xfce 4.6 for ppc?

[Thomas Nielsen]

Hi Opensuse-ppc
Yesterday, I finally gave up on kde4.1 on PS3, I just can't squeeze enough memory out for both KDE, and at least 2 running programs (not lack of googling for services to kill :-).
(As a last resort, I even went and bought a USB key at speed 15M/s-9Ms and installed on that, but even the installation speed was pityful, so I aborted, and installed Xfce as default desktop on the harddisk instead - much better!! Now what about Xfce 4.6 for PPC? I see it is out for i586 and x64-64 but not PPC - any predictions?
(for the always impatient . . . . .)
((dobbelt bracket remark - on my standard desktop, I have KDE Version 4.1.3, and I briefly switched to xfce 4.4 to at least see it, and I experienced it somewhat slow?? - SO Xfce has a small footprint, but is it known to be slow as well? Anyways it is better to have a small footprint and avoid swapping ;-))
Thomas

[Larry Stotler]

Post by Thomas Nielsen
Yesterday, I finally gave up on kde4.1 on PS3, I just can't squeeze enough memory out
for both KDE, and at least 2 running programs (not lack of googling for services to kill :-).

Are you using the kernel gpu/swap driver (or whatever it's called)?
If so, you should be able to get that 240MB of VRAM for superfast
swap.

On my Thinkpad A22p(P3/1Ghz) with 256MB RAM, I have 11.0 and KDE3
installed and it runs just fine. KDE4 is supposed to be better on
resources than KDE3, so not sure where you are having the problem.
Make sure you remove stuff like beagle to help improve performance.

[Peter Czanik]

Hello,
The BS does not build packages for PPC, except for building the distro &
factory. But I just tested XFCE 4.6 on my PC and got a 2-3x speed
increase, so it would be worth compiling for PPC too. I'll do it once I
got a little more time.
Bye,
CzP

[Thomas Nielsen]

Thank you for your reply - the whatever driver providing the video RAM is active by default (on second thought I did not verify /proc/memory but last time I installed it was) but KDE4 on Playstation 3 aaahhh The desktop alone runs fine, but as soon as it hits swap you go for coffee - bear also in mind it is a 4200rpm laptop disc (and rumor has it, that if you upgrade it to a really good disc, the PS3 overheats).
I followed these guides
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/views/linux/libraryview.jsp?end_no=100&lcl_sort_order=asc&type_by=Articles&sort_order=asc&show_all=false&sort_by=Relevance&search_by=linux+development+on+the+playstation+3&topic_by=All+topics+and+related+products&search_flag=true&show_abstract=true

and - now i can't find it a guy actually went through all the daemons visible in yast, and explained what they did, and which could be disabled. Sorry cannot find he article.

Even with this, you start firefox, and some Yast module, then hit swap, and coffee again.
On my work laptop, I have OpenSUSE 11.1 with KDE 4.13 and it works really nice. And I must admit that Xfce on PS3 brings back some responsiveness on the PS3 - only my latest-itis is calling for 4.6 :-)

Thomas

Post by Thomas Nielsen
Yesterday, I finally gave up on kde4.1 on PS3, I just can't squeeze enough memory out
for both KDE, and at least 2 running programs (not lack of googling for services to kill :-).

Are you using the kernel gpu/swap driver (or whatever it's called)?
If so, you should be able to get that 240MB of VRAM for superfast
swap.

On my Thinkpad A22p(P3/1Ghz) with 256MB RAM, I have 11.0 and KDE3
installed and it runs just fine. KDE4 is supposed to be better on
resources than KDE3, so not sure where you are having the problem.
Make sure you remove stuff like beagle to help improve performance.
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[Larry Stotler]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 3:27 AM, Thomas Nielsen <***@novell.com> wrote:

Please remember to bottom post so that the thread makes sense. Thanx

Post by Thomas Nielsen
bear also in mind it is a 4200rpm laptop disc (and rumor has it, that if you upgrade it
to a really good disc, the PS3 overheats).

Hmmm. Hadn't heard that. I had been debating on a PS3, but I can
build a Core2 based machine with more RAM for cheaper. I don't really
game. However, I am debating on BD, and that may finally push me to
it. Myself, I'd hack the case and add fans....

Post by Thomas Nielsen
Even with this, you start firefox, and some Yast module, then hit swap, and coffee again.

That's not very encouraging. If I picked up a PS3, I'd have to run
linux on it. YaST unfortunately wants to install all kinds of stuff
no matter how you try to cut down your install. I used a SuSE Studio
disk created for me that was really cut down, and when I ran the
software management app, it tried to install basically the default
install. Took forever to taboo all that crap, and then I ended up
having to install off of the DVD anyway because I screwed something
up.

I really wish there was a Damn Small Linux type distro for the PPC.
I've looked into trying to make one, but I don't have the time(or
patience probably). I've got a bunch of old macs that don't like the
new versions of the current distros very much. I recently put SuSE
7.3 on one of my Powerbooks(thanks again to a fellow list person) and
it was so much faster than 11.0. And everything worked right away.
Oh well.

[Thomas Nielsen]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 3:27 AM, Thomas Nielsen <***@novell.com> wrote:

Please remember to bottom post so that the thread makes sense. Thanx

Post by Thomas Nielsen
bear also in mind it is a 4200rpm laptop disc (and rumor has it, that if you upgrade it
to a really good disc, the PS3 overheats).

Hmmm. Hadn't heard that. I had been debating on a PS3, but I can
build a Core2 based machine with more RAM for cheaper. I don't really
game. However, I am debating on BD, and that may finally push me to
it. Myself, I'd hack the case and add fans....

Post by Thomas Nielsen
Even with this, you start firefox, and some Yast module, then hit swap, and coffee again.

That's not very encouraging. If I picked up a PS3, I'd have to run
linux on it. YaST unfortunately wants to install all kinds of stuff
no matter how you try to cut down your install. I used a SuSE Studio
disk created for me that was really cut down, and when I ran the
software management app, it tried to install basically the default
install. Took forever to taboo all that crap, and then I ended up
having to install off of the DVD anyway because I screwed something
up.

I really wish there was a Damn Small Linux type distro for the PPC.
I've looked into trying to make one, but I don't have the time(or
patience probably). I've got a bunch of old macs that don't like the
new versions of the current distros very much. I recently put SuSE
7.3 on one of my Powerbooks(thanks again to a fellow list person) and
it was so much faster than 11.0. And everything worked right away.
Oh well.
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<<<bottompost - thats like opening the vi/emacs thing i have learnt :-)
I do not want to discourage you away from PS3 - it is an excellent machine, just need to understand its limits. Now that I have OpenSUSE 11.1 and Xfce 4.4 - it is doing well, and Peter Czanik may bring us 4.6 soon, then we are really well.
Here some additional thoughts - PS3 only has one disc bay anyway, so why bother about disc at all - use a NAS I bougth a buffalo mini and use the RAID 1 feature for secutiry for our digital photos, and store everything there - it even supports DLNA (like most of them do http://www.dlna.org/home) then I only have the OS on PS3 - then consider the sound hardware is excellent, not some crap PC soundcard, and sound is sent to your TV via HDMI. Graphics is excellent as well, but not exposed to linux from the hypervisor - shame on you Sony . . but at least they let us use the memory :-)
And oh the BD player, is considered among the best at all - thanks to easy upgradability.
Another observation - PS3 supports HDMI 1.3a - which should make it able to power on your TV when you power on your playstation. Of course I was not observant of this, and my TV is only 1.3, hence this feature does not work - arghhhh.

[Evan McClain]

Post by Larry Stotler
Hmmm. Hadn't heard that. I had been debating on a PS3, but I can
build a Core2 based machine with more RAM for cheaper. I don't really
game. However, I am debating on BD, and that may finally push me to
it. Myself, I'd hack the case and add fans....

I also bought my PS3 for the BD and because I could easily slap
linux on it. One thing to note is that @1080p, mplayer will drop
frames while playing video full screen. If linux could use the
GPU it'd make a great multimedia PC.... If it had a little more
RAM and a TV tuner it'd be perfect.

Post by Larry Stotler
That's not very encouraging. If I picked up a PS3, I'd have to run
linux on it. YaST unfortunately wants to install all kinds of stuff
no matter how you try to cut down your install. I used a SuSE Studio
disk created for me that was really cut down, and when I ran the
software management app, it tried to install basically the default
install. Took forever to taboo all that crap, and then I ended up
having to install off of the DVD anyway because I screwed something
up.

Yeah, I wound up just doing a basic X install and building the
awesome window manager from source. I don't usually keep a mouse
plugged in to my PS3, so a good tiling WM works well and it
doesn't use much RAM either. I have th 80GB PS3, so HD space
isn't really an issue, but running a full desktop environment
wasn't very pleasant.

Post by Larry Stotler
I really wish there was a Damn Small Linux type distro for the PPC.
I've looked into trying to make one, but I don't have the time(or
patience probably). I've got a bunch of old macs that don't like the
new versions of the current distros very much. I recently put SuSE
7.3 on one of my Powerbooks(thanks again to a fellow list person) and
it was so much faster than 11.0. And everything worked right away.
Oh well.

Hmm, I ran slackintosh on my powerbook for awhile and it was OK
until I started missing yast. But I have a relatively new
powerbook (G4 @ 1.5GHz) with lots of RAM, so performance wasn't
_that_ big of an issue, but slackintosh was definitely more
responsive.