-end G5 processor. This is quite impressive, especially if you note that the PS3's Cell has 6 of these available for crunching.

All in all the future looks bright for PS3 Linux once Octopiler is out and Beryl or XGL is ported.

[His Dudeness]

I'm using Beryl on a newer HP laptop and also on an older Thinkpad T30 with a 32mb ATI card. Runs great and it's smooth. It's funny to think that it's Vista.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

There's nothing comparable on the desktop spec or performance wise in that price range.

This is a Geekbench run. An unoptimised app on an unsupported flavor of Linux (Sony is only throwing support behind Yellow Dog).



IBM will soon release their Octopiler which will allow apps to be compiled for all of the Cell's SPUs.

One benchmarker did manage to write some crude code to benchmark a single SPU and said it was comparable to a 2.5Ghz G5.



All in all the future looks bright for PS3 Linux once Octopiler is out and Beryl or XGL is ported.

And a 1.25 GHz G4 would be a blazing fast chip if only it were running at 5 GHz. All I see now is that the results are not really that great — it's slower than a single-core G5 running at half the clock speed. You could build a way better computer for the same price (1.83 GHz Conroe is like $150). Whether IBM's "octopiler" is actually capable of making good use of the architecture remains to be seen.

[Aron Peterson]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

And a 1.25 GHz G4 would be a blazing fast chip if only it were running at 5 GHz. All I see now is that the results are not really that great — it's slower than a single-core G5 running at half the clock speed. You could build a way better computer for the same price (1.83 GHz Conroe is like $150). Whether IBM's "octopiler" is actually capable of making good use of the architecture remains to be seen.

That logic fails. You must know for sure that every CPU needs a good compiler that takes advantage of a CPU's features. As for " slower than a single-core G5 running at half the clock speed", in those unoptimised tests the Cell was mostly in the same area as a 1.6Ghz G5 (bear in mind that Geekbench is optimised for Altivec), sometimes behind and sometimes way ahead.

Now where else can you buy a $500 fully featured Linux box with a high end gaming console and Blu-ray player that can keep up with a G5 in Linux apps and has the potential for being as fast as a multi-core Mac Pro in optimised apps?

[besson3c]

Here are some Beryl demos:

YouTube - Beryl

YouTube - aiglx + Beryl


I'm willing to bet there are many more customization options than there are in OS X.

It would be interesting to compare usability testing data between this cube implementation vs. Spaces in Leopard.

[Aron Peterson]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

It would be interesting to compare usability testing data between this cube implementation vs. Spaces in Leopard.

I used a cube for virtual desktop spaces for a few months. I just created a several user accounts, enabled fast user switching and ran different apps on each desktop. Personally would prefer a panning desktop.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

I used a cube for virtual desktop spaces for a few months. I just created a several user accounts, enabled fast user switching and ran different apps on each desktop. Personally would prefer a panning desktop.

Wow... Why didn't you just use one of the existing Virtual Desktop solutions out there such as Virtua Desktops or Desktop Manager?

The benefit of this implementation is that it gives you a visual perspective of how these Desktops are connected to one another, and you can preview the contents of several without having to switch between them.

[Mastrap]

I don't know about you guys but I tend to switch off most of the eye candy. At the end of the day it just eats resources and slows stuff down.

[Aron Peterson]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Wow... Why didn't you just use one of the existing Virtual Desktop solutions out there such as Virtua Desktops or Desktop Manager?

I played around with early versions and didn't like them. Haven't bothered since.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

That logic fails. You must know for sure that every CPU needs a good compiler that takes advantage of a CPU's features.

Yes, but I'm skeptical as to how well a compiler can take advantage of the Cell's features. It's not like there's some magical take_advantage_of_features() function IBM can call to make the Cell suddenly go fast. Can a compiler program all the satellite processors in an efficient and effective manner? Maybe, but I don't take it as a given.

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

Now where else can you buy a $500 fully featured Linux box with a high end gaming console and Blu-ray player that can keep up with a G5 in Linux apps and has the potential for being as fast as a multi-core Mac Pro in optimised apps?

The fact that it's a gaming console is irrelevant to its suitability as a PC. The G5 they used is a frankly lousy computer. It's hardly any faster than my next-to-last-generation PowerBook G4. If it can't beat that, I doubt it will be as fast as a Mac Pro without an unreasonable amount of optimization.

Also, the Blu-Ray player in the PS3 is **** by most accounts I've heard. If you really want a Blu-Ray player, buy a proper Blu-Ray player. If you want a Blu-Ray player, video game system and PC, sure, the PS3 is a steal — just as long as you don't care about any of those things being especially good.

[Aron Peterson]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Yes, but I'm skeptical as to how well a compiler can take advantage of the Cell's features.

That's fair. The PS2 had a very fast processor compared to most PCs when it came out (it was a magnitude faster in Povray tests) and Sony released a Linux pack with keyboard and HDD, and then never developed upon that.

The fact that it's a gaming console is irrelevant to its suitability as a PC. The G5 they used is a frankly lousy computer. It's hardly any faster than my next-to-last-generation PowerBook G4.

That's not agreeable. The G5 1.6Ghz it was compared to in Geekbench is plenty fast. My PowerBook is slower and handles just about any pro-work I can throw at it. Furthermore, as noted twice now, Geekbench is Altivec aware but not SPE aware. A single SPE, as noted, is equivalent to a 2.5Ghz G5, and how many does the Cell have? Let's see what Octopiler delivers before condemning. So far nothing in the Yellow Dog distro features Octopiler compiled apps.

Also, the Blu-Ray player in the PS3 is **** by most accounts I've heard. If you really want a Blu-Ray player, buy a proper Blu-Ray player.

That's bull, Chuckit. By most accounts there have been no complaints, and since the quality of playback and the player's features can be improved (and have been already) with firmware updates this changes all the time.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

That's not agreeable. The G5 1.6Ghz it was compared to in Geekbench is plenty fast. My PowerBook is slower and handles just about any pro-work I can throw at it.

So now a PowerBook G4 is the standard for a "supremely powerful" machine? I mean, if it's good enough for you, that's great. It's good enough for me too. But it's actually quite a bit slower than the low-end MacBook.

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

Furthermore, as noted twice now, Geekbench is Altivec aware but not SPE aware. A single SPE, as noted, is equivalent to a 2.5Ghz G5

That's deceptive. It may be able to run as fast as a 2.5 GHz G5, but it doesn't necessarily get you all the benefits a 2.5 GHz G5 would.

[Aron Peterson]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

So now a PowerBook G4 is the standard for a "supremely powerful" machine? I mean, if it's good enough for you, that's great. It's good enough for me too. But it's actually quite a bit slower than the low-end MacBook.

Did I say that a PowerBook G4 is a supremely powerful machine? It's slower than the G5 and Cell in the example. I responded to your charge that machines such as a PowerBook G4 are almost useless. BTW, my PBG4 is faster in graphical applications than a low-end MacBook, but that's outside this discussion too.

That's deceptive. It may be able to run as fast as a 2.5 GHz G5, but it doesn't necessarily get you all the benefits a 2.5 GHz G5 would.

The Cell is PPC970 based. It can do everything the G5 and Mac Pro can do when coded for.

This kind of discussion, and pessimism, is exactly what Mac PPC owners used to say about Intel chips three years ago. I would bench my Dual G4-450 versus a PIII-800, and then got shat on for showing the PIII was much faster than Apple claimed (remember the snail?). Same when I benched the G4-550Mhz PowerBook against a Sony Vaio PIII-933Mhz. The Vaio won in Photoshop and Lightwave but only a few people would accept it because the majority believed the charts on Apple's site.

Now Mac owners are loving Intel, including Hackintoshers on old Pentium 4 Thinkpads etc. You should see what a CPU can do before bashing it.

[besson3c]

So, what do you guys think about these 3D desktop ideas, and 3D desktops in general?

I think that, for the most part, we are still figuring out how to use this technology to convey some sort of meaning. For the most part, including within OS X, a lot of this is simply eye candy, but that 3D cube thing in this demo is a very interesting implementation and a creative way to convey meaning to the user.

I wonder if the hooks are in Vista to support this sort of thing...

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

So, what do you guys think about these 3D desktop ideas, and 3D desktops in general?

I think that, for the most part, we are still figuring out how to use this technology to convey some sort of meaning. For the most part, including within OS X, a lot of this is simply eye candy, but that 3D cube thing in this demo is a very interesting implementation and a creative way to convey meaning to the user.

I wonder if the hooks are in Vista to support this sort of thing...

If Apple popularizes it, you bet they will be.

[Aron Peterson]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

So, what do you guys think about these 3D desktop ideas, and 3D desktops in general?

I think that, for the most part, we are still figuring out how to use this technology to convey some sort of meaning. For the most part, including within OS X, a lot of this is simply eye candy, but that 3D cube thing in this demo is a very interesting implementation and a creative way to convey meaning to the user.

3D virtual desktops don't make sense because it means having to move the cube and wait for it to be in position before you start working. I know that doesn't sound like a long time, but doing it many times over the course of a day gets tiring and those seconds add up. The novelty factor wears off soon and you'll wish you could switch it off and have a more immediate switch between workspaces. Same goes for windows that explode in flames when you close them.

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

The novelty factor wears off soon and you'll wish you could switch it off and have a more immediate switch between workspaces. Same goes for windows that explode in flames when you close them.

It did for me, but my roommate seems to like it. It really depends on the person.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

3D virtual desktops don't make sense because it means having to move the cube and wait for it to be in position before you start working. I know that doesn't sound like a long time, but doing it many times over the course of a day gets tiring and those seconds add up. The novelty factor wears off soon and you'll wish you could switch it off and have a more immediate switch between workspaces. Same goes for windows that explode in flames when you close them.

I'm pretty sure you can set a hot key to switch between them quickly if you wish, the cube just provides an overview.

I agree that Windows exploding in flames, the ripple effect in Dashboard, etc. doesn't really convey a whole lot of meaning, this is exactly what I meant by we are still struggling to figure out how to utilize this capability. We might be slowly moving towards a whole new paradigm, and struggling in the meantime to really exploit these new capabilities to our advantage.

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

We might be slowly moving towards a whole new paradigm, and struggling in the meantime to really exploit these new capabilities to our advantage.

[Aron Peterson]

The latest version of Ubuntu has some of XGL's effects available as a technology preview.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/7%2e04Tour?a...topEffects.png

[Jawbone54]

3D desktops...meh...

I prefer quick switching over all the cube/floating/spinning nausea-inducing stuff. It's cool to look at, but I'm sure it'd be different if I'm just trying to get work done. Even if it's a half-second of wasted time, that adds up.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

Now where else can you buy a $500 fully featured Linux box with a high end gaming console and Blu-ray player that can keep up with a G5 in Linux apps and has the potential for being as fast as a multi-core Mac Pro in optimised apps?

The PS3 does not have out of order execution. Therefore it will never be as fast as a multi-core Mac Pro.

QED.

[Don Pickett]

Back to the topic:

XGL/Beryl/Compiz is a nice OSS execution of Quartz/Aero, but, like a lot of OSS GUI design, it seems to have been done without much eye towards actual usability. Things like wiggling windows look cool but don't accomplish anything.

[Aron Peterson]

Originally Posted by goMac 

The PS3 does not have out of order execution. .

Octopiler makes full use of all cores and vector units by spreading a binary application across them all so no cycles are wasted. OoO isn't the only way to prevent cycle waste.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Back to the topic:

XGL/Beryl/Compiz is a nice OSS execution of Quartz/Aero, but, like a lot of OSS GUI design, it seems to have been done without much eye towards actual usability. Things like wiggling windows look cool but don't accomplish anything.

The same could be said of the Dashboard ripple effect.

[Aron Peterson]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

The same could be said of the Dashboard ripple effect.

Thing is the widgets are immediately accessible. To some degree commercial platforms like Windows and Mac OS X have to make use of special effects to woo new customers. Apple quite obviously has the best record when it comes to a balanced and effective use of modern graphics engines. Look at how much more useful Exposé is compared to that Vista rolodex thing. Beryl has a version of (ripped off) Exposé btw.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

Thing is the widgets are immediately accessible. To some degree commercial platforms like Windows and Mac OS X have to make use of special effects to woo new customers. Apple quite obviously has the best record when it comes to a balanced and effective use of modern graphics engines. Look at how much more useful Exposé is compared to that Vista rolodex thing. Beryl has a version of (ripped off) Exposé btw.

The thing that many don't seem to understand is that the open source community generally does not dictate GUI policy, but simply provides the mechanism for things to happen.

If you look on YouTube, you'll see demos of Beryl doing all sorts of window effects in many different ways. Beryl and all similar implementations can be configure to do many things. Right now, it seems that Beryl provides the most capability for developers (although I could be wrong). What I'm interested in is how this capability is implemented.

In the latest Ubuntu, the cube and wobbily windows are built in as experimental features. I would imagine that the Ubuntu team has decided that these two implementations are implementations that are worthy making the build.

[Aron Peterson]

I'm trying to install the latest Ubuntu on my PowerBook but am getting nowhere (except being able to load it as a live cd). Can't believe how little progress Linux has made since I installed it last seven years ago.

I've got a boot prompt. I can type 'live' to load the live cd feature. When I type 'install' the damn thing tells me can't find whatever device on partition whatever. This is a damn joke and the installation guide doesn't say anything about this, just says everything is automatic, simple and modern. Right.

[Chuckit]

I think you'll need to wipe the drive if you want to install on your PowerBook.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

Octopiler makes full use of all cores and vector units by spreading a binary application across them all so no cycles are wasted. OoO isn't the only way to prevent cycle waste.

Ummm... You can't simply spread an application over the Cell's cores because the Cell doesn't have traditional cores.

Automatic threading is something no compiler has ever been able to do. If IBM has succeeded in automatic threading (actually something even more complicated in since the Cell's cores are not cores, they are co-processors), hat's off to them. But considering it's one of the holy grails of computer science, I'll wait until I see it to celebrate.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

I'm trying to install the latest Ubuntu on my PowerBook but am getting nowhere (except being able to load it as a live cd). Can't believe how little progress Linux has made since I installed it last seven years ago.

I've got a boot prompt. I can type 'live' to load the live cd feature. When I type 'install' the damn thing tells me can't find whatever device on partition whatever. This is a damn joke and the installation guide doesn't say anything about this, just says everything is automatic, simple and modern. Right.

PPC Ubuntu was canned a long time ago, you are using a much older version AFAIK...

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I think you'll need to wipe the drive if you want to install on your PowerBook.

Oh, Chuckit is right, missed this the first time reading through the post... You cannot install Linux on an HFS formatted volume.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

PPC Ubuntu was canned a long time ago, you are using a much older version AFAIK...

Not a long time ago. Like half a year or so.

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Not a long time ago. Like half a year or so.

You can get 6.10 (the last release) for PPC. I don't think they're making 7 for PPC.

[Gossamer]

I take that back.
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/rele...eisty/release/

Feisty Fawn is out for PPC.

[Aron Peterson]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

PPC Ubuntu was canned a long time ago, you are using a much older version AFAIK...

tut tut...it wasn't canned. I read that in a thread and don't know where that idea came from because every trunk and public release for PPC is clearly available for download on Ubuntu's site. Every architecture including PS3 is supported in the latest release.

Looks like I have to partition the drive for the installer to work, and before I do that I have to defrag it otherwise Drive Genius won't partition it. I've just spent the last four hours defragging and still have at least two hours left.

[Aron Peterson]

Originally Posted by Gossamer 

I take that back.
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/rele...eisty/release/

Feisty Fawn is out for PPC.

agh. I responded about that for nothing.

[Aron Peterson]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Ummm... You can't simply spread an application over the Cell's cores because the Cell doesn't have traditional cores.

Automatic threading is something no compiler has ever been able to do. If IBM has succeeded in automatic threading (actually something even more complicated in since the Cell's cores are not cores, they are co-processors), hat's off to them. But considering it's one of the holy grails of computer science, I'll wait until I see it to celebrate.

There's something called Google or whatever that comes in handy for looking up things like Octopiler.

Example, a year old article:

It isn't easy to write code for Cell, with its central processing core and eight accompanying special-purpose engines. Octopiler, which IBM Research plans to outline at a tutorial next month, aims to change all that. The software development tool converts a single, human-written program into several different programs that run simultaneously on Cell's various cores.

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

tut tut...it wasn't canned. I read that in a thread and don't know where that idea came from because every trunk and public release for PPC is clearly available for download on Ubuntu's site. Every architecture including PS3 is supported in the latest release.

Looks like I have to partition the drive for the installer to work, and before I do that I have to defrag it otherwise Drive Genius won't partition it. I've just spent the last four hours defragging and still have at least two hours left.

Why not partition it with Disk Utility?

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

There's something called Google or whatever that comes in handy for looking up things like Octopiler.

Example, a year old article:

I don't think anybody is unclear on what the Octopiler is supposed to do. We're skeptical about whether it's possible to do it in an efficient and effective way.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Gossamer 

Why not partition it with Disk Utility?

Because Disk Utility does not know how to place the ext3 file system on the drive...

[Gossamer]

So in Disk Utility you shrink your HFS partition and leave the rest free space, then when installing Ubuntu, tell it to paritition the free space however it would like, giving you the best root and swap partition sizes. Better than you guessing yourself, having never installed it before.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Aron Peterson 

There's something called Google or whatever that comes in handy for looking up things like Octopiler.

Example, a year old article:

Yes, I know how in theory such a compiler would work. HOWEVER, a computer breaking up code like that on the fly has never been done. Even if it is done, it is extremely hard for a compiler (or a human for that matter), to decide what code goes what best there. In order for a compiler to do that, it would have to simulate what parts of the program generate what sorts of load, and then intelligently decide how to split up the code so the load is generated evenly across all the SPE's, which is an entire bag of worms in itself.

I suggest you read up on the No Free Lunch Therom for starters:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-free-lunch_theorem

Again, it would be great if IBM designed a compiler that could automatically thread code for you. But so far, this hasn't been done by anyone. If they did create such a compiler, it would be a huge boon for all multi core processors on the market.

More likely what they've done is one of two things. They could have created a compiler which gives the programmer greater control over what code goes onto which SPE, which doesn't mean any automatic optimization is happening. The second thing is it could be simply pushing code onto different SPE's blindly, which won't result in very much of a performance improvement at all. Code that is also designed for one core will show no performance improvement, so even if an Octopiler optimized your code on the fly, it won't necessarily make your code faster.

If you have any solid facts about how this Octopiler works, I'd like to hear it. But you're getting into one of the theoretical areas of Computer Science.

[Aron Peterson]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Because Disk Utility does not know how to place the ext3 file system on the drive...

Ubuntu was a disaster. After defragging and partitioning successfully, I set up Ubuntu. You have to load the live cd first and then click install. The installation process is simple enough. Choose the partition to install Linux on, then choose the Mac HFS+ partition to install the bootloader Yaboot.

Ubuntu installs and then reboots presenting me with Yaboot's menu to choose whether I want to boot OS X, Linux or from a CD. I choose Linux first to see what it's like.

Ubuntu starts booting and the first thing I see is some error message saying it can't access resource xyz at address 2472422ndknsdl383whatever. Even a seasoned computer user can't figure that out. Nevertheless it continues booting. I see Ubuntu's splash screen appear, all colors are wrong. It looks like Photoshop's solarizie filter.

Then another splash screen, two more actually with ethnic tribal rhytmns to remind me how evil corporations and the modern world is and how great it is to go back to my bongo drum natural roots when it was possible to get laid by beating a woman over her head and drag her back to my cave.

Gnome loads. Everything looks fine, if fine means 1999. First thing I notice is my trackpad works like sh!t. It's slow, over sensitive to touches which it translates to clicks, and plain jerky. I need to fix this. I go to through the various system settings and select Mouse only to find there's no specific settings for trackpads.

Not to worry I think. Ubuntu has Bluetooth support! I dig out my Bluetooth mouse and hunt for the Bluetooth settings. Huh? I can't find them. The hardware profiler says it can see my computer has Bluetooth but how the hell do I pair my computer and mouse? I dig around everywhere, including network preferences, and come up empty.

How are the desktop effects like wobbly windows and desktop cube spaces? I enable it and the screen goes white. I wait a minute and the screen returns. The effects are still disabled.

Leaving that aside for the time being I want to see what's so special about this operating system that is newer than Vista and much newer than Tiger. How fast do apps launch?

They launch slower than on Tiger or any flavor of Windows. Bugger that then. How's this Office.org thing? I launch the word processor and start typing. Yuck. Serif fonts. I want Arial or Helvetica.

Nope. The OS for serious coders doesn't have Arial or Helvetica. So not much use for web coding then.

I want to check what net speeds are like, but first I have to boot back into OS X to get my network settings. I shut down Ubuntu and restart. Yaboot appears and I press x to load OS X.

Nothing's happening. I hit x again, and again, and again. Yaboot attempts to load Tiger and then freezes.

Several attempts more achieve the same no-results and I can't see my Mac partition from Linux, so in goes my Drive Genius CD to see what's happening.

DG loads. I don't see my volumes anymore.

Ubuntu, the people's OS, didn't delete my HFS+ partition, neither did it format it. I can still see that 34GBs or 60GBs have been used on it. So why doesn't that data load? Because Ubuntu converted the partition to some mysterious format that OS X can't load on.

Now I'm stuck. DG won't save me because it doesn't know what format it is. Let me try my Tiger DVD.

The DVD loads up and has the same problem, only it sees the mysterious partition as something called 'free space'. **** it.

I use Disk Utility to remove all partition and reinstall a fresh copy of Tiger, from where I'm posting this message now. It's bliss to be free of the jungle coded operating system and back to an operating system that had real R+D money put into it, a vision behind it, and one responsible for job and wealth creation. For the masses.

[besson3c]

and designed for your hardware, PPC support in Ubuntu seems to be a mere afterthought. I've read reviews of Ubuntu where everything worked like magic out of the book (on a i386 system), and I've read of users having odd problems such as yourself (although perhaps not quite as bad) - your report is not terribly surprising. It sounds like you had some unrealistic expectations resulting in you getting some sort of generic trackpad and video driver, and no bluetooth support...

Not to sound like a complete jackass, but you could have done a little more research and found out that it was likely you'd run into problems such as this on your PPC laptop.