I've just had a play around with constructing a ArchPower desktop to use on my 1GB RAM iMac G3 by using x86 Arch in a virtual machine. Bearing in mind that Tiger idles at 120-200 MB. Here's my thoughts.
XFCE is the only desktop environment that is viable. Anything lower (LXDE, Openbox, IceWM) feels horribly basic, more ancient that OS 9. Other modern DEs (Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, LXQT) are just too memory heavy. Even a massively cut down version of XFCE that I put together myself idles at 350MB RAM, you might get that down to 300MB running on 32 bit ppc.
As someone who uses Ubuntu daily on my 2025 laptop, all the useful apps are on GTK4/QT or other modern toolkits. The G3 would only handle GTK3 apps which are gradually not being updated.
Apple put a huge amount of effort into code optimisation to get Tiger to run lots of useful apps. No Rage 128 problems either Microsoft Office 2004 runs great. Photoshop too, plus all those apps from the early days of OS X. There's also ways of tweaking Tiger to make it more useful (https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/shuriken), and a new browser is here (https://powerfox.jazzzny.me/download.html).
So it seems the choice is to run Linux looking and performing worse than Tiger, and only use a small selection of older apps*, or keep Tiger and all the amazing software that was made for it, plus the nostalgia!
In case anyone is interested here's the test desktop I made (Ubuntu font, McMojave theme, WhiteSur icons - https://github.com/vinceliuice).
I would still be interested if anyone has specific reasons why they run Linux on ppc macs.
* to give one example:
Old, but would run on ppc
github.com
New and actively developed, too heavy for ppc
www.pinta-project.com
XFCE is the only desktop environment that is viable. Anything lower (LXDE, Openbox, IceWM) feels horribly basic, more ancient that OS 9. Other modern DEs (Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, LXQT) are just too memory heavy. Even a massively cut down version of XFCE that I put together myself idles at 350MB RAM, you might get that down to 300MB running on 32 bit ppc.
As someone who uses Ubuntu daily on my 2025 laptop, all the useful apps are on GTK4/QT or other modern toolkits. The G3 would only handle GTK3 apps which are gradually not being updated.
Apple put a huge amount of effort into code optimisation to get Tiger to run lots of useful apps. No Rage 128 problems either Microsoft Office 2004 runs great. Photoshop too, plus all those apps from the early days of OS X. There's also ways of tweaking Tiger to make it more useful (https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/shuriken), and a new browser is here (https://powerfox.jazzzny.me/download.html).
So it seems the choice is to run Linux looking and performing worse than Tiger, and only use a small selection of older apps*, or keep Tiger and all the amazing software that was made for it, plus the nostalgia!
In case anyone is interested here's the test desktop I made (Ubuntu font, McMojave theme, WhiteSur icons - https://github.com/vinceliuice).
I would still be interested if anyone has specific reasons why they run Linux on ppc macs.
* to give one example:
Old, but would run on ppc
GitHub - maoschanz/drawing: Simple image editor for Linux
Simple image editor for Linux. Contribute to maoschanz/drawing development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
Pinta: Painting Made Simple
Pinta is a free, open-source program for drawing and image editing. It combines powerful features with an easy-to-use interface, making creativity seamless. Available for Linux, Mac, Windows, and *BSD.
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