Can't work on powerpc?

[amckinstry]

Hi,

I've got a D* pod on a powerpc machine. (http://diaspora.sceal.ie). Its at an old tag, circa March 1.
I can't upgrade, as Diaspora now needs execjs, and node.js, etc. which are not available on powerpc.

So is it ever likely to work? Do I need to move to a new architecture ? (I have a PPC front-end machine
because it is low-power and lacks most of the exploits out there: most malware just bounces off.
i'm reluctant to move).

[stevenh512]

I also have an old PowerPC machine, 1999 model G3 iMac. I'm not aware of any ExecJS compatible Javascript runtime that will run on it (can't even get a recent enough Safari installed to give me the built-in OSX runtime). That being said, this isn't exactly a Diaspora issue since it affects every Rails 3.1+ app using the asset pipeline. I also doubt Google is going to put in the work to make the V8 runtime compatible with such an outdated architecture, so I don't expect Node.js (or Chrome, for that matter) to be coming to my old iMac any time soon.

One thing you could do, assuming you have another PC that will run Node. Precompile your assets on that machine (using rake assets:precompile) and then check them into git before you deploy to the PPC box. The Javascript runtime is only really needed for precompiling assets and shouldn't be loaded at all in the actual production environment. You may need to use git add public/assets -f to force git to check them in, since I think that directory is in .gitignore. :)

edit: The G3 iMac was actually a pretty nice Rails development machine (even as outdated as it is) until 3.1 came out with the asset pipeline. Now I'm using a more modern "Windows" PC with Ubuntu until I can afford a more modern Mac.

[amckinstry]

Thanks, I didn't realise I could do that!

I will test ...

[Raven24]

I think this is a "wontfix" from our side, and for now the posted workaround will have to suffice. If you want to, you can report this upstream with ExecJS and see, if they plan to do anything about it.
(I - or anybody who is eager to help - could/should put this in the FAQ for future reference...)

[amckinstry]

On 2012-07-13 19:45, Florian Staudacher wrote:

I think this is a "wontfix" from our side, and for now the posted workaround will have to suffice. If you want to, you can report this upstream with ExecJS and see, if they plan to do anything about it.
(I - or anybody who is eager to help - could/should put this in the FAQ for future reference...)

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
#3429 (comment)
I think thats the best answer for now, yes.

• A

Alastair McKinstry , alastair@sceal.ie , mckinstry@debian.org http://blog.sceal.ie

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world
is either a madman or an economist - Kenneth Boulter, Economist.

[Raven24]

just fyi: here is the entry in the faq:
https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki/FAQ-for-Pod-Maintainers
"I am on PPC (e.g. old iMac) and want to use it for serving Diaspora, but there is no ExecJS compatible JS runtime"