Why run Ubuntu on a G4 Mac?

The real question is why not?. Especially if the Mac only had OS 9.2 on it, and that won’t run at all.

Anyway, the background to all this is that I have a G4 400Mhz Power Mac that I bought from work, it had OS 9.2 on it, but I couldn’t find the system disks anywhere at work, so I installed Ubuntu on it.

It runs really, really well. It’s responsive, more responsive than my Duron 1.3 Ghz machine was back when I used Ubuntu on it – and its the same version I tried on the Mac – I only have a CD of Breezy Badger (5.10) for PPC.

I’m busy downloading Feisty Fawn (7.04) for PPC, because the dist-upgrade refuses to upgrade from Breezy to Edgy or Feisty (I didn’t try going to Dapper), and I got tired of downloading 700+ MB every time I formatted the machine, so I figure a once-off download so I can install a fresh version of the OS is a better alternative …

I’ll be posting more on this little project of mine as I progress through it.

About this entry

You’re currently reading “Why run Ubuntu on a G4 Mac?,” an entry on about:phalacee

Published:: 23 Sep 2007 at 22:33

Category:: Linux

Tags:: breezy, dapper, edgy, feisty, g4, mac, power mac, powerpc, PPC

About the Author

Jason is a South African born - June 1983 - British citizen living in Australia, a serious geek, and a Spirit-filled, Bible-based disciple of Jesus Christ. Online he uses the handle phalacee, hence the title of this journal.

During office hours Jason has a financially rewarding hobby as a production manager for TonkinSpiel. In the past Jason has worked as a web-developer for Titan Interactive, Edgwize, jamdesign, and VoIPNet Australia/Solid State Solutions.

Jason spends his spare time doing the things he loves most - serving God, hanging out with friends, coding, gaming, and playing basketball. Jason serves as a youth leader at Tribe, his church's youth group, and plays basketball for either the Rogues or the Knights, depending on the season.

read on

Andrew Kember 06 Nov 07 at 21:20

Ah – I might be able to lay my hands on an old mac in the near future. Perhaps I could get Ubuntu on it like you. Did you have any success with Feisty (or Gutsy)?

Jason 07 Nov 07 at 08:54

Hello Andrew, congratulations on being the first to post a comment on my journal! Thank you.

I gave up trying to get Breezy to upgrade, I’m just downloading a n ISO of Feisty instead. I found out the reason it wouldn’t upgrade from Breezy to Feisty is because Ubuntu (and most Debian-based Distros) do not support using the apt-get dist-upgrade the skip versions. That means I would have had to go from Breezy to Dapper to Edgy to Feisty.

So I am just waiting for the torrent of the Feisty PPC ISO to finish, then I’ll install it. I can’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t work though…

I have a 800 Mhz Power Mac at work that I use as a PHP development server, its running Feisty on it, although I disabled the GUI and only access it via SSH, so I don’t know how well it would perform as a desktop machine.

Andrew Kember 07 Nov 07 at 17:39

That sounds good – I’ll give it a go. It’ll only get used as a server, or maybe for a bit of web browsing, so I’m sure it could cope.

about:phalacee

Personal Links

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Tags

Why run Ubuntu on a G4 Mac?

About this entry

3 Comments

Have your say

About the Author

Login

Social Me

Countdowns

Asides