I'm a bit of a pack rat when it comes to old computers, and recently acquired a few older (68040-generation, and yes, I'm aware of the LC chip problems) Macs, and I'd like to see what kind of hoops I can make them jump through. There's always MacOS (System 7 in this case), of course, but I'd really like to take a stab at using Linux on at least one of these machines.

The most recent info I've been able to find online is at least 6 years old. Debian still produces a 680x0 distro; the only other non-Apple OSes I've been able to find are a couple of flavours of BSD.

So, my questions are these: Who is using Linux (or BSD) on 680x0 Macs these days? Which distros, and how do they compare? How are these machines being used?

I'm inclined to give Debian 'etch' a try, as I really like their package management system, and the idea of running a modern OS on a computer that old tickles me.

Who's out there?

Thank you and good day.

Not sure about Motorola '040 stuff, but I've been firing up my (t)rusty Amstrad CPC6128 recently with a nice funky GUI.
Yeah, you can stuff your 16, 32 and 64-bit processors. :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SymbOS

Interesting, but I'm a bit short on Z80s at the moment.

I still have a tandy with a 6809, the forerunner of the 68000 i think. Very nice to program too.

Emulate it! Honestly, what's wrong with you? You've got this computer with bazillion addresses, oodles of memory and a bus big enough that a gigabyte can walk down it without touching the sides. What else are you going to do with a quad-core monster other than emulate a Z80? :-D

A couple of questions: {1} Exactly what quad-core monster would you be referring to (I certainly don't own one); {2} None of the replies I've seen here so far have anything at all to do with Linux, BSD, Motorola processors, or anything even remotely concerned with the original question. Can we at least make an effort to stay on-topic, please?

Sheesh

Gentoo has a profile for m68k chips, however I have no experience with it. You might want to ask on the Gentoo forums, there's a sub-forum for alternative architectures here:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewforum-f-32.html

There are already some threads about the m68k and lc* stuff, it might worth to check there just in case. However, the big problem is that compiling the whole OS in such slow hardware can be very time consuming.

You mentioned Debian. Damn Small Linux is based in Debian, and can run confortably on old hardware. I don't know if they have an m68k build, but you might want to look into it as well. Maybe they do.

Thanks for the reply. I have looked into Gentoo, but decided it was too much work to configure. Your point about compiling the entire thing is well-taken. DSL does run well on older, more limited hardware, but it's x86-only.

This is the heart of the problem -- cross-platform compatibility and older hardware support were the biggest features that drew me to Linux in the first place, but over the last few years development for any platform but x86 has nearly died (especially since Apple moved to Intel CPUs -- even PPC development isn't the flavour of the month anymore). Many systems that still work perfectly well, but have been orphaned or abandoned by their manufacturers, are being forced into unnecessary uselessness by this trend. A computer is a terrible thing to waste.

I'll probably stick with Debian, as I know my way around in there from both x86 and PPC installations, and apt* makes package management about as painless as I've ever seen it.

Now, to go through these old Macs and see which ones still power up....