Linux iMac G3

Which version of linux will best suit my iMac G3?
The specs are: 350 mhz. 128 mb ram.

Thanks in advance,
jon

Cant go wrong with Ubuntu

Another vote for Ubuntu. I ran the Live CD of Ubuntu on my iMac G3 333Mhz Grape with 256 Megs RAM. Works very well. Quite fast and very stable.

Ubuntu is overrated. Go with something like Vector or Zenwalk Linux.

If Vector runs on the PPC architecture, I would second that motion. I run Vector on an older PC of mine and it works very well.

I would stay away from YellowDog Linux, which is specifically a PPC release. Very, very poor support - I couldn't even get registered on their forum for pete's sake. I just gave up.

Ubuntu is overrated, but that doesn't mean it is bad, just that it is getting a lot of hype. You will likely find that it is the most CURRENT of the available PPC distros and hence the smoothest install. Vector is good, but be ready to tinker with it a bit. Also, with Vector, you get XFCE or IceWM as your defaults. These are lightweight and fast, but they may feel a little sparse to you. Ubuntu comes with Gnome, which is a more featureful interface. There is also Kubuntu, which is the KDE version of Ubuntu. I am not sure if it is PPC though...

thanks for the replies guys, my brother tried to install yellow dog, but couldn't get it to boot off the cd, so i guess we'll try vector or ubuntu next.

I realize this thread is about an imac and ubuntu, but does anybody know how to get a clamshell ibook to boot off of the ubuntu cd, because when I start the computer I get the folder with the flashing question mark, then when it notices the cd the screen turns white with the folder with the question mark still in the middle! The cd boots fine in my G4 ibook, and I burned it at 8x speed. I erased the hard disk, but when OS 9 was still on there, the cd did show up on the desktop.

Are you holding down the C key while booting from the CD? Some older Mac's used a different key. If C does not work, I will check for you and see what key works with the clamshell.

Edit: Holding down C works on both my iMac 233 Bondi Blue and my 333 Grape which are around the same vintage as your Clamshell. I am using the Ubuntu Live CD.

Thanks, I tried c, and I know the key is c because it works when I try to boot my tiger cd.

JP13829 said:

Thanks, I tried c, and I know the key is c because it works when I try to boot my tiger cd.

Click to expand...

Maybe the CD ROM drive in the Clamshell does not like your Ubuntu burn. Seen that a few times with older drives.

that could be it, this is the second cd that I burned, it wouldn't even read the first one.

I used Fedora Core 5 on my old iBook G4. It wasn't too bad, I had movies saved on it, had tons of music, it worked fine. I had a problem with the sound, every time I turned it on I would have to run the driver install. But after that, it sounded awesome, had better sound quality than my PC.

I personally don't like Linux on the PPC architecture. Since it was a completely different architecture, I couldn't get alot of plugins to work, like flash and stuff. I only used it because I didn't have an OSX License at the time. I just use Linux on my PC.

is airport supported by any version of linux?

If you want to actually learn about linux while you install it, go for Gentoo. I havent used any other distro since I found gentoo back in 2002. I am big on the source based distros, plus the portage system is awesome, just like ports from BSD. We even run it on the workstations at the office!

--lifeafter2am