install Linux on a VERY old iMac?

Hi all,

I have a terribly old iMac, unused for years (not even able to show proper html) but it still looks very nice (it's the half-sphere model with an articulated screen and external speakers that are spherical too -PowerPC G4, 512M RAM, OSX v10.5.8).

My idea is to replace OSX with Debian, to actually monitor various things here.

Alas, all the 'how-to' I found involve booting from a big DVD ; the iMac doesn't read big DVDs.
I managed to stick an external DVD reader : at least I now saw the Debian DVD. I think there are also minimalist CDs, from the old versions of Debian that would be compatible.

But then it seems I just cannot choose these CDs to be the next boot, it sounds related to Apple's way to handle EFI at the time, and there would be a (fossil) app named rEFInd that may solve this -but no way to find rEFInd anywhere...

Is there someone with an experience in salvaging verrry old iMacs?

TIA!
Hervé

I found this link, only a few months old, that lists 10 various PPC distros.
https://www.pcwdld.com/best-powerpc-...#wbounce-modal
From there I found this link to the MintPPC site with notes on booting a Linux CD or USB on a Mac: https://www.u58733p55594.web0093.zxc...-instructions/

I always commend people who want to keep old hardware running, against all odds. You're truly going old-school. If you get it running, I'm curious what you plan to do with it? Could make a neat classic games arcade.

Another option might be to try salvaging it with OpenBSD for MacPPC. That should run on the New World PowerPC-based systems, which would be from the iMac onwards. See if the installer boots and then go from there.

Originally Posted by Herve5 the iMac doesn't read big DVDs.

Why "big"? Does it read small DVDs? Please elaborate. What sort of peripherals/ports does it have?

Thank you all!
I'm definitely going to try all this, and report back.
@ondoho : sorry, I meant the iMac only reads CDs...
@SlowCoder : I have a couple of devices in different locations, that perform measurements here and there, for instance air quality, and post the result on servers. These serves propose nice curves like these for instance, and they of course are not supported by the fossil browsers in the iMac...

Originally Posted by Herve5 @ondoho : sorry, I meant the iMac only reads CDs...

Tried to find a distro that fits on a CD?

Well, the huge slackware kernel & initrd take about 100Megs, the slackware/a directory takes 325Megs, and that's a basic system The installer initrd has a busybox system, and the installer script.That will fit on a cdr, and boot you a basic console system up & running.

I tried with an iMac some years back (Forget why) and found that a certain generation of iMacs only did WEP over wifi. If that afflicts you, invest in some cheap powerline network adapters which make your mains wiring pretend it's Cat 5 You can go wired, and avoid encryption totally.

Originally Posted by Herve5 But then it seems I just cannot choose these CDs to be the next boot, it sounds related to Apple's way to handle EFI at the time, and there would be a (fossil) app named rEFInd that may solve this -but no way to find rEFInd anywhere...

You haven't been looking very hard! http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

Debian does still offer net install CDs.... for example:

https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/p...-NETINST-1.iso

I'd give that a try, selecting LXDE desktop...

With only 512M RAM, it probably can hold at least twice that. It's probably PC-3200 or PC-2700, easy to find cheap used. You should fill it up to maximum if you find it's able to boot from a Linux installation CD but not actually run its installer to completion. I had a PowerPC Mac G4 with internal DVD reader, last used probably with openSUSE 11.2 before I gave it to a collector.

Thank you all for this excellent discussion! I find myself obliged to move from one place to another right now, but I'll definitely come back in a couple of days, to report, once the iMac will be unpacked!