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I absolutely second that emotion, especially since last time I looked (about 18 months ago) I was not able to get 3D acceleration for my ATI card with Linux, and sluggish wasn't the word. I suspect a lot of people have G4s about the place, to date unloved and unused. Yes, you can run OS 9 on them, or earlier versions of OS X, but the former is obviously no longer developed, and in the latter case, Apple's OS upgrade attrition model means that applications tend to fall off for anything older than the last two iterations of OS X.
All power to you, I say.
I just tried Ubuntu PPC, Karmic Kola's PPC .ISO file is too large for a CD-RW, apparently there is a one available that will fit, but I gave up looking as I'm too busy. I found an old one, for Intrepid Ibex, It's not a live CD, just an old fashioned old school non-graphical install one, No problem with that, but it failed to detect the CD it booted from... I think I have vague memories of the command I had to type it to get it work, but I've got other things to do.
Maybe a different Distro© would work better, but Linux to revive old Macs is a nice idea that simply dosn't work out in the real world.




Member since:
2005-11-15
Have you ever tried Linux on PPC?
I've got an old G4 dual 533, I tried Yellow Dog, Debian, SUSE and Ubuntu, and all were, once I'd jumped through hoops to install them, and even managed to get some of them to see both processors, and get the sound working, they are were slower and more sluggish than Tiger. And well, looks are subjective, but OSX verses the old version of Gnome/KDE, well it's what I believe the Americans call a no-brainer isn't it?
MorphOS on my Mac Mini boots in about 4 seconds, is lighting fast, and to be honest OWB is faster, and does as much as Firefox can do, before you start on the (admittedly sometimes v. nice) plugins. And is pretty much stable, MorphOS as a lightweight OS for old PPC macs who's Apple has turned their back on? You know, it just might work.