Debian Brought Back To Life On M68K-Based Amigas

[Cyber Killer]

So maybe there is a spark of hope for the ECS Amigas too... :-)

[BO$$]

I don't agree, because I consider KDE is far more usable than Unity, Windows and OS X. For me Windows is unusable and that's why I wiped it out. The only thing that keeps people using m$ OS is software and drivers, sometimes. There are no other reasons, because it's broken like hell. It's proprietary mess, so we can't do a thing to make it usable and fix its brokenness. It sucks.

I consider KDE far more usable than Unity. That is why I use it. I am not saying that Canonical only made good decisions. What I am saying is that they started this push to make linux more usable for beginners. And somehow it seems that most non power users use Unity because they think it's simpler. I fucking hate Unity and those who read my posts over time I'm sure can't condemn me of being pro Unity or Gnome 3. Also I use Windows only for games and for 3DS Max when I need to do some modelling.

[BO$$]

Now we know you're just trolling. Canonical making Linux 'Usable'? Have you tried Unity? The fact of the matter is, Canonical doesn't do much themselves, with the exception of Unity, and Unity is by all accounts crap.

Ubuntu lost sight of their main goal when they decided to go so far away from their base of Debian. Their main goal was an up to date Debian with the latest Gnome every 6 months. Then because they judged 3.0 crappy, they decided to go in another direction, which is actually more of a waste of time. At least Gnome had a valid reason for being created when KDE was already out there. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

But did you also take into account that the port to m68k architecture makes things more stable and better code because it has to be compilable across multiple architectures? Yeah, that's a waste too.

Besides, you keep focusing on "Ported to Amiga." when it's actually a port for m68k, which means anything that uses the m68k platform can utilize Debian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldfire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Coldfire_Project

Those two links don't inspire me running a Debian OS at a good enough speed. I mean Processor: Coldfire MCF5474, 264 MHz, 400 MIPS? C'mon! Buy an x86.

[Ibidem]

Those two links don't inspire me running a Debian OS at a good enough speed. I mean Processor: Coldfire MCF5474, 264 MHz, 400 MIPS? C'mon! Buy an x86.

Did it ever occur to you that noone owes you their time?

Also, did you ever bother to think through the performance/power equations for running Atari /Amiga software*, or stop to think that some people might not care about frequency?
*There is at least one Atari emulator that runs ~native speed on m68k. So someone can run Linux without losing here.

[leech]

Those two links don't inspire me running a Debian OS at a good enough speed. I mean Processor: Coldfire MCF5474, 264 MHz, 400 MIPS? C'mon! Buy an x86.

Exactly what Ibidem said. Frequencies on x86 != Frequencies on m68k or any other architecture.

Sadly because people are stupid, that's one of the main reasons Apple went to x86, because IBM and the others who make PPCs weren't cranking up the MHz/GHz numbers fast enough.

It's all perception, no one has given a crap about the raw MHz. The MIPS on the other hand, is what you want to look at, and from looking at the wikipedia entry on that;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_second

There are some Freescale processors that have more MIPS and yet don't require the cooling / power that the Intel processors use. They would be perfect in routers, modems, switches, network appliances, etc.

Not everything that Linux does is for desktop usage.

[BO$$]

Exactly what Ibidem said. Frequencies on x86 != Frequencies on m68k or any other architecture.

Sadly because people are stupid, that's one of the main reasons Apple went to x86, because IBM and the others who make PPCs weren't cranking up the MHz/GHz numbers fast enough.

It's all perception, no one has given a crap about the raw MHz. The MIPS on the other hand, is what you want to look at, and from looking at the wikipedia entry on that;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_second

There are some Freescale processors that have more MIPS and yet don't require the cooling / power that the Intel processors use. They would be perfect in routers, modems, switches, network appliances, etc.

Not everything that Linux does is for desktop usage.

Well it has 400 MIPS so it's pretty obvious it won't conquer an i7 for now at least. In embedded things it might have a use, but I don't know if Debian is the right choice for embedded devices. I thought that embedded devices based themselves on a different 'distro' of linux. Can't remember the name right now.

[uid313]

Well it has 400 MIPS so it's pretty obvious it won't conquer an i7 for now at least. In embedded things it might have a use, but I don't know if Debian is the right choice for embedded devices. I thought that embedded devices based themselves on a different 'distro' of linux. Can't remember the name right now.

Well Debian can serve as a distribution base for other distributions to build upon. Such as Ubuntu builds upon Debian.

Embedded devices use Ångström distribution and OpenEmbedded.

[uid313]

Those two links don't inspire me running a Debian OS at a good enough speed. I mean Processor: Coldfire MCF5474, 264 MHz, 400 MIPS? C'mon! Buy an x86.

x86 isn't the right choice for everyone.
It may not be available, it may be too expensive, it may not be trusted, it may considered to lack transparency or not have a certain instruction, feature or property.

If you use a CPU in space, airplane, automobile, robotics then perhaps x86 isn't the right choice.
If you use a CPU for national security, then maybe a American Intel isn't the best choice.

[leech]

Well it has 400 MIPS so it's pretty obvious it won't conquer an i7 for now at least. In embedded things it might have a use, but I don't know if Debian is the right choice for embedded devices. I thought that embedded devices based themselves on a different 'distro' of linux. Can't remember the name right now.

uClinux is probably what you're referring to, which by the way is also ported to the m68k.

But if you really want to know other examples of Debian on embedded devices, Raspberri Pi, Nokia N900, Nokia N9, etc. Granted some may not think that cell phones and little boards like the Raspberry Pi are 'embedded' but they certainly are and can be.

Debian is an excellent base for many things. Even the hacks for iCrap devices utilize apt-get.

Hmmm, ami-get install spaceballs-demo... how cool would that be on an Amiga...

[Ibidem]

Well it has 400 MIPS so it's pretty obvious it won't conquer an i7 for now at least. In embedded things it might have a use, but I don't know if Debian is the right choice for embedded devices. I thought that embedded devices based themselves on a different 'distro' of linux. Can't remember the name right now.

Do you happen to mean EmDebian?
(See also http://wiki.debian.org/Embedded_Debian and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#Embedded_systems)
I've also run across quite a few people enquiring about Debian for various embedded applications.
I also note debwrt and the former maemo.
Open Embedded and related distros, which use ipkg/opkg, have a package manager which is very close to Debian's dpkg. In fact, according to http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/...ly/000496.html, the format is close enough to .deb that you can install .deb packages with ipkg or opkg!

Debian aims to be "The Universal Operating System" and IMHO they have succeeded fairly well.
Debian is one of ~2-3 major freely available projects that provide ports and patches to make software run on minor architectures; referring to the Debian packaging, source mirrors, and patches can be a real help even if you build from scratch.

Regarding m68k vs i7: how fast does an i7 emulate m68k (remember what I said about Atari emutors), and how does it compare at that for power efficiency?