Alternative OSes for Blue & White G3 tower

[Aggedor]

I might be acquiring a 300MHz blue and white G3 tower, 64MB RAM, 6GB HDD, which I think just has the factory Mac OS 8.5.1 on it.

I was curious as to whether there are any other interesting historic OSes that it can run natively? I have searched online but I'm new to vintage Macs (this will be my first!) so wasn't quite sure what I was looking at.

I would love to run BeOS, but I see that the G3 was never supported, and Haiku is far too modern I think? (I could, of course, run Kaleidoscope I suppose for that BeOS UI!).

Some variant of NeXTStep or OpenStep perhaps?

I'm curious to see what other systems people are running on their PowerMacs!

 

[Amethyst1]

Some variant of NeXTStep or OpenStep perhaps?

Mac OS X Server 1.2 can be considered the final evolution of that and is interesting from both a technical and historical point of view (IMHO 😉). In any case, 64 MB of RAM isn't an awful lot so you might want to consider giving the G3 a little more to play with.

 

[joevt]

OSes supported by Apple:

• Mac OS 9.2.2
• Mac OS X 10.0 to 10.4.11

Other OSes:

• System 7 https://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=7711.0 (don't know if this applies to B&W G3)
• Windows NT 3.51 or 4 https://github.com/Wack0/maciNTosh
• Linux https://www.websentra.com/best-powerpc-linux-distros/
• NetBSD

But you definitely need more RAM. You can install up to 1 GB using 256 MB DIMMs.

 

[Andrew-R]

OSes supported by Apple:

• Mac OS 9.2.2
• Mac OS X 10.0 to 10.4.11

Other OSes:

• System 7 https://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=7711.0 (don't know if this applies to B&W G3)
• Windows NT 3.51 or 4 https://github.com/Wack0/maciNTosh
• Linux https://www.websentra.com/best-powerpc-linux-distros/
• NetBSD

But you definitely need more RAM. You can install up to 1 GB using 256 MB DIMMs.

I think both Linux and NetBSD had some difficulty booting natively (not via small macos install) on Old World machines? Is B&W G3 tower Old World when it comes to firmware? Qemu uses openfirmware for both emulated machines, but even then yaboot complained about Old World machine if I booted -M g3beige machine instead of mac99 one.

Edit:

GitHub - capagh/NetBSD10.1-B-W-Mac: Installing NetBSD 10.1 on a blue-and-white Power Macintosh G3

Installing NetBSD 10.1 on a blue-and-white Power Macintosh G3 - capagh/NetBSD10.1-B-W-Mac

github.com

 

[Doq]

Is B&W G3 tower Old World when it comes to firmware?

B&W G3s are New World Machines; the first of the tower workstations.

 

[Smithwick’s]

I'll throw in a reccomend for OpenBSD, but you'll need to be comfortable with building ports if you want a substantial selection of software. Also might consider using the previous release as the current is having a few hiccups with macppc in my recent experience.

 

[Aggedor]

Thanks for all the info.

As it happens, I didn't get the G3... I ended up with a Sawtooth G4, and a MDD G4. I assume, though, that that means it's even more limited on what alternative OSes it can run (eg, Mac OS Server/Rhapsody is a no-go)?

 

[Amethyst1]

My Sawtooth runs Mac OS X Server 1.2v3 (the last version of Rhapsody) just great. And there's also OpenBSD.

 

[Forest Expertise]

Thanks for all the info.

As it happens, I didn't get the G3... I ended up with a Sawtooth G4, and a MDD G4. I assume, though, that that means it's even more limited on what alternative OSes it can run (eg, Mac OS Server/Rhapsody is a no-go)?

You can also run some commercial OS that are pretty off the beaten path, like MorphOS, which requires at least a G4 (with a supported GPU and around $80 to pay for it)
Vxworks is also a possibility if you want a RTOS that supports PowerPC, but it sounds expensive. Still, it's what NASA runs on their PPC Mars Rovers so that is pretty cool

 

[Aggedor]

My Sawtooth runs Mac OS X Server 1.2v3 (the last version of Rhapsody) just great. And there's also OpenBSD.

OpenBSD is interesting, although I worry it would be beyond my skillset. I have seen some cool window manager setups for it though.