I was recently given a power mac g3. Nice little computer I've never played with a mac before so this is a new experience for me. Anyway, I googled for installing linux on a mac and came up with alot of mixed answers. I REALLY don't care if the mac OS stays on it. I would be very happy with a pure linux box. I found some old articles talking about Debian not installing/booting without the mac bootloader. Then I found Other info stating that it was only pre woody that had this problem and woody and newer don't need the mac OS at all. Well, what do I do? I am familiar with fedora and would like fedora or a fedora-ish distro on it. I believe that FC has a mac version- could be wrong though.

So......
CPU: G3 300MHz
RAM: 128 MB SDRAM
ATI 3D RAGE IIc
HDD Unsure (Guessing 10 GB or less)

1. Do I need to have the Mac OS or not?
2. Will FC run on it?


Thanks in advance

if Fedora has a PPC arch, then it might run.

I read just the other day about someone's adventures trying to run linux on an old iMac, he tried Yellow Dog(which focuses on PPC) first, which mostly worked but had some issues, and in the end he went with Debian(which also has a PPC arch) and is pretty happy with it. Both distros had problems recognizing his video hardware, and he had to set the driver for X manually for both.

I'm pretty sure this iMac still had OSX on it so I'm not sure about whether you'll need to keep the mac bootloader or what...

NetBSD probably runs on it :P

ok cool thanks

I'll try the install without keeping the Mac OS on it. Not a big deal if it doesn't work cause I havn't used it at all yet :P

I have exactly the same machine running Gentoo with no problems. A few hours to setup a basic system following the ppc handbook.

beat me to it, look for stuff about boot x and the like, someone on the slackintosh mailing list suggested boot with a really old ppc distro and using that a a basis, to get slackintosh to work. I would have thought that yellow dog would be the best since its specalist ppc and has a good rep with this like suspend to ram.

I have lots of experience running linux on PPC macs, and have done intense research. It's realy not all that complicated.

IF your Mac is a beige box macintosh then you will need to either

A)Use BootX or miBoot, which can be found at penguinnppc.org
or
B)Use quik which involves in most cases involves patching the openfirmware from MacOS

If your mac is a colored one, i.e. iMac or blue tower or anything newer it will boot directly from CD and it will work just fine.

All of my macs are biege G3 or older and I run Debian on all of them, I personally use BootX as it is really easy. If you need any help let me know. Particularly with the beige macs and the 2.6 Kernel, I have written a couple of tutorials about this.

Good luck

I just downloaded FC5 PPC and havn't even attempted it yet:P
I just ordered an ADB Keyboard with a built in trackball for it and a MAC to PC monitor adaptor for it.

It is a Blue and White G3 so I am assuming that I should be able to just install FC5 as you guys have said.

On annother note:

How well does VNC work on the Mac with linux installed? I use real vnc on all of my PCs and would like to do the same with this mac. So, basically, will the fact that it is a mac change anything?


Thanks
Pyrael

You can use VNC just fine with Linux on a mac. YOu also have easy install a blue and white G3 mac should boot right off the CD when it is inserted in the CD Drive.

nice

thanks scheidel

as soon as I get the parts, I'll be firing this puppy up

Any problems let me know I'll see if I can help in any way. Good Luck

OK, Got the Mac to PC VGA adaptor plug and a A USB Mouse and keyboard

I downloaded FC6 PPC found a (somewhat OK) how to on Installing FC on a mac. Here's what I did:

Inserted Disk 1
Rebooted and held down the C key to boot from CD

Here's what happens

BLANK SCREEN!!!!!!!!!

What am I doing wrong ??

The CDs are all visible to the MAC (OS9)
G3 300MHz CPU Blue and white (OSX suppors it)
ATI Rage Video card (Original card with apple logo)
Onboard sound, Firewire etc...

I am a little befuddles as to what is causing your problem. For hahas, if you have not all ready try a live distro CD, DL one like ubuntu or something and try it see if it will boot for you with no problems. I'l continue to research your problem to see if I find a solution. BTW when you say blank screen, is it black does anything come up at all, is it the grey unable to find bootable disk screen that macs have? Or what? If a lieCD version runs then that will tell me a lot, and give you a lot of info avbout your machine too.

Alex

blank screen : completely blank. The monitor stays asleep like no video signal. The monitor works beautiful with the MAC in OS9 though. 1024x768 @ 32bit 75Hz is brilliant.


Thanks for the assistance. I will find a live CD to try you mentioned ubuntu, so I'll try that one.

I'll post back when I know more

OK, I downloaded Ubuntu PPC Desktop and booted with the C key down. The HDD make alot of noise (Like an old PC hunting for non existant files) and then it just sits with a blank screen like before. Is it posible that I need a distro that works on "Old World" macs?

It is definately a blue and white has the apple on the sides, handles on each corner and the white semi Opaqe sides (with blue underneath has the big black G <apple> 3 on it (Which by the way would look nice with a light kit :P


It's not THAT big a deal if I can't get linux on it. but I would like to be able to use the f@h proggy on it (just to see how it benches (And to get a little more ppd since Mac's are supposed to be faster than their similar speed PC counterparts At least that's the rumor I've heard for years)

If I can get this thing useable, I'd be willing to get a nice faster CPU (G4 Upgrade kit)

By the way, what is Darwin? Is it OS X compatible? I've found a little on it, but my google skills are bad - very bad.

OK, figured I'd try going straight to the source. I downloaded Darwin 8.01 (Newest release available that wasn't source). I burnt the DC with FC6 using command line (cdrecord -v -eject speed=8 dev=/dev/hdc darwinppc-801.cdr).

I put it in the mac and immediately it was recognized by OS 9. so after it read the cd I decided I would reboot and attempt following the direstions. :

first time I tried I held the C key down like the instructions said and waited for the keyboard to blink and the mouse light to come on (USB OPTICAL) and the CD drive to spin up and start reading. I figured this meant that the CD was booting, so I let go of the key. Again, blank screen (Monitor getting No Signal).

Second try:

I rebooted and held down the C key for Five minutes or so, same result.

Is it possible that there is something wrong with my hardware? The CDs were all recognized by OS 9 and are browsable. Is it a poroblem with the Video card (No driver?)

Please help if you can