Hello, I come as an emissary of the original Void PowerPC dev group. I did mostly testing and scattered hardware tests, making sure weird machines would at least function.
Things need to be done yet, but first, something major needs to happen.
Much of this situation reminds me of the mainline distro's dev disappearance. However, some will try to give Q66 too much credit for being the only person building packages and such. I want to clear something up about that, first and foremost. Multiple people, including me, approached to help with packages. Not all have macs, someone had an E6600 based AmigaOne board, but Q66 was convinced you needed a Talos to build packages as it was a more modern use of the ISA.
While true, the problem is that no one can afford this nonsense and thusly, we resort to other means to resolve this. We tried cross compile, but there were too many issues.
I had an idea to work on this, but I will detail this in the next post down. The OP here will be for details on the reboot, what is needed immediately, what I need help with, and why. I'll be doing this on the fly tonight so if you are watching this while I post it, please refrain from posting a reply until I am done with the OP. Thank you.
What is Void POWER?
Void POWER, originally, was an effort to start a Power/PowerPC based trend in the linux space for users at home to either have an open platform to develop on, a cheap cost effective way to have a computer that is somewhat modern, or just another OS toy. Depending on who you asked that was working on, it represented something, or was something, to who worked on it.
For me, it was a sign that users could have an actionable move on the landscape. For others, they wanted to just be able to use their PowerPC machines for..... something. One dev specifically just wanted to see Void on a Wii and wade other nonsense happen. So, in total, we all have our reasons for coming together.
However, as it happened, we were not the only ones working on this. Q66, a Talos user / owner, and relatively large name in the linux dev space (depending on where you are), had come along with some code he already had, and together we worked to build up what the original Void PowerPC port is today.
After some time, and many disagreements, people left, until eventually no one was around. This saddens me especially as I sacrificed what little time I had from working 70 hours a week as my second job ever. I did research, hardware recon, found more people to connect to the project, and did what I could to have people know that the project even existed. When stuff was moving I did bugtesting and general testing, but eventually I was too tired to really be of much help from overworking myself. I have a tendency to do that.
Instead of working to death on this, I generally want to know if people would be interested in helping with, or giving knowledge for, the project. If I am completely honest, I am familiar with a very old version of the internet at this point. I had some bad shit happen to me a while ago, and any interaction online has been confined to one or two forums, and youtube. So, more than just code help, which to be honest I can figure out, more to the point, I need help figuring out which social spaces to go to that are somewhat useable nowadays (and not full of nonsense posts or obscure rulebooks you have to dig out) that will actually be helpful. I don't really need arch linux user responses to a genuine inquiry about if I'm having a hardware or software bug, which happens all the damn time.
Heres a list of crap the project needs right now:
1 - An interest pool - Duh
For a Foss project to get off the ground, fundamentally, people have to be interested. At that, you need to know WHAT users even exist. The problem with the original project was that it had too much going on in too many directions. Someone claimed project lead when there was no overall goal in unity, just individually. Eventually the person with the most power overall won, and everyone left because no one likes totalitarianism.
So, in general, I want to know who is interested, what they are interested in, and why. Heres a few easy examples.
Jeremy is a college hacker doing stuff for a degree in CS/CA and wants to have a new platform to play with. Jeremy has a computer from his parents, and is in the Foss Sphere. He has a hacked WII, a G5, and a need to screw around. Jeremy wants a build environment that will let him play with stuff, and even wants to play with an E6600 or Talos machine in the future.
Dana is a PS3 user who had her laptop die. She has a PS3 she got with some hacks built in with a bunch of games loaded. She needs a computer and her brother / friend / boyfriend knows about OtherOS. They want to be able to use it for watching TV stuff, maybe doing banking if thats not on their phone, and hey its still a PS3 so fuck it you know.
Ben is an IT Supervisor for a school in the south. They cannot afford new machines, but the local goodwill has a tech store and a bunch of G5's that are going straight to the trash. He is tasked to fill out a lab, maybe in a school or a church, and has 0 cash to do it. But, these G5's are free, and he knows people used to edit video on them. Maybe he could even stream locally and set up webcams for a live capture of a large performance.
Local to me, these are examples of people who would use something for free. Maybe not G5's, but the plentiful nature of G5's makes them available easily.
Anyone could have any reason to use a computer, and the point of making Void an available platform, to me, is to have an easier time just getting up to date code. XBPS Build is stupidly nice, and easy scripts can be made to make everything one and done.
I just need to know who is out there with what machines that would be interested.
2 - A hardware pool
I don't know what people would want to use Void on, but I figure the more targets available to augment, the better. Theres, of course, official branches of main focus, but alternative targets are welcome.
Here are current, and speculative platform targets.
Power PC G5 (Boot, Packages, Desktop, Main Target)
Power PC G4 (Boot, Packages, Desktop, Main Target)
Amiga One (SAMS, E55, E66) - (Boot, Packages, Desktop, No Hardware)
Power PC G3 (Bootable, Bash only (FoxletFox, others), Desired Target, Audience Unknown)
Cell/BE / PS3 (Possible, Desired Target, No Audience Known)
Wii (Desired, bootable [Bash'd by FoxletFox], Audience Unknown)
Other targets available (routers, one phone, IBM machines, etc)
But, to do any of this, I need to know who, what, and where. All of which, I don't.
3 - Software Pool
The original death nell was package building, and no one working together because of it. I had come up with an idea, but there wasn't much cooperation. I would like to continue working on that, and there will be a post below, but for the meantime I will be building for PPC32 and 64, BE only as thats all that I have. The current package list that is available is what we have to work with, as is the image that we have currently, until a new one is posted. I will likely not be the one to work on it, or not the only one.
At that, with the interest and hardware pool together, we need to know what users will do with the project. Will it be a development post, for the most part, or as close to mainline as possible?
I propose this thought as the project may in time change to something else. The entire point of this is to take machines out of people's ditches, and rather than shredding them and putting volatile toxic dust in the air, putting them back into commission doing what they do.
4 - A communications Basis
As of now PowerPC users are pretty scattered. This post is in an attempt to spread this idea to other spaces around the world, not just local to me in the US. I know for a fact there are people in Russia hiding from the Putin Regime simply because we made void available to them and they were able to build out a secure device from that base. Very few people, sure, but that that has even happened, and this silly project has kept someone out of a gulag.... idk about yall but thats some big shit to me. Especially right now with the crap in Ukraine.
I don't know what will be done for this, but long term I'd like to operate either through email, or though BBS. The BBS is the long term goal, with all 3 forms of access (Web, Telnet, DialUp). It will allow for space to document, discuss, develop, and progress with the PowerPC Communities needs, pertaining, at least, to Void POWER. I want to make bots for different platforms so a form of RSS feed is subscribable (Telegram Bots, IG / TW / FB Posts, ETC) that is live from the BBS. Whatever information is gathered should equally be radically available to those who need it.
Wherever they may be, in whatever situation.
The following posts are there for their own reasons. Comment below what you think should be done, your hardware basis and software needs, and if you are willing to contribute time / effort / knowledge, let me know.