Hey guys. I've just installed Ubuntu Linux on my Powerbook G4 as a second operating system, and I wanted to know how many other people here have done this. I thought it was pretty easy to install. The hardest part was just getting a new partition on the hard drive without reinstalling OS X. Anyway, has anyone gotten screen spanning to work with a Powerbook? I haven't been able to find anything about doing it. Thanks in advance.
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OS X / Ubuntu Dual Boot
- Thread starter T-Stex
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I have done it, here is my thread with screen shot. Ubuntu is great, but unfortunately I got no use for it 
Since I switched over from my Toshiba notebook to the Powermac system I've been looking for a viable alternative OS for the Toshiba notebook, since I absolutely hated going from OS X in my dormroom, to windows while I'm on the run.
I downloaded Fedora Core 5 and after a little tinkering, getting packages to install and configuring some things, I'm now satisfied. No more Windows XP. I'll be damned if I willingly buy a computer with Windows XP.
I downloaded Fedora Core 5 and after a little tinkering, getting packages to install and configuring some things, I'm now satisfied. No more Windows XP. I'll be damned if I willingly buy a computer with Windows XP.
I've been really pleased with Ubuntu so far. I've played around with it a little bit, and everything works really well, except for the monitor (the desktop shows up on my Dell 2005FPW, but either in the wrong resolution, or I get garbage on the laptop display). Ubuntu recognizes my external hard drive, mouse, and everything else, including the bluetooth keyboard, which impressed me. I'm really liking it, so far, and I'll probably get a lot of use out of it, because all the programming I do at school is on Linux machines.
I did it on my PB12". Firstly backed up everything using SuperDuper (V. important). Then, as I was using Tiger I booted from the Tiger installation disk and repartitioned the internal HD to create an HFS+ partition, leaving 15GB empty space after. MAKE SURE YOU PUT THE HFS+ PARTITION FIRST!!
I then booted from the SuperDuper backup, cloned it back onto the HFS+ partition, then booted from the internal drive again to check all was well.
Then I rebooted again, this time with the Ubuntu Alternate installation CD in the DVD-ROM drive and holding down the C key to boot from the CD. At that point it's just a case of following the prompts, and telling Ubuntu to automatically partition the unused space on the drive. Once finished, you'll be prompted at boot with the Yaboot loader, where hitting X loads OSX and L loads Ubuntu.
Ubuntu will recognise most of the hardware in a PowerBook by itself, but you'll need to go hunting for the Broadcom chipset firmware to get the Airport working. There are plenty of guides for that on the Internet if you do a quick Google.
I then booted from the SuperDuper backup, cloned it back onto the HFS+ partition, then booted from the internal drive again to check all was well.
Then I rebooted again, this time with the Ubuntu Alternate installation CD in the DVD-ROM drive and holding down the C key to boot from the CD. At that point it's just a case of following the prompts, and telling Ubuntu to automatically partition the unused space on the drive. Once finished, you'll be prompted at boot with the Yaboot loader, where hitting X loads OSX and L loads Ubuntu.
Ubuntu will recognise most of the hardware in a PowerBook by itself, but you'll need to go hunting for the Broadcom chipset firmware to get the Airport working. There are plenty of guides for that on the Internet if you do a quick Google.
Ubuntu Question...
Here's something that's annoying me -
On my 12" PB - the boot screen looks awful - like it has too many colors for the Powerbook to display. Is there any way to modify the Ubuntu boot process to clean up that image?
Thanks!
Ubuntu is pretty quick on my old Powerbook 12"... Nice to be able to dual boot.
Here's something that's annoying me -
On my 12" PB - the boot screen looks awful - like it has too many colors for the Powerbook to display. Is there any way to modify the Ubuntu boot process to clean up that image?
Thanks!
Ubuntu is pretty quick on my old Powerbook 12"... Nice to be able to dual boot.
Mine does that too. I think it's an issue with the Nvidia chipsets used in the PB12". It certainly doesn't do it on my other machine, with has an ATI card.
However, once Gnome starts it's fine so I've never really worried about it.