[lug] Installing Linux on PowerPC G3

[rm at fabula.de]

On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 10:50:31AM -0600, Nate Duehr wrote:
> 
> On Jul 11, 2004, at 2:14 PM, Paul E Condon wrote:
> 
> 
> I would just add a "me too!" to this... Debian.

O.k., i'll add my "me too!" too.

> I have x86, Sun Ultra-1, and PPC machines that either have or have had 
> Debian on them at one time or another, and they all work, look, and act 
> exactly the same for the most part.  The installer sets up Sun's 
> bootloader SILO correctly, but if I remember right PPC needed some 
> tweaking on a pre-Woody release.
> 
> I haven't done an install on PPC since OSX came out... easier just to 
> run OSX and ssh to the linux boxen.  ;-)

I've Debian woody running on my G4 (had older ones running on it before).
So far i've had no major problems. That "one needs a MAC OS partition" is
not entirely true: iff you want to double-boot the system you should better
have a MAC OS partition on the first partition of your disk. Otherwise
the MAC OS will fry up your non-MAC partition (so much for Apple being
better than MS, in my experience they're _much_ worse. Luckyly, they don't
have any substantial market share to be worth bothering).

I haven't started up my box under OS 9 or OS X for quite a while now, if
i really need to use a Mac application (usually FrameMaker on OS 9 or 
OmniGraffle on OS X) i just start a Mac-on-Linux session. That's actually
pretty impressive technology - just have an OSX _and_ a OS 9 screen on
one virtual desktop (i'll sometimes export the OSX window to my Laptop
display - scares the hell out of the web designers to see OSX "running on
my old Pentium 233  laptop :-)

Still, even so i love my Debian box - for an absolute beginner i would 
consider using Yellow Dog. These guys seem to know what they are doing
and probably have pretty good support (and are kind of local, or?).

> 
> The debian-ppc mailing list on lists.debian.org is absolutely full of 
> class-act top-notch Linux PPC folks, including Ethan Benson who's done 
> a TON of work on ybin/yboot and bootloaders for "newworld" G3's and 
> G4's -- and is a bloody freakin' genius when it comes to running PPC 
> Linux of any sort.  Not to mention a very nice person!

If only i could get the stuff running on my (PPC) Bull Escala ....

 Ralf Mattes

P.S: expect some software to show quirks on PPC -- more and more new
programs seem to forget that there are non-intels out here .....
> 
> --
> Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com
> 
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