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Downloading Linux on an iBook?

Ariii

Ariii

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 26, 2012
681
10
Chicago
What kind of Linux distro would work best on the old clamshell iBooks? I am going to buy one possibly in the near future, and if it runs Panther, then what would work best?
 
Forma What I gather Linux really struggles with support for the older Mac hardware so it's a pain getting it to work as smoothly as it would on osx.
 
you can try yellow dog linux,mint ppc and debian, but I don't know if they will run ok on your ibook.
Ubuntu 8 is too much for a g3.
 
Debian will run great if you skip the default Gnome install and install your own window manager like Openbox or Fluxbox. But that may require a bit of a learning curve.

All the ubuntu brands are officially unsupported, and I've found them to be slow and buggy.

Actually, Mac OS 9 is looking like a better choice all the time with Classilla's continued development and the Youtube viewer, YTBrowser9.
 
xubuntu 10.04 is still support till Apirl 2013 and the UI is XFCE which is pretty lightweight.
 
Its a damn shame

There is no equivalent to tiny core, or DSL or puppy linux on the PPC side of life. MintPPC is lightweight-ish, but not a no thrills minimalist install like the above. Puppy (Wary) runs acceptably on Pentium II's...a PPC puppy would probably run fine on an old ibook.
 
I have run linux on older low spec machines before. The biggest problem these days is the linux 3.0 kernel having compatibility issues with older hardware (especially 3D graphics acceleration). Linux 2.6 works pretty well so look for a distro that has it. I would stay away from xubuntu these days as it is just as resource hungry as standard ubuntu. Don't try to use any Live CDs from the heavier distros. The larger distros (ubuntu, fedora, debian, arch) have their own forums and some have subforums for Apple hardware. Try searching for information in those forums for someone who has installed it on your ibook before.

The best solution I have found is to start from a minimal install (command line only) and then gradually add only what you need.
In order: graphics drivers and Xorg, window manager/desktop environment, browser, etc.

If you have never used linux before, I would recommend cutting your teeth on a virtual machine hosted on a modern pc. This will allow you to learn your way around the system before trying to hack it onto something that isn't well supported. Practice using the command line to accomplish tasks such as installing software, downloading files with wget, using a text editor such as nano (easy) or vi (power user).

Don't give up. It's definitely possible and opens up a lot of software possibilities for modern software.
 
Now I think I have a good distro: Gentoo Linux. Now is there any way I can do the install without a CD drive? I was thinking of loading it on a flash drive, and dual booting it with OS 9. What are my chances of bricking it, and is it a good idea with a 10GB hard drive? I will soon upgrade the RAM to 512 MB, and it's 366 MHz. And OS 9 is taking up 2.19 GB of the hard drive. And I'm 99% sure this'll be my last thread on this, sorry.
 
I use linux mint ppc as well as OS X on an iBook G4 and it runs very well. Other people have had success with it on a G3 as well though.
 
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