Hi,

I've recently inherited a slot loading iMac G3 installed with Mac OS 9. I'd like to hang onto OS 9 as it has games that my kids enjoy, and the internal HD's pretty small (7Gb) so dual booting on it's own drive probably isn't realistic, so I'd like to install linux to a usb external HD and be able to boot from it. Does anyone have any experience of doing this sort of thing? Is it even possible with a Mac this old? If it possible I'd appreciate advice on distros, from my own research Debian and Yellow Dog look like contenders for good/stable compatibility with the machine, although the noob friendlier the better.

Cheers, looking forward to your comments

That Mac will not boot from USB. If you want to boot from an external drive you'll have to get yourself a Firewire enclosure to put the drive in.

I once put Ubuntu on a G3 iMac out of curiosity. As I recall it wasn't possible to put it to sleep. There's also the Flash issue (no PPC version of Flash), but it's not like the machine would be capable of playing Flash video anyway.

---------- Post added 04-17-11 at 10:11 AM ----------

I hit post before I included this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=405934

you could always try to put a bigger harddisk inside the device not exactly sure what the max size is that the device supports and i know from personal experience that not everything will work inside it (was with the ram) and maybe that will be the same to some brands of newer types of harddisks as well also there is the problem that if it is a shell imac its gonna be quite a pain in the ass to change the harddisk or even take it apart correctly

i have uploaded a disassembly manual from apple to hotfile since its a bit big and i cand upload it as an attachment
http://hotfile.com/dl/114752464/ffdc...Guide.pdf.html

hopefully this will give you an answer that will work besides your own thought up idea ^^

and if not you now have a disassembly manual haha

I did have my doubts about a usb boot and it seems they were founded. This machine doesn't have firewire ports on it so if linux is going to happen for it i'll have to upgrade the internal drive, and for that the disassembly guide will be very useful (I've just been having a look at it and it reaffirms my admiration for their industrial design).
Thanks

glad you can use the manual and if i am correct in it will also what sizes of harddisk it will support and to be honest i cant see wy you admire the design sure it looks nice but its so inpractable in my eyes :P i personally prefer the old sun Microsystems computers before oracle took them over and basic pc's but hey opinion is one of the things that makes us different ^^

I've never seen a slot loader without Firewire but according to Wikipedia there were couple of models. Unfortunate that you have one.

As admirable as Apple's design is in some areas, I was cursing it the time I had to nearly totally dismantle a G3 iBook to get at the harddisk and I suspect trying to change the disk in that G3 iMac will temper your admiration a little.

I have a G3 iMac sat in the corner that I've not done anything with since I acquired it. I just had to rescue it when it was being binned at work. It's too pretty to be destroyed

That particular machine? Never. Definitely will be doing so before I do anything drastic like dismantling it. Although judging by the manual and a brief look at the underside of the machine putting in a new drive shouldn't be too hard, at least compared to what I've gone through pulling apart some old laptops recently. Compared to them the internal layout of these things is positively elegant. Thanks for the help, that stuff on ifixit looks useful too.

Yeah try changing hdd on ibook G4, I just did you have to remove everything.