Port Guix to my Apple Aluminum PowerBook G4

Port Guix to my Apple Aluminum PowerBook G4

[Scott C. MacCallum via]

Greetings,

I'd like to port Guix to my Apple Aluminum PowerBook G4. I understand that this is likely never to be an offically supported architecture, but I'd like to learn the process for freedom and knowledge sake. I have a few Intel-based computers that could aid me in this process. Could someone knowledgeable in such things point me in the right direction?

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Re: Port Guix to my Apple Aluminum PowerBook G4

[Efraim Flashner]

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On Sat, Feb 08, 2020 at 06:00:45PM +0000, Scott C. MacCallum via wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> I'd like to port Guix to my Apple Aluminum PowerBook G4. I understand that this is likely never to be an offically supported architecture, but I'd like to learn the process for freedom and knowledge sake. I have a few Intel-based computers that could aid me in this process. Could someone knowledgeable in such things point me in the right direction?

I personally have two G4 laptops and would love to have Guix as an
almost-supported architecture too.

The standard way to add a new architecture to Guix is to cross build
boostrap binaries for it¹² and to shove a reference to them into (gnu
packages commencement) in the guix sources. I have a non-working copy
here³ that I play with occasionally.

What are the specs of your laptop? I maxed out my ram to 1.5GB, which is
under the recommended minimum of 2GB, but found it close enough for most
tasks with Guix.

I suggest popping over to guix-devel also to talk about bootstrapping,
there are some people working on bootstrapping 64-bit PPC who would also
probably be able to help.

¹ http://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Porting.html#Porting
² http://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Preparing-to-Use-the-Bootstrap-Binaries.html#Building-the-Bootstrap-Binaries
³https://github.com/Millak/guix/tree/flashner/wip-powerpc 

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Port Guix to my Apple Aluminum PowerBook G4

[Scott C. MacCallum]

"I personally have two G4 laptops and would love to have Guix as an almost-supported architecture too."

That's great! Knowing that someone else is interested is another motivating factor for me to undertake this.

"The standard way to add a new architecture to Guix is to cross build boostrap binaries for it¹² and to shove a reference to them into (gnu packages commencement) in the guix sources. I have a non-working copy here³ that I play with occasionally."

Thank you for sharing. I will read each resource to wrap my head around the process.

"What are the specs of your laptop? I maxed out my ram to 1.5GB, which is under the recommended minimum of 2GB, but found it close enough for most tasks with Guix."

2GB, which I think will be enough to proceed.

"I suggest popping over to guix-devel also to talk about bootstrapping, there are some people working on bootstrapping 64-bit PPC who would also probably be able to help."

Will do. I'm sure I'll have plenty more questions to ask. :)

Scott
scmguru - irc.freenode.net