Which distro for imac g3

julianbury · 10-16-2007, 09:36 AM

Dear advisors,

A friend has inherited an Apple iMac G3

From a little round label on the bottom:

PPC G3 233mhz processor
512k cache/32MB
6MB SGRAM
4GB hard disk
24 x CD Rom drive/Rage Pro

I have been asked to install Linux on this machine.
All that is required is to get Open Office working.
So I need a desktop system.

I have been searching for a suitable distro.
I tried Debian but could not get it to work.
I do not know why, but I am guessing that because Debian included Gnome as the default browser, the poor little machine choked on the bulk.

So, do any of you know of a very small version of linux with a tiny desktop, just sufficient to support Open Office that can run on a PPC G3?

My breath is baited ...

Joolian (-_-)

pwc101 · 10-16-2007, 09:46 AM

I put Debian on my ibook g4, so better spec, but still pretty low. I used the ppc netinstall cd to get a base system, then added the packages I needed afterwards. I've gone for one of the lighter window managers (IceWM at the moment, I think) to maximise free RAM. The netinstall base system is pretty tiny, but the bits after that soon add up. The g4 has a 10GB disk, and about 4GB of that is the installation - however, I had installed gnome before I installed IceWM, so that may have left bits lying around. If you were careful, I'm sure you could get a very small install with OpenOffice installed without too many problems.

OpenOffice will be sluggish on a machine with those specs - very sluggish. It might be worth looking for alternatives, like AbiWord, gnuplot etc.

julianbury · 10-16-2007, 02:00 PM

Hi, pwc101 :-)

Nice to know it's possible to do.
Which do you think is the smallest desktop?

And.

How do I get it and install it?

I am a very raw recruit :-(

Joolian

pwc101 · 10-17-2007, 03:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by julianbury

Which do you think is the smallest desktop?

This is the subject of a huge number of debates, but generally, you'll not see an enormous amount of difference between blackbox, fluxbox, IceWM, JWM, and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head.

Quote:

Originally Posted by julianbury

How do I get it and install it?

Assuming you're using debian (i.e. you've installed the base system from the netinstall CD), you need to use apt-get to install programs. I generally do this from the command line, as it's a lot quicker, if you know what you want to install. So, first thing to do is to update apt as root:

Code:

apt-get update

Then you can install more or less anything you like, with the following command:

Code:

apt-get install <package_name>

Replace <package_name> with fluxbox, openbox, whatever program you want to install.

At least, that's what I did