Well didn't know where to post this as there is no general MorphOS forum. (The main forum doesn't appear to have a new thread button).
So purchased a Power Mac G4 Quicksilver (hard thing to do /shudder).
Power Mac G4 1GHz DP (Dual Processor)
1GB RAM
75GB HDD
DVD Writer
ATI 9000 Pro 64MB
All for the great price $72 NZD. $50 for the Mac and $22 NZD for postage (heavy sucker) Cheapest "Amiga" related gear I've purchased.
So first thing I did was upgrade the RAM to 1.2MB with a spare SDRAM memory stick I had in a draw.
Stuck in a second IDE HDD 40GB for MorphOS to be installed on.
So stuck in the disc held down C and waited for the Mac to boot from the disc. Up it booted and I was greeted by a butterfly and the mac specs at the bottom.
Once at the desktop ran the install (iwizard) and selected all the defaults and then clicked on the 40GB HDD and used the auto option. A bunch of files copied across and after awhile (seemed like a long time) it said it was finished and I restarted.
After the chime I hit the alt key (Don't have a yucky mac keyboard thank goodness) and waited for the boot options to appear. Only the OSX icon was displayed so restarted and booted from the MorphOS disc again. This time I manually setup two partitions one 64MB HFS partition and the rest for MorphOS (SFS or whatever it is). Ran through the install, restarted still no luck.
Booted off the disc again, this time I formatted both partitions manually and installed MorphOS again. Restarted and this time the MorphOS option was available (although the Mac takes forever to release the mouse cursor back so you can select anything!!).
Booted into MorphOS, first thing that I forgot to do was eject the MorphOS disc, with the disc in there it seemed to stuff up apps running on the HDD. Anyway rebooted and was up and running.
Opened up OWB (took an eternity to open for the first time!!) once opened appeared to be fine, very quick. Went to youtube and no problems playing movies, no stuttering etc. Slightly better than OSX, although switched browser on OSX which fixed that problem.
Thought I'd customize things, so changed the theme and added a wallpaper. First time I added a wallpaper MorphOS locked up and I needed to restart.
Decided for the hell of it to try reinstalling it again with the auto option, yet again it failed to boot on restart. So had to manually setup the partitions and format each one for it to work. So note to self, auto install no work :-)
Once I was happy with everything thought I'd try setting up uae, hit my first stumbling block here, have read a few sites but not much information out there. Most of the download links not working (404) and how-to's out of date.
Anyway have left that for now.
Tried a couple of apps and games from the MorphOS depository (I think that's what it's called) most seem to require SDL. Looked all over the place for PowerSDL finally found a link that worked and installed it. But still one game no go, claiming a file is missing. So gave up on that.
The other thing I haven't mentioned so far is that it states sound is supported from 3,4 to 3,6 macs. Well on my 3,5 sound doesn't work have tried a few suggestions but no luck.
Have purchased an SBlive card (waiting for that to turn up). Downside to this is I have had to buy some speakers ;-) Good thing my Monitor has a USB hub for all these devices, the speakers are USB powered, the keyboard and mouse. Also will be purchasing two more competition pro's which are also USB. Crazy Apple decided to put only two USB ports.
Other thing is I can't find much information about OSX supporting SB Live, don't want it disabling the onboard sound will keep looking into that :-(
Also MorphOS only supports one processor from what I can tell, a shame 1GHz sitting there doing nothing. OSX flies along on the G4, was very suprised. Although MorphOS is no slouch, so probably doesn't need the second core :-)
Anyway after all that I found myself back on my A500+ running whdload games with my new s-video adapter from amigamaniac, awesome device!!! on par with SCART quality. Maybe when the sound card etc turn up and I get some spare time I'll have another go at UAE under MorphOS :-)
Haven't tried the wireless yet under MorphOS, wont even try will stick with the onboard NIC. :-)
Another gripe is the $175 NZD for the key, but will start putting a little aside each pay for that. By the time I get enough here's hoping 3.0 is out.
I do love the quick boot time, amazing. Just as quick as the OSX boot time. Hoping in the end that the setup will replace my WinUAE setup with AmigaOS 3.9. Have a tweaked box that just boots straight into WinUAE very fast amiga ;-) Only downside can't run any of the PPC Amiga games so fingers crossed for a MorphOS box that is now sitting in front of me ;-)
