Linux on Powermac G4

[wts]

The various distributions are often aimed at different uses, for example
- Moblin is aimed at netbooks.
- Red Hat and Centos are meant for servers.
- Ubuntu is aimed more at people who are new to Linux.
- Fedora is more cutting edge and only uses free and open source software.
- Arch and Gentoo are rolling releases so there are no new versions released, you just keep updating it. They are also highly versatile.
- Damn Small Linux is very lightweight and is designed to work well on older machines.
etc...

There are many other distro aimed at an even more specific tasks such as NAS or a firewall box. Others are aimed at running on specific hardware such as Yellow Dog linux which is aimed at running on the PowerPC architecture.


.

Thanks very much for the clarification and heads up info.

In my search for a LINUX distribution it was overwhelming to understand what distribution will run on my PowerPC ( G4 ). Your explanation cleared up a lot of misconceptions i had and certainly narrowed down as to which distributions i should be focused on.

Could you give me a hint as to which distribution i should be going for to run on my iMac 3.06GHz ( late 2009 edition iMac ) ?

 

[Dark Dragoon]

Could you give me a hint as to which distribution i should be going for to run on my iMac 3.06GHz ( late 2009 edition iMac ) ?

First off I would make sure to go with one of the more popular distributions, and one that is active. Going for a small or inactive distro can be frustrating as it may have more bugs and other issues along with less support. Though a solution for one distro is usually applicable to other distros. The page hits ranking on the right hand side of DistroWatch can help you find out which distros are popular.

Next I would discount distros like Gentoo and Arch unless you really like using the command line and want to setup everything yourself manually. Even though they have some really good wiki's for setting pretty much anything up. Though whatever distro you choose, you should be prepared to have to open up the terminal sometimes.

Also I'm assuming that you don't have some very specific task that requires a certain distro, and that you just want to try out Linux to see what it's like.

To add just that little bit more confusion you may see some distros described as being Gnome or KDE based. These are two of the main desktop environments for Linux. For example Ubuntu is Gnome based, whereas Mandriva is KDE based. In general I tend to think of Gnome as looking and feeling a bit older but being more stable, whereas KDE (version 4) is chock full of transparencies and tends to be a little less stable. Being Linux there are of course lots of other options... I would start with Gnome.

In this case distros like Ubuntu (or Mint), Fedora, openSUSE and Mandriva can be good choices, at-least for an Intel computer. If I was starting out with Linux now I would try Ubuntu first, or maybe Mint which is Ubuntu + a load of extras. Though I like Fedora myself, even though it can be a little more hassle to setup, also Fedora has a current PowerPC release though I don't know how good it is.


If you have VMWare Fusion or Parallels then it might be nice to try running it using them. If you don't have ether of them then there is always VirtualBox which is free. This way you would be able to update everything and try out installing some other programs, without worrying about messing up OS X. Though you won't get to see any of the 3D desktop effects.


As for the misconceptions. Choosing your first Linux distribution is often quite difficult, and there are a lot of distros which are very similar and are aimed at the same task/people. So you weren't completely wrong.

 

[Trev311]

First off I would make sure to go with one of the more popular distributions, and one that is active. Going for a small or inactive distro can be frustrating as it may have more bugs and other issues along with less support. Though a solution for one distro is usually applicable to other distros. The page hits ranking on the right hand side of DistroWatch can help you find out which distros are popular.

Next I would discount distros like Gentoo and Arch unless you really like using the command line and want to setup everything yourself manually. Even though they have some really good wiki's for setting pretty much anything up. Though whatever distro you choose, you should be prepared to have to open up the terminal sometimes.

Also I'm assuming that you don't have some very specific task that requires a certain distro, and that you just want to try out Linux to see what it's like.

To add just that little bit more confusion you may see some distros described as being Gnome or KDE based. These are two of the main desktop environments for Linux. For example Ubuntu is Gnome based, whereas Mandriva is KDE based. In general I tend to think of Gnome as looking and feeling a bit older but being more stable, whereas KDE (version 4) is chock full of transparencies and tends to be a little less stable. Being Linux there are of course lots of other options... I would start with Gnome.

In this case distros like Ubuntu (or Mint), Fedora, openSUSE and Mandriva can be good choices, at-least for an Intel computer. If I was starting out with Linux now I would try Ubuntu first, or maybe Mint which is Ubuntu + a load of extras. Though I like Fedora myself, even though it can be a little more hassle to setup, also Fedora has a current PowerPC release though I don't know how good it is.


If you have VMWare Fusion or Parallels then it might be nice to try running it using them. If you don't have ether of them then there is always VirtualBox which is free. This way you would be able to update everything and try out installing some other programs, without worrying about messing up OS X. Though you won't get to see any of the 3D desktop effects.


As for the misconceptions. Choosing your first Linux distribution is often quite difficult, and there are a lot of distros which are very similar and are aimed at the same task/people. So you weren't completely wrong.

I would tend to disagree. I use Arch on my laptop (thinkpad x100e) and being able to configure things exactly as I want is the huge advantage. With Ubuntu (and any derivative of it) as well as more "mainstream" or "user-friendly" distros there is always a bunch of stuff going on that I found I don't need. If you are shy of the cli then Arch isn't a great place to start though. I began with Kubuntu, Fedora, and a whole host of other distros and in the past two months went to Arch for my laptop. I'll just say that once you get there, it's awesome. That isn't to say that it takes a cli expert to do Arch (not sure about Gentoo, never done that one). I'd consider myself fairly inexperienced with the cli, but YMMV.

As far as a Desktop Environment, for a new user I'd go with KDE. Starting in a VM is a good idea too.

For your G4, I'd think that YDL is the only way to go. They seem to be the best at supporting PowerPC. If not that one, I'd go with straight Debian and install whatever you need on top of that.. There seems to be a powerpc port in the STABLE branch. Which, given the debian nature, will be fairly old, but rock solid.

 

[Dark Dragoon]

I would tend to disagree. I use Arch on my laptop (thinkpad x100e) and being able to configure things exactly as I want is the huge advantage. With Ubuntu (and any derivative of it) as well as more "mainstream" or "user-friendly" distros there is always a bunch of stuff going on that I found I don't need. If you are shy of the cli then Arch isn't a great place to start though. I began with Kubuntu, Fedora, and a whole host of other distros and in the past two months went to Arch for my laptop. I'll just say that once you get there, it's awesome. That isn't to say that it takes a cli expert to do Arch (not sure about Gentoo, never done that one). I'd consider myself fairly inexperienced with the cli, but YMMV.

I like Arch a lot and have a couple of Arch boxes. one with KDE4 and another one with the tiling window manager Xmonad running mainly ncurses based programs. Gentoo is similar to Arch but takes a lot longer to setup due to the compiling process, though I don't have Gentoo on any of my machines at the moment.

I tend to think of Arch as the distro you go to once you're familiar with Linux and want a lot more control over your system.

If you're looking for a live cd/dvd to test Linux for the first time then I can't see Arch as being a good choice. Though I guess you could try Chakra which has a live cd of Arch + KDE4, it was rather buggy the last time I tried it though.

 

[MacHamster68]

i had ubuntu hardy installed on my eMac , just because i was curious and it worked fantastic , you can even transform the desktop so look and feel are like leopard , you could fool someone at first glance that it is actually leopard running ,
general pros of linux is one of my favorites , synaptics package manager , its dead simple to get software , for example you want burning software , all you need to do is write "burn" and klick and it lists all the software available on the net free to download and install , cant get easier than that,

here a good link to turn ubuntu hardy in leopard
http://maketecheasier.com/turn-your-ubuntu-hardy-to-mac-osx-leopard/2008/07/23

or ubuntu intrepid
http://maketecheasier.com/turn-your-ubuntu-intrepid-into-mac-osx-leopard/2009/01/08

 

[Trev311]

I like Arch a lot and have a couple of Arch boxes. one with KDE4 and another one with the tiling window manager Xmonad running mainly ncurses based programs. Gentoo is similar to Arch but takes a lot longer to setup due to the compiling process, though I don't have Gentoo on any of my machines at the moment.

I tend to think of Arch as the distro you go to once you're familiar with Linux and want a lot more control over your system.

If you're looking for a live cd/dvd to test Linux for the first time then I can't see Arch as being a good choice. Though I guess you could try Chakra which has a live cd of Arch + KDE4, it was rather buggy the last time I tried it though.

You're right that it isn't a good first time setup. However, I've found myself enjoying linux more and more as I've moved towards distros that give me more control and that is the idea I was trying to get across.

Looking at Distrowatch, I'm fairly surprised to see both Mint and Ultimate so far up on that list. When I tried Mint, I didn't have a good experience, as I failed to see much of an advantage of an "official" *buntu..

To test for the first time, Ubuntu (or Kubuntu, or any of the other Canonical sponsored ones) is a good place to start. It has a trap of being easy though. I was fairly afraid to do anything that was too cli heavy from it for a while, until I went through a few installs that were cli based and didn't set much up. Leading to Arch

 

[disconap]

As far as a Desktop Environment, for a new user I'd go with KDE. Starting in a VM is a good idea too.

Have you tried e17? For the OSX user looking to branch into linux, it's probably the best match as it's lightweight (which is great for older hardware) and it is VERY graphically oriented, unlike most window managers, which tend to base off Windows XP IMO. I've actually found e17 to be both prettier AND faster than XFCE, KDE, or Gnome...

 

[Trev311]

Have you tried e17? For the OSX user looking to branch into linux, it's probably the best match as it's lightweight (which is great for older hardware) and it is VERY graphically oriented, unlike most window managers, which tend to base off Windows XP IMO. I've actually found e17 to be both prettier AND faster than XFCE, KDE, or Gnome...

Enlightenment is pretty nice (it actually was a part of GNOME at one time, just fyi). However e17 is still considered the development branch and has been considered that for the better part of a decade. I'll agree that it is much lighter and more graphically in-line with OS X by default (IIRC KDE can be configured similarly). However, since it is still considered a dev. branch, though a very stable one, I'd still have to say something that is an actual release. Also, KDE and GNOME are both actual desktop environments with a whole suit of apps to go with it. e17 has a few, but they aren't as complete or as many as the main two.

In short, I really like e17. Currently I use LXDE, which like e17 has no "stable" release just dev. releases. If looking for something lightweight I'd say LXDE then e17, but for a beginner, someone brand new to all of this, KDE or GNOME would be a fairly good place to start. For example I started with GNOME -> XFCE -> KDE -> e17 -> Fluxbox -> LXDE (which I know is a weird journey, and the only two that I've ever used as my "main" are KDE and LXDE just because I'm on my laptop about as much as my Mac now...)

Just as a side note, XFCE is a good choice for a DE as well, but using something that isn't a whole DE isn't a bad choice either. Things like Fluxbox, e17, awesome, all have their advantages and disadvantages... I guess this is why things can be so daunting from the outside looking in.

 

[wts]

I guess this is why things can be so daunting from the outside looking in.

I've got one massive headache just reading all this good advice here.

I feel like I'm standing in a grocery isle looking at which can of soup to buy: so many to choose from and most of them tasty by personal selection.

 

[Trev311]

I've got one massive headache just reading all this good advice here.

I feel like I'm standing in a grocery isle looking at which can of soup to buy: so many to choose from and most of them tasty by personal selection.

Wow, I've never heard it put quite like that before.

There are many distros that have similar target areas. Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandrivia, openSUSE, and Mint (I think those are all previously mentioned) are all fairly "new to linux" friendly.

Of those many include different Desktop Environments or sometimes a bunch of things that aren't an unified project but achieve the same things (see the first table on this wikipedia article ). Again (this is more opinion based now) the most "new friendly" are GNOME and KDE and they both can keep you away from the command line interface a good deal if you so desire..

Ubuntu and Mint work slightly differently than many others in that instead of giving a choice they offer different editions (or however you may want to call them) with the different DEs. That is why there are things like Kubuntu and now Lubuntu (KDE and LXDE respectively).

There are "advanced" or "hard" distros too. They tend to allow for more fine-tuning. Some of these are Gentoo and Arch.

Oh and Linux on PowerPC is a whole different world. I would figure this is because the hardware has never been as widespread and generally more costly to get (I'm not trying to say it wasn't a better price/performance ratio or anything in that whole can of worms just that since there was less of it around it was generally more expensive to get). With that there haven't been as many people playing with it for linux.

I hope that this helped wrap some things up a little nicer for you. Any specific questions feel free to ask, though I'm sure some of the other members around are more experienced than I am...

 

[disconap]

Enlightenment is pretty nice (it actually was a part of GNOME at one time, just fyi). However e17 is still considered the development branch and has been considered that for the better part of a decade. I'll agree that it is much lighter and more graphically in-line with OS X by default (IIRC KDE can be configured similarly). However, since it is still considered a dev. branch, though a very stable one, I'd still have to say something that is an actual release. Also, KDE and GNOME are both actual desktop environments with a whole suit of apps to go with it. e17 has a few, but they aren't as complete or as many as the main two.

In short, I really like e17. Currently I use LXDE, which like e17 has no "stable" release just dev. releases. If looking for something lightweight I'd say LXDE then e17, but for a beginner, someone brand new to all of this, KDE or GNOME would be a fairly good place to start. For example I started with GNOME -> XFCE -> KDE -> e17 -> Fluxbox -> LXDE (which I know is a weird journey, and the only two that I've ever used as my "main" are KDE and LXDE just because I'm on my laptop about as much as my Mac now...)

Just as a side note, XFCE is a good choice for a DE as well, but using something that isn't a whole DE isn't a bad choice either. Things like Fluxbox, e17, awesome, all have their advantages and disadvantages... I guess this is why things can be so daunting from the outside looking in.

Yeah, the development thing is weird. What I've found with e17 (as opposed to the "stable" Enlightenment release) is that distributions that use it tend to have problems, especially with upgrading their underlying distribution (MoonOS is my favorite, but I don't use it regularly; GeuBuntu or whatever never worked right and is still running on Ubuntu 8.10). I haven't tried eLive yet, but it looks pretty.

Ultimately I've had ZERO problems installing Ubuntu 9.10 and then just installing e17 over it and adding what I want. Even without any adjustments, it is leagues faster on older hardware than Gnome and is just. so. much. prettier. After starting to mess with Linux I have to admit I am aesthetically driven a lot of the time (duh, most of my machines run osx), and e17 really does it for me, it's just so functional and visually appealing.

Oh, right, but the dev thing; a year ago I would have agreed with you. The current release, at least for buntu 9.10, is pretty much a stable release, I have had zero bugs running on a crappy MPC all-in-one with onboard graphics and only a gig of RAM.

And all of this can be ignored by the original poster, as AFAIK there is no e17 build for PPC hardware. It COULD work self installed in theory, but I highly, highly doubt it. Maybe I'll try that the next time I have a break in work, I have 4 PPC era towers just sitting collecting dust...

EDIT TO ADD--meant to reply to the ppc/whole other world thing. When Apple used PPC as their mainline, Linux had a wider variety (percentage wise, and actually probably just number of available distros). Most of the main distributions have dropped official support, but it has only been in the past couple of years, and as the PS3 (or xbox360, can't remember which) uses PPC, and there is plenty of legacy hardware and newer PPC servers out there (the POWER line is still developed for servers and other specific uses), there are still line developed, like Yellow Dog and the community supported Ubuntu releases. But yeah, on the "average user" level I imagine that PPC will become harder and harder to find newer distros for.

 

[cluthz]

http://penguinppc.org/ is a decent site for info about linux on PPC.

I ran linux on my Powerbook G4 and before that on my PowerMac G3.
Yellow Dog was the far best distro before, Mandrake was also decent, I haven't tried Mandriva (new Mandrake). This was a few years ago.

I don't run Linux on my mac anymore, but i do use x11 and have installed a full KDE desktop environment and just compile whatever apps i need.
I still use Ubuntu on my PC

 

[boogers]

You could try out FreeBSD. It takes a bit of work.
The freebsd-ppc mailing lists will be of importance.
Radeon cards will give you trouble.

I'm running debian on my powermac g4- when there isn't a hardware failure due to dma.

Other experiences: OpenBSD will work. I'm not sure about SMP. ppc@openbsd is where to ask. Be sure to research the docs and post full problem or question. I'm forewarning you because the OpenBSD people are not into playing around.

Yellow dog works best with airport out of the box but be sure that you are not missing any libraries. You may need to import the file by mounting with a live cd. Ubuntu has a few old releases.

I haven't tried Gentoo, Slackintosh, or NetBSD. The last requires a bit more skill.
Fedora is heavy on resources. try to avoid it.

Not sure about dd'ing the boot file of OpenBSD to hfs bootblock. Take your chance or learn the exact path. It's an xcf file similar to gimp's multilayer format but executable.

 

[KítscheñÇinqµe]

"old" thread justifiably continuing.

try any distro you download (torrent etc). install to partition, or to usb then boot from usb to try:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/#faq

i have not used the boot from usb method.
these all seemed ok:
dynebolic (has 'docking', something like beos fake-install. audio-media packages, which i didn't try. xfce)
slax
ubuntu
dsl-n (not maintained?)
tinyme

2007 post in this thread suggested buying old x96 pc, just for op's blu-ray https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/4626344/
ubuntu graphics on older pcs seems slow. i'd guess late piii or 2002 athlon would be ok.

found links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distribution#Installation-free_distributions_.28Live_CDs.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...dorsed_by_the_Free_Software_Foundation#Others
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puredyne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Linux
http://distrowatch.com/


ppc
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9842046&postcount=5
http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=328

http://mac.linux.be/content/mintppc-9-released

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributions#Live_CDs.2FDVDs.2FUSBs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributions#Architecture_support
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/10.10/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/10.10/release/ubuntu-10.10-desktop-powerpc.iso
...
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/10.10/release/ubuntu-10.10-desktop-powerpc.iso.torrent
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/10.10/release/ubuntu-10.10-alternate-powerpc.iso.torrent

 

[sirozzy]

trust me on this you dont want to install linux i know linux is free and all but remember you get what you pay and thats..

1.Nothing
2.No support for games
3.No support for printers
4.No support for digital camera's unless formatted to the lame linux format
5.even though its free all versions of linux are really terrrible.
6.linux is NOT and i repeat Not user friendly.
7.there is a reason why mac osx and windows are the number one contenders they are EASY TO USE!
8.no support for webcams

and i know some linux reject is going to come an out say linux rocks..yeah right for what internet browsing and no support??

while i am gaming or using my mac linux users will be scratching theirs finding how how build kernels and stupid stuff like that.

again the reason why linux is free is because it sucks!

i know because i have used.

mandirva formally mandrake linux
redhat
kubuntuu
ubuntuu

at first it may seem fun you will eventually see the stupidity of the linux OS..


until linux makes exe's and no command prompt requests i will stay far far away.

hahahahahaha

Thats why some of us Unix/Linux Administrators earn around £50k hehe. Just because we did put some effort to actually understand how it works and what it's capable of.

 

[AdrianK]

hahahahahaha

Thats why some of us Unix/Linux Administrators earn around £50k hehe. Just because we did put some effort to actually understand how it works and what it's capable of.

Unix/Linux Administrators: Working for corporations.
OP: Consumer.

Different demographic, different requirements.

I get your point, a lot of what kenmasters said is clearly due to his/her inexperience with linux, but your example doesn't really work. Mad thread-bumpin' skillz btw

 

[Power Mac G4 Nvidia]

Hello! I come to this thread after about 3 weeks of trying many Linux distros on a Power Mac G4 M8493 Quicksilver. I had previously used Linux Mint on an Dell XP box with ease, and so expected no trouble with this project. But then I learned about powerpc and how difficult it is in 2017 to find a distro that will support it. Since my purpose for the machine is for watching youtube and having a music player, I'm having lots of trouble trying to make this work.

Yellow Dog 6.2 was my best hope. It installed easily and the graphics looked great out of the box. Then I ran into the discontinued support problem, lack of rpm resources, lack of browsers, and video that stutters, stalls, or won't play at all.

After that I moved on to trying several types of Ubuntu, which didn't work well due to my GeForce 2MX/MX400 graphics. I was unable to get any of the live isos to work. Best bet so far is the Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS alternate iso. This installed with the text installer and that's where I am now. Evidently most of the Ubuntu varieties have trouble with this video card and require extra tweaking. Despite all the threads I've read on the Ubuntu forums about this, and the instructions out there, I've seen little evidence of the troubled G4 owners having success in their quest. I think it must be possible, because YDL was able to master the graphics problem...before it passed away. (I read that Fixstars had a very good understanding of the powerpc hardware, which is why YDL worked well on these machines).

My question is: Is there any hope of making this machine do youtube in this day and age? If I can't get Ubuntu to work, I think my last hopes are Gentoo or Open BSD. I understand there's a steep learning curve with those systems. I'm game to take on the challenge...if my end goal can be achieved. This old machine is built like a brick house and I'd love to make it work.

Is there anyone out there with this particular machine who has had success running any kind of Linux that can do youtube well?

Thank you.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Since my purpose for the machine is for watching youtube and having a music player, I'm having lots of trouble trying to make this work.

I'm afraid I cant help re Linux - I think if you replace the GPU you'd have an easier ride.
If you want it to simply play music and Youtube, go for OSX Tiger, use iTunes and my solution here for Youtube:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-youtube-player-downloader-even-for-g3.2031523/

You can customise it to your own needs but I have several machines with a lower spec than yours that happily play 360P Youtube - 720P might work in some cases (using Coreplayer) but you'd have to try.

If you install Leopard and have enough RAM, try SMtube here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ew-mactubes-mobile-youtube-installer.2030035/

Once installed it's the far easiest to use.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Proof of the pudding...

My 800Mhz iMac has less horsepower than your Quicksilver but here it is playing 720P h264 video from Youtube in Mplayer under 70% CPU.
Note it is dropping frames but using Coreplayer it's smooth,however CPU will rise to 95%. That's on my iMac though you - have more power.

And my 933Mhz Quicksilver doing 720P in Coreplayer:

 

[backyardvoodoo]

Gentoo won't give you anything out of the box (there is barely a box in fact!) and the amount of tweaking required would be the same if not more than with Ubuntu.

I haven't tried youtube on OpenBSD but bear in mind your browser options are limited to Netsurf and text-based ones. Also OpenBSD is a slower OS overall thanks to its security oriented architecture so I wouldn't set the expectations too high.

 

[Power Mac G4 Nvidia]

Gentoo won't give you anything out of the box (there is barely a box in fact!) and the amount of tweaking required would be the same if not more than with Ubuntu.

I haven't tried youtube on OpenBSD but bear in mind your browser options are limited to Netsurf and text-based ones. Also OpenBSD is a slower OS overall thanks to its security oriented architecture so I wouldn't set the expectations too high.

Thank you for this insight!
[doublepost=1506790978][/doublepost]

I'm afraid I cant help re Linux - I think if you replace the GPU you'd have an easier ride.
If you want it to simply play music and Youtube, go for OSX Tiger, use iTunes and my solution here for Youtube:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-youtube-player-downloader-even-for-g3.2031523/

You can customise it to your own needs but I have several machines with a lower spec than yours that happily play 360P Youtube - 720P might work in some cases (using Coreplayer) but you'd have to try.

If you install Leopard and have enough RAM, try SMtube here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ew-mactubes-mobile-youtube-installer.2030035/

Once installed it's the far easiest to use.

WOW!!!! This is what I needed! HOPE!!!

I'll try this. For the last 3 weeks, all other duties at home have suffered due to this project. After clearing the decks, restoring order in the house, and clearing my frazzled head, I'll attack this again, armed with these new tools!

THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!!

 

[Power Mac G4 Nvidia]

I returned to the G4 today with instructions in hand. I've got Tiger. I had previously downloaded PPC Media Center zip on a flash drive. I installed it (along with the perion and spark that came with it). I don't think I did the install correctly, as whenever I tried to open a video with PPC, I got a message stating that a url was required. While I was busy reading the instructions to fix that, I got a browser update notification....

Tenfourfox offered an update called FPR Parity release, so I got sidetracked doing that. This was encouraging, because they had several versions for various power macs, including two varieties for G4 (mine was the 7450 version). I did that install, closed and restarted tenfourfox. When I went back to youtube, tenfourfox offered me a quicktime enabler, which I also installed. I had previously tried quicktime, but the results were unwatchable. Frozen screens and no flow. I installed the enabler anyway, and was astounded that it actually works now.

I can watch video full screen with Quicktime now. The screen resolution is quite good too. I get a few dropped frames here and there, but nothing terrible. The audio and video are right in sync. So I'll try this for a bit and see how it pans out.

When I right click on a youtube video, I now have options for PPC Media Center and several viewing options in Quicktime. So if I can get my PPC Media Center configured properly, I'll try that too and compare.

Just wanted to report back with my progress and say that things are looking up! I'll continue to post with any further updates in case it helps other G4 folks out there.

 

[Dronecatcher]

I can watch video full screen with Quicktime now. The screen resolution is quite good too. I get a few dropped frames here and there, but nothing terrible. The audio and video are right in sync. So I'll try this for a bit and see how it pans out.

Glad you got sorted. Quicktime Enabler is an elegant solution however for me, 90% of videos clicked never work with it - might be a regional thing but it cancelled it out as a solution. Plus, Youtube browsing in TFF is painful :/

 

[philgxxd]

For convenience I browse YouTube directly via TenFourFox Box but that is on a higher end 1.67Ghz PowerBook G4 watching videos directly in browser at 340p.
But undoubtedly it's slow...
[doublepost=1507733263][/doublepost]I downloaded some videos this morning through the great PPC media center but there were all downloaded with a webm extension which loaded fine but i never saw this before.
Is that because of the recent changes YouTube went through ?
One video despite of selecting HD at the options was really low res but that maybe had to do with the video itself.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Is that because of the recent changes YouTube went through ?

Yes, more and more videos are becoming webm - bad news for PPC as not all players support it.