I’d like to install Linux OS (best distro or Flavour) on Mac G4 (32 bit) and G5 (64 bit) towers.
 

I have downloaded several Linux .isos, Debian, Slackware, MacPup for example and believe I have downloaded the correct .isos for the respective systems. I’d like to avoid Open Firmware, but could be walked through it if necessary. I’ve launched live CDs of Ubuntu on the G5, Debian on a MacBook but have absolutely no luck finding the correct Linux distro for the two G4s I have. I’ve read through several of the Debian installation manuals but can’t figure out which one(s) will work on the Mac 32 bit system.

I’m super excited to install Linux on these machines as I have the latest OS X OS’s But the browsers either don’t work, are super slow or just won’t access the sites I visit and the OSs are no longer supported. I also understand that internet security is a huge question for these machines.

I’m hoping these forums can provide answers to my specific questions and more importantly guide me through the process. I look forward to diving into tricking out what some people believe are outdated machines.

All the machines have over 1 gig of Ram, and several large hard drives waiting for an OS to be installed (empty). Thanks in advance

Mav

A web search for "install linux mac g4" turned up a number of articles. Most of them, though, seem rather dated, back to the early 20-teens. However, you may find them helpful as to the overall install process.

This looks like a good one to start with: https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/ma...n-mac-3637265/

Full disclosure: I have used Macs, but I've never owned one (they belonged to an outfit I did volunteer editing for).

With 1GB of RAM, any distro is going to be slow. I think 4GB is near the minimum for acceptable performance, but that's just me. It might be fine for you. Make sure you allocate at least 4GB on the disk for swap space. The correct Debian ISO should be the current version of Buster (stable), 10.5, the 32-bit version.
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd...86/iso-hybrid/These are the latest 32-bit liveDVD versions, and work well from a USB flash drive.
The specific .iso depends on the desktop environment you want. I highly recommend NOT using gnome or KDE, because they're too resource intensive for the hardware you have. Either LXDE or Xfce should work. LXDE is the lightest, but Xfce isn't much heavier, and has many more feature. I've been running Xfce for many years, and I like it.

Linux on Mac
 

That might explain why Debian Live DVD worked really nice on my MacBook with 8 gigs of RAM. I will look at all the information provided and a huge thanks!!!!

A G4 uses a PowerPC processor versus Intel found on the latest models. As posted most of the mainstream distributions have dropped support for the PowerPC. The last debian supported 32 bit PowerPC was version 8.

Might check distrowatch and see what pops up for PowerPCs

Yeah, I was just thinking 32-bit, and not the specific processor. I don't think Buster will run, but I know little of Macs.

Not all software is that bloated.

Puppy and antiX are both capable of running on 256MB of RAM, so should be happy with 1GB.


(Although there is a suggestion the OP wants to browse the web, and that might be an issue with only 1GB...)

Puppy and antix do not support the PowerPC CPU.

I did not mention that Ubuntu version 17 was the last to support 32 bit PowerPC. 16 is still supported for another year and that is what I would suggest.

The OS is not really the problem with memory, IME. The problem is websites that seem to think they will be the only thing using memory, and that the amount of that is unlimited. Firefox often dies with 4GB, on some websites. I've seen some that use all the memory when I have 16GB, at least briefly. If you have several tabs open on websites like those, things can get slow even with plenty of RAM.

Is there something about PowerPC that stops Linux running in under 256MB of memory?

(Given that Debian has a PowerPC version and AntiX runs on Debian, it should be possible to make AntiX PowerPC compatible, no?)


Precisely - that's my objection to "With 1GB of RAM, any distro is going to be slow."

Any lightweight distro will run fine with 1GB, but modern browsers and websites can consume more.

This wasn't a problem two decades back when 1GB was a big deal, and browsing multiple websites at once with only 256MB of RAM was simply not an issue.

Once upon a time, computers ran acceptably well with 640KB of memory. But that was then, and this is now. It doesn't take much memory to use a website that is text-only, without any javascript at all. Once ox-drawn wagons were fast enough, but now the fastest jetliners are considered too slow, so spaceplanes are being designed. Technology has been growing at an exponential pace for the past half-century or so, and what was state-of-the-art for CPUs not so long ago is hopelessly obsolete now. Sometimes obsolete hardware just needs to be sent to the landfill. While old powerpc computers can be made to run, it's probably just not worth the effort, because the results can never be very satisfying. I have several old laptops on hand, but I really should get rid of them, because they just can't do the job any more, and that's why they're not being used. I recently dug one out to use as a file server, and soon discovered that it's more trouble than it's worth. My newer computer can do that job in its spare time, without using the electricity the old laptop would require, and do a better job.

Sgosnell is spot-on. One might get by with a machine that is just a little bit older but modern browser software is just not designed to run on a 32 bit system with 1 GB of memory.

And then: even if you get old hardware to run you need to look at the use case. 20 year old hardware has 20 year old capacitors, 20 year old hard drives with bearings that were lubricated 20 years ago, 20 year old connection cables with isolation that has had 20 years to dry out.

Do you plan to run the computer for another 2 years? 5 years? Do you trust your 20 year old machine that was designed for a service life of 5-7 years to run 'till 25 without breaking down or even catch fire? A Raspberry Pi will do the job about as quick as a quad core PowerPC G5 for about 1% of the energy (read this side-by-side benchmark).

And finally: even if you get everything to run and you're confident that nothing bad will happen or you don't mind, it will take a lot of your time because you're using an obsolete operating system that lacks (semi-)automatic updates.

I know it is tempting and I've been there, done that, so I can confidently tell you: please put old stuff in the recycle bin or the museum, that is where they belong after 20 years. It is better for your peace of mind, better for the climate and saves you a lot of valuable time.

Being a PowerPC has nothing to do with memory except that the G4 could only support 2 GB. Back in 2006 Apple transitions from using PowerPC CPUs to Intel and fairly recently are going to switch to Silicon ARM Processors

It's possible to but not probable that either will puppy or antix will support it just not worth the time anymore just like debian stopped supporting them

Etcher works great for flashing USBs
 

Hey all!!!,
Really great reading about PowerPCs and RAM requirements. I was able to use Etcher on my MacBookPro, hacked to run Catalina (10.15) because etcher doen’t run on Mac’s lower than Yosemite. Ran Ubuntu 16.04 LIVE off the USB and it looked great, operated pretty well and then I opened Firefox. It was super slow. Now for a Geek moment: I love tracking weather. I love to run radars and have my own weather station that is accessible to the public via wunderground/weather underground. My goal would be to set up my G5, G4s to drive weather radars and display my weather station info when the weather gets inclement. Hence the need to have modern web browsers capable of running on older (Newworld?) Macs.

Can I expect it to do better once I install it on the G4’s? That’s my next step. I’ll let you know.

Your posts have been extremely helpful.

Mav

Void Linux PPC and Adélie Linux are two modern (read: 2020-current) options that still support PPC32 and big endian PPC64, to the point of it being in their mission statements.

As I couldn't test directly on the iBook G3 I have access to, I used qemu-system-ppc to emulate the mac99 platform (which identifies itself as a Power Mac G4 with AGP graphics). Adélie was do-able, but I never got a desktop environment working properly, and I ended up finding out the hard way that musl doesn't support dlopen (which I needed for the tests I was running). I had better luck using Void-ppc/glibc, although it still took a few tries to figure out the correct way of getting the APM-style partitioning scheme set up.