Can Puppy Linux be installed on an iBook G4?
 

A nephew of mine gave me this 'old' laptop which I don't really understand well but he mentioned something about installing a variety of Puppy.

Can it be done? Which is more recommended/proven?

Thanks to any with some info on this!

PS. I used to use PL 528, lately.

No. As far as I know. Puppy cannot be installed on a IMAC G4 PPC processor.

A 2009 thread you can read through.

Lubuntu 14.04 LTS has a PPC iso you can download.

You will have to find your own proof of concept for Lubuntu. PPC computers are not many or popular anymore.

Thanks for replying, rokytnji!

I'm really disappointed at this setback, I've been so used to using Puppy that I'm thinking of finding another machine for that purpose only. Last year 2 different laptops got burned out, too much bad luck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZwQ...A&spfreload=10

Install probably is no different using Ubuntu 14.04LTS

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/re...14.04/release/

Clicking the PPC link gives me a 750MB iso download, which will not fit on a 700MB cd disk (as far as I know with Puppy Burning tools) but if I am wrong. Hopefully someone else will step in and correct me.


Edit: Watching the video in my 1st link. It looks like the IMAC G4 has a DVD drive instead of CD drive. So the Lubuntu iso can be burned to dvd and booted up that way on your G4.
At least that guys video shows he could boot off of DVD.

Edit: Look at above Edit: So. If I had your Mac G4. I would go with

Do a minimal Ubuntu install download from here

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...tion/MinimalCD

Use the video I gave for learning to boot from cd on a Mac. Boot up the minimal iso cd. Make sure I have a ethernet cable plugged into the G4 because a minimal iso install needs the internet to download and install the packages you want in your intall.

I've done this before and the minimal iso install is pretty easy. It offers a LXDE or XFCE desktop as part of the install process.
You can learn where to go from there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXFh...g&spfreload=10

Good luck with that G4. I'd throw MacOS off of it and go with any Linux if me. Just easier really.
Starhawk is giving up some IBM p3 laptops for just the cost of shipping at http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/ind...05d0ebeb5e4aa9

The one with the bad LVDS cable was mine. It is a IBM A22M. I shipped it to him to clear out my shop.
It ran good and comes with the power brick. Just giving you info. I have no dog in this fight. You can
take it or leave it. Edit: I guess not. I guess he is keeping the one I sent him. The one with the bad cable is a IBM T21 Laptop.

I would check out netbooks on eBay. Good and cheap, and if upgraded to 2GB RAM, they can run most anything just fine. Acers are prone to motherboard failure/overheating, so I would look at a Dell.

If you want to stick with the Mac, then, yeah, Ubuntu would probably serve you well. You don't have that many choices...
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?ar...c#distrosearch

If you do buy a new Laptop I'd be interested in the iBook depending on price and condition.

Thank you all for your replies!

I've been just using this computer for trying to learn how to work with it, I've found it has its quirks here & there but that's fine since it's part of a learning curve that I need to follow through.

After thinking of trying to put an Ubuntu version within I've been considering the possibility of 'dual boot' at least for a while but I haven't found info about it. Could it be possible to dual boot here? How can I find info on how to see/enter the bios setting & if it's advisable or not?

Also, is this laptop capable of holding/accepting more RAM (presently has 384 MB)?

Thanks for any ideas on the above subjects!

Depends on the model, but in general it looks like 1GB of RAM tops. Give Crucial a check to see exactly.

Thanks forma replying, Ihatewindows522!

I went to that site & it is a good one.

Their RAM is decent too. Never had a problem with failure from them (yet).

I've found someone that is going to send me a 1 GB card, when it's installed and, hopefully, running more fluidly I'm going to start thinking of first, to dual boot in this machine with a version of Ubuntu or second, to install Ubuntu as the sole OS here.

I think that for the latter purpose I'll need some info first, how to enter/modify the "BIOS" at boot time. I'm guessing that this laptop works more or less the same as the rest but I might be wrong on this. Think I need info about this hardware as if I have never touched a computer before.

I have some linux cds that might be still good but for fear of doing something that could be considered as a complex problem to solve I've refrained myself of putting any of those in here. Could I safely put a linux cd here to see if it boots up? Do I've to enter the BIOS first? How to enter?

What I have are: a couple of Puppy Linuxes (already know they're not expected to work here) & Ubuntu 8 & 10, if I'm not wrong. These last 2 are old versions but a few years ago they were performing very well on some systems that I ran them on.

PS. Should I open a new thread about this last direction that I'm intending to take?

Thanks in advance for any useful info on the above issues!

PSS. Some useful data from my system grouped below:

HARDWARE & OPERATING SYSTEM iBook G4 Mac OS X - Version 10.5.8 Processor 800 MHz PowerPC G4
Memory 384 MB /-/ L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB Bus Speed: 133 MHz

BROWSER /-/ Safari Version: 5.0.6 Last Modified: 9/23/12 6:59 PM

PLUGIN /-/ Shockwave Flash 10.1 r102

--->included the flash plugin info because I've learned today that my SYSTEM doesn't support any newer version of the plugin and was advise to upgrade my OS, which I'm not sure is at all possible or desirable with this old machine; but again, I could be wrong here, too.

If I was you

https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-...rusty-powerpc/


I guess your cpu is non sse2 capable. My IBM T23 laptop is like that also. I get by on using gtk-youtube-viewer on it besides using the older 10.3 flashplayer browser plugin.
I think Ubuntu has a gtk-youtube-viewer in it's repos. It goes by the name Minitube.

Not sure on a Mac, but on a normal PC you have to set the boot options in the BIOS. Probably similar with a Mac (since they're just a PC licensed for use with OS X).

Looks like this is your ticket here:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/71189...-a-macbook-pro

That might be true for newer Macs with Intel CPUs, but not for the older PowerPC Macs. Anyways, to let them boot from a CD/DVD just press and hold the c key while starting the machine.

m470t2864qz3-ce6 is the SODIMM that arrived for me recently but it won't go in all the way. Maybe its depth is the problem. Does anybody around have an idea?

PS. This's the third trial to post this here (from a tablet running chrome) and it says that my token has expired and all the text resulted, twice, irrecoverable. At the top of the page it said that I was logged in, at the bottom that I was able to post, etc.. Is this a feature (bug) of the site or the browser?