[mythtv-users] Mythtv frontend on PPC

[Craig Treleaven]

At 11:35 PM +1100 10/9/13, OM Ugarcina wrote:
>Hello guys,
>
>I am looking for a bit of advice from the Mac gurus . I have just 
>came into possession of an iMac G5 2.1Ghz 20 inch iSight computer. 
>This is the last of the PPC machines ( I think ) and I have 2.5Gb of 
>RAM in it and it's running Mac osx 10.5.8 . I was wandering if I 
>could put mythfrontend in it , ideally .27 as I plan to upgrade my 
>Linux backend/frontend combo to .27 shortly. Is it doable, my main 
>use would be as a spare livetv set , watching live to air tv which 
>here (AUS) is a pretty miserable SD quality since the addition of 
>all those shopping channels. If I can not watch any of my 720p or 
>1080p films, it would not be a great disappointment, I have the main 
>Telly for that .
>
>Ps. Very new to macs, steep learning curve, but things looking 
>promising , just found where the terminal is .

Sorry to rain on your parade but brace yourself for a downpour!  ;)

That machine was discontinued in Jan. 2006.  Mac OS dropped support 
for PPC with 10.6.x.  When Mavericks (10.9) is released (next few 
weeks), you'll be 4 generations behind.

I thought Jean-Yves used to provide PPC versions of the frontend but 
I don't see them on his page anymore:

http://www.avenard.org/files/mythtv/mac/

No PPC versions that I can see at SourceForge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mythtvformacosx/files/Older/

I maintain the MacPorts versions of Myth.  I know a couple of people 
ran 0.25 (mythtv-core.25) on PPC.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MacPorts

However, I've given up on trying to support PPC (and 32-bit Intel) 
with 0.26 for a couple of reasons.  Mainly I don't have enough 
time/skill to track down the issues for such old platforms.  And they 
make a lousy Myth platform, anyway.  You say your expectations are 
low.  I think some people try to use these old machines to see if 
they _can_.

If someone wants to help out, I'll be happy to share what little I 
know.  OTOH, the MacPorts project is making only 'best efforts' to 
keep supporting older OS and hardware platforms.  At some point, one 
of Myth's dependencies is going to drop PPC support (if not already) 
and anybody who wants to try it will _really_ have to jump through 
hoops to install older versions.

Considering that you can buy a Core2 Duo (64 bit Intel) Mac mini for 
a few bucks, do that and catch up to 5 year-old technology!  ;)

BTW, if you do go with mythtv-core.25, it will take hours and hours 
and hours to build.  I think the last successful PPC build I heard 
about was 6-9 months ago.  Might still work.  Also, going forward, 
the G5 wasn't particularly energy-efficient so it is going to add to 
your electricity bill.

Did I dampen your spirits?  ;)

Craig