I have a G3 266mhz Imac..had it for while collecting dust. decided to play with it then read an article about being able to load linux on Imac. I have messed with linux before and like Mandrake best so far. I downloaded ISO images of Mandrake for Mac and also Yellowdog, then burned disk and tried to load Mandrake and system would freeze after bit. Then i tried Yellowdog and it told me I could only load it in text mode because I did not have enough memory.

My question is after sifting through the mountain of stuff about Imac I have discovered I can upgrade memory up to 512Mb on that particular one. But that I will need to have Firmware 2.1 installed to recognize the memory. Is the Firmware 2.1 like flashing the bios on a PC?...and if so how do i go about it? It a bit confusing for me because I am a PC person (have nothing against Mac, heard suppose to be real good machines, just never messed with one much).

Also if i format the harddrive and only want the linux on it ...is that going to cause a problem with the memory not being recognized if the Firmware is not a bios thing but more a software OS thing?

Imac G3 266mhz
32MB Ram
8MB video(cant upgrade this according to apple site)
tray loading cd-rom
running OS 8.5.1

any help would be appreciated or point in right direction..

thank you much

Empress

p.s sorry about posting this twice ..I have not posted before and still trying learn how...I posted this first under linux on mac? sorry again..

i know for a fact that with that model, you will find it uses Laptop Sdram, i stuck a 128MB stick from my HP laptop in there, and that worked fine....no ROM updates....I have the tray loading 333mhz w/ os 8.6....

I am having the same problem with loading linux on it...i have absolutely no Mac experience...let me know if you figure something out...lol

i am not really sure how high you can go though with ram b4 you need to upgrade the firmware.....i have 160MB...no updates