Linux on iBook G4

[steve_s]

[MODERATOR: may want to move this one, it may be more appropriate in a more diverse posts forum area rather than a beginner area, don't know]

I may get yelled at, yes, there are other threads out there, but nothing recent I've found in the searches.

Someone gave me an ibook G4 with a hosed (technical term) hard drive.

Anyway to boot any puppy from cd and run a save file on a flash drive, something like that? Any new puppy versions that I don't know about that run great on PPC?

[steve_s]

No ideas yet? ugh, that's such a shame. Stuff I take for granted in puppy, like being fast and working, just isn't always the same in other Linux's. Oh, well; I'll still chronicle some results here.

I welcome any input on this toy that I can get.

All right, I had to remove the hard drive cause it was making sounds that were scaring my chihuahuas and making my kids laugh. Let me just say: Apple is very proud of that hard drive! Not easy to get out.

Assuming I can get it put back together without the hard drive (big assumption) then I am looking at trying a Knoppix for PPC (not easy to find) and running it as a livecd on a flash drive (easy with puppy, but convoluted everywhere else) and using a persistent save file (again, easy, easy with Puppy but jump through hoops with other distro's). I'll post back as I go.

[mini-jaguar]

There was a single experiment, it was called "PowerPup", you can still find the .iso but it is really experimental, boots into text mode.

Otherwise Debian and Yellow Dog Linux for PPC shouldn't be too hard to find, but you'll have problems because I think they are not so small and I doubt booting from USB is supported (granted I could be wrong, but it doesn't really seem to work on Intel Macs that I've tried, so why would it work on a PPC?). Better just replace it with another hard drive.

[steve_s]

There was a single experiment, it was called "PowerPup", you can still find the .iso but it is really experimental, boots into text mode.

Otherwise Debian and Yellow Dog Linux for PPC shouldn't be too hard to find, but you'll have problems because I think they are not so small and I doubt booting from USB is supported (granted I could be wrong, but it doesn't really seem to work on Intel Macs that I've tried, so why would it work on a PPC?). Better just replace it with another hard drive.

Thanks!

I should be able to do it with this although I don't know if that will be better or worse than a livecd. I haven't tried this cd player so I have no idea what the success with that would be.

And replacing it with another hard drive would cost money and, since I have other laptops, I don't know if I want to spend any money on this. Better to play with it first.

[steve_s]

It turns out that this version uses a standard laptop ide style hard drive, and i've got some of those.

I put one in. After realizing that the power button actually has to be plugged into the motherboard (d'oh!) it looks like I've got it all set up.

As it stands right now I'm going to try and put panther os x on there. I don't really like mac but it may be the best choice right now since that's what it originally came with.

Still trying to get a good copy going. Errors putting it on the wrong cd which is fun since there is no external button if you put in the wrong cd. You gotta activate the firm ware, which is pressing the CMD+ALT+O+F or something like that when it boots, then type in eject cd if you screwed up. That's different.

[steve_s]

ugh...tried Ubuntu and Xubuntu, easy enough to use their version of livecd for the ppc, but running wireless is a hassle: it needs proprietary firmware to be incorporated.

Ran through the steps needed to do that, lots documented on the web, but it just hangs at modprobe b43legacy, no matter how I do it.

Really not a fan of how Ubuntu 12.04 looks either, but that's just my personal two cents.

Going to try Gentoo next. I actually like Gentoo, very stable, very fast and it booted the livecd really easily, gonna see if it will work on this hard drive.

But, while Puppy can take maybe 5 minutes to be up and running on the web, Gentoo is more like, hours. You can make a choice for everything, but you have to make a choice for everything. Got some reading to do.

[2blue]

I`ve managed to intall lubuntu 12.04 on an iBook G4 and it boots and runs all right, but with issues, no sound no java and solutins are hard to come by.

Has anyone bothered about a puppy powerpc build of some kind? I am all new to linux on macs, but I have been very happy with puppy on some other computers.

Any thoughs on the subject?

[sfeeley]

I've not used this, but it might be helpful to some:

http://mintppc.org/about

I think its debian based, but with some of the issues worked out

[2blue]

Thanks sfeeley. For some reason I only get the message "iso no longer on server". Not sure mintppc is available anymore, but would be nice to try.

I suppose old iBooks and powerpc is rather forgotten these days, but my iBook G4 is still nice to work on. Not bad at all! I wish there were some puppy developers with an old iBook they wanted to breathe some new life into.

So far I have managed to installed lubuntu 12.04 with some success. Everything seems to work fine, except media players in browser. All mplayer -gecko packages for browser seems broken, gnash does not work at all in firefox, moonlight is not an option anymore with out some expert tweaking... In other words; major hassle !!

[sfeeley]

The forums look active and there is a thread on download problems. Apparently the problem is outages on debians servers. If I were you I'd post asking for advice there.

My wife has a ppc that she still uses but I'm keeping an eye out for options after Mac Os doesn't work anymore

Would lovE a puppy for ppc but that doesn't seem to be in the works

[2blue]

I`m really not that keen on going back to older osx once I ventured into ppc linux, but I might still have to. I cannot remember youtube was any trouble before I installed lubuntu, but it was a while since I actually used it. Linux does have some advantages over an os that isn`t fully supported anymore. However, ppc linux does not feel any more supported really. We need some attention on ppc issues.

[mmmrr]

hi folks,

here's where and what i posted:

====================
http://www.mintppc.org/forums/viewtopic ... 7208#p7208
------------------------------------
hi everybody,

on the 404 not found page with url:

http://caesar.acc.umu.se/debian-cd/6.0. ... sscard.iso

i changed 6.0.4 to 6.0.5 in both places. pressed enter. success.

at netinstall url:

http://hammurabi.acc.umu.se/debian-cd/6 ... etinst.iso

i changed 6.0.4 to 6.0.5 in both places. pressed enter. success.

on debian site version 6.0.5 is the order of the day. can we work
with it? do we need to find where/if older versions of debian are?

i read about this 404 problem on the puppy linux forum where it
was causing sorrow to people looking for better linux for ppc compus. i hope we can fix it fast. every day it isn't is like a train
which runs but doesn't accept new passengers.

cheers, mm
====================

i found mintppc an excellent os for powerpc
i think a puppy port would be even better, in
large part because we run as root and mintppc,
being debian based, does not.

i don't know if an automated build system like
woof or roar-ng which can build a puppy out of
non-pup packages from debian could use mintppc
packages to assemble a ppc puppy.

there is finnix [finnix.org] a linux for x86 and ppc
versions, a strong small fast--just like puppy--
that runs as root but if you want a gui desktop
then the packages are there, apt, install, etc.
to make it so. the developer has provided it, for
years, as a command line os for sys-admins.

a lightweight gui to fit on top of finnix would be
excellent. any ideas?

more cheers, mm

PowerPup! A project to port Puppy to PPC macs! is at:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 463#651463

i post and watch there and 2blue's recent post caught my eye;
i back-tracked to this thread, acted on what i read here, replied
here and as an exceptional act will repost this reply, in part, at
the powerpup thread. please take a look over there. mm