Hi all

I had the chance to get a Powerbook G4 from my office for free, as my boss was using it no more. I'm totally new to the MAC world. Anyway I tried to install some software and play around with it.

Now, I'm asking myself: should I replace its original OS with Linux? I say this because the RAM is 512 kb and the processor is not Intel. Now it's clear that the last softwares for Mac require more and more good performances, sometimes they are just for Intel architecture.

So, should I keep this "old" MAC with its own OS or should I put fun into the machine with Linux in your opinion? I'd like to install a version of SUSE for PPC (I think it exists). This would be my second pc, so I can do tests as I want. No important data are there.

BTW, which are the best distro for PPC?

Thanks to those who will reply to me!

Fabio

There is a lot to be said for a Mac, especially if you have not used one and paid for neither the hardware or OS. I am drawn to Linux for a number of reasons, but home user is the least strongest of my reasons.

Perhaps an alternative to only MAC (or Windows) or only Linux is to consider dual-booting Linux with your MAC os. If this PowerBook is not maxed out on disk space, you might consider reformatting the partition, and installing a Linux distribution. You will need to consult heavily the web site of the Linux distribution you choose to resize and reformat a mac os partition.

Perhaps an even better alternative, would be to get Knoppix or a live CD edition of a distribution that interests you and try Linux out that way. (You can get pretty good distro information on http://distrowatch.com or Google Powerbook Linux and start looking at links.)

I do not have a favorite or know of a "best" distribution. They all have strengths and weaknesses. I have had the best success with Ubuntu, having installed it on two very different systems, older Intel desktop and laptop hardware. It has been the easiest for me to configure.

However, I have good luck with Fedora 5/6 as well.

Good luck, and don't do this without having your MAC installation disks, and having backed everything up.

thanks for your kind reply, I really appreciated it.

Anyway I'm not new to Linux, I work with it. But always on no-MAC hardware, this is the point.

I noticed that Ubuntu relases no more a PPC version Maybe I'm gonna try SUSE.

But I mean: which future has a Powerbook G4 without Intel and with 512 ram in the today's world with MAC OSX? You can run a lot of programs (my boss had loads of softwares installed), but they are old and do less than my xp copy that, on the contrary, I can use to explore always new software for my job.
If I install Linux SUSE, then does it work the same for packages for example? Or is the SUSE software for ppc hardware different?

Another question: do you think that SUSE for PPC could have good performances on such Powerbook?

Thanks!

Fabio

Fabio, if it were me, I wouldn't change over to linux. I would put an older OS on it unless the one installed is working fine, then I would leave that as is. Mac OS from that era was not like windows, you don't need security updates because no one is out to get you or knows how to get you. Also Apple did not make all of their users into beta testers, so one of the old full release apple OS's is very stable and very usable. There's also a lot of older software that you can get for those Macs, (there are still a lot of g4-g5's out there.

So that's my vote, stay with current OS if it's working. I'm not an expert though, at the very least, try it out, see if you can find programs to do what you want with the powerbook, and test it that way for a while.

I really think that older macs make great home/personal computers, if you're interested in games at all there's a great web site http://ambrosiasw.com they have lots of games for older macs there.

As far as suse goes, I think the current version of SUSE would be slow on an older mac, and there are many times when there won't be the same packages for PPC as for intel on any distro. You will probably have to compile some of your own software for linux on the mac. (this is probably a good thing to ask in a SUSE specific forum too.)

About exploring new software; no matter what you do, you won't be exploring much new software with a powerbook g4.

Thank you so much for the reply!

I'll take into ccount your words! I see to hard to find a ppc installation of Linux that is so good as the newest ones. At this point, maybe I will live with the MAC OSX.

Fabio

Debian has a powerpc version that would probably run. It might need a bit more configuration than ubuntu though, but will be doable. Check out this page: http://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/. Debian will also be good on "older" hardware (if you class the powerbook g4 as old (I don't)) - you can get a very minimal install from a network install cd.