First off, I live and breathe by this site. Truly, a remarkable resource for all things linux. I've recently got the bug to put Linux on a 17" Powerbook. My dream is to have a working Slackware distro on this bad boy, but any and all documentation for doing something like this seems to be next to nil. Perhaps adding a section to your site for "Linux on Mac" would help matters and educate those wondering about feasability thereof.

Here are the experiences of some Apple laptop owners.Perhaps your Powerbook is included in the list.
lynch

Perhaps it hasn't really been done before. Once you get it working it would be great if you could write a LinuxAnswer for anyone else who has the same problems:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/answers.php

hi, i just got a gossamer PPC to put gentoo on, but the motherboard is blown
i really, really want to put linux on a powerbook 17" but unfortunately i can't afford to pay the ridiculous prices.
as soon as you get it done post the results (and preferably photos/screenshots)
meanwhile, i'm off to put an MSI 5182 motherboard in a G3 case.

yes, i'm sure you can put linux on a 17" powerbook. i put linux on my wallstreet. the distribution you would be looking for is yellowdog...

Thanks all for your replies. Good stuff, as always.

Quote: <<the distribution you would be looking for is yellowdog...>>

I've heard a lot about YDL, but I'm just not a Red Hat kind of person. My preference is Slackware. If I've done everything I can to get Slackintosh on it and it just won't install (or too many quirks), I'll think about YDL then.

Quote: <<Here are the experiences of some Apple laptop owners>>

Thanks for the post. I've been here and found someone who has a 15" 1GHz PB who tried YDL successfully. Unfortunately, his vidcard and res are different, but a good baseline, nevertheless.

~Loadedmind

BTW, if an another forum is added it may be more appropriate to be called:
"Linux/PowerPC" instead of "Linux on Mac". It would be slightly more general to cover any PowerPC platforms even if the most popular now is Mac hardware.

To answer your question:

This depends if Slackware support the PowerPC architecture or not.

If it does not, it may be possible but will not be easy.
I don't know much about Slackware but if you have the source code available for the distribution, you may be able to recompile it for PowerPC. Example, you install a distro that runs on PowerPC first, then you recompile gcc, your kernel and enough stuff to get a Slackware basic system to boot and run. Then, you compile all your apps. Basically, you rebuild slackware for PowerPC...

iTux

*gooled for slackware ppc, found slackintosh^
http://mike.quintero.staff.noctrl.edu/slackintosh/

Gentoo PPC
gentoo.org

Thank you all for your replies. I've tried getting the ISO for Slackintosh to work, but to no avail. I don't have any idea what it is I'm doing wrong, but it seems strange that this wouldn't be more prevalent - at least enough for someone to provide the full working ISO of it. If anyone could build this and make the ISO's available, I would mirror it on my sites and ask several of my friends who also host linux-type sites to do the same.




LM