Dear Forum:

A friend of mine has an old beige Power Mac G3 366, which is currently gathering dust. Today I called up my friend and suggested putting this older machine to good use as a server (most likely, a file server) for his home system. This system consists of two iMacs, a G3 and G5, an Asante ethernet hub, and a networkable Lexmark laser printer. My question is: how well will this machine function as a server running Yellowdog Linux 3.x (which I have at my disposal) for his small network?

Any feedback and suggestions are appreciated.

Roland

I Suppose you are asking about the Beige Mac with 2 usb - fire wire - modem and built in wireless lan.

I have a 500 version . At the time I bought it it had only a 10 gb hard disk, so I put an 80 gb in it.

Then I tried Yellow Dog 3 , it did not function satisfying, because to many functions didn't work. Afterward I bought YD 4 that was a big mistake. If a win modem or an apple modem does not work, I can understand, but the sound should at least work. This OS is made by professional apple sellers, so they should now better.

Recently I tried Ubuntu. First the live CD and then I made an install. The sound is working right, the USB and video also. I didn't test all stuff because the install was very recently.

I would say give Ubuntu a try. The install is very easy and I was surprised by the result.

Have a lot of fun

CloudBuilder

Since it is a server I wouldn't recommend a GUI at all, that is just wasted RAM and disk space. So maybe try the PPC version of Gentoo or Debian for a speedy, simple, and lightweight server for these olders machines.