I have an old mac powerbook 190, I find the mac os to be almost useless. I was wondering if there was anyway possible to install a version of Linux on the old machine. I have no cdrom and 400 megs of hd space. Could someone tell me if this is possible and what distirbution to use. I do not need anything fancy just a basic Linux distribtuion to learn on.

There is a build of linux for MACS, however linux takes up a lot of hard drive space, and I am not sure 400MB will be enough.

Have heard of 'YellowDog' Linux. Apparently it is specially written for Macs, but as I'm not really into the Mac scene, I can't tell you much more about it.

Try: http://www.yellowdoglinux.com

If you've not got a CDrom drive, you might be able to install YDL over a network (if you've got one). Don't quote me as I'm not a Mac person.

OpenBSD's website (click here) says that it's actively ported/maintained on the PowerPC architecture, including the PowerBook G3/G4 and iBook. Be warned though - OpenBSD is not Linux. It is also a UN*X based OS, but it is not Linux.

As mentioned above, I'm not a Mac person, but if the PowerBook arch. is the same as the PowerPC (PPC) then most distrubutions should work OK. I know that Mandrake 7.2 (the version I use) can be installed on one. With only 400Mb of HD space, you are probably a bit pushed to what you can do.

The basic X Window System (or X, X11, etc) normally takes up about 120Mb, and that's without any programs!

If you have another system that's got a larger HD (Mac or IBM compatible), I would suggest that you install it on that instead. Although the system itself is capable of running Linux, the easiest part to use is definately X (with either KDE or Gnome) and this is what many newbies see as the OS.

If you're not worried about messing things up, by all means give it a go on your PowerBook! There's not much you can do by way of 'breaking' it that is beyond repair!

Have fun, and don't give up if it seems a little daunting at times - it'll be worth it!