ubuntu for b/w g3

[hugh_j]

Hello

I have a question or three if you would about installing ubuntu
(6.0.6??) on a blue and white g3 mac (300mhz 640 ram) via download and burn.

The machine has two ata drives, one with os x 10.3.9, and one available
for linux, currently partitioned by disk utility into two chunks 7.7 and
49 mb respectively. Ubuntu can have all of this drive. Both drives boot.

The main question is, after installing linux, will I be easily able to
choose which drive to boot from at startup?

Plus are there any other likely major hiccups down the road of installation?

And is ubuntu the best choice for yours truly here? I just want to have
a go at it, no serving or other tricky stuff right now. I would just
like to have a look see what all the excitement is about.

I've read round this but there is no substitute for sound advice. Many
thanks in advance.

[B'ichela]

Post by hugh_j
Hello
I have a question or three if you would about installing ubuntu
(6.0.6??) on a blue and white g3 mac (300mhz 640 ram) via download and burn.

...

Post by hugh_j
The main question is, after installing linux, will I be easily able to
choose which drive to boot from at startup?

I haen't tried installing linux on my B&w yet but if you use
yaboot (new world loader) you can have it boot both Mac OSx and Linux
and classic too if you so desire. My Imac G3/400 doesn't have MacOsx
as I only got 192MB of ram on it. and no DVD-ROM drive. Maybe
someday...

Post by hugh_j
Plus are there any other likely major hiccups down the road of installation?

I tried ubuntu on my Imac G3/400 and had a hell of a time
getting my display working. same with kunbuntu as well as xubuntu. I
found that the knoppix for the mac worked better for me, if you want
gui to start out with. Slackintosh worked with some tweaking of the
xorg.conf file (used the one from knoppix). ditto with debian.

[hugh_j]

Post by B'ichela

Post by hugh_j
Hello
I have a question or three if you would about installing ubuntu
(6.0.6??) on a blue and white g3 mac (300mhz 640 ram) via download and burn.

...

Post by hugh_j
The main question is, after installing linux, will I be easily able to
choose which drive to boot from at startup?

I haen't tried installing linux on my B&w yet but if you use
yaboot (new world loader) you can have it boot both Mac OSx and Linux
and classic too if you so desire. My Imac G3/400 doesn't have MacOsx
as I only got 192MB of ram on it. and no DVD-ROM drive. Maybe
someday...

Post by hugh_j
Plus are there any other likely major hiccups down the road of installation?

I tried ubuntu on my Imac G3/400 and had a hell of a time
getting my display working. same with kunbuntu as well as xubuntu. I
found that the knoppix for the mac worked better for me, if you want
gui to start out with. Slackintosh worked with some tweaking of the
xorg.conf file (used the one from knoppix). ditto with debian.

It seems that as in life everyone has a different experience.
I definitely don't like the sound of no display at all, but surely at
least there would be an 640x480 window set at a jaunty angle in one
corner of the screen, something to work on.
Still hoping for a plug and play linux. Possibly there is no such
animal. Hmm. Thanks for that narrative B'ichela.

[B'ichela]

Post by hugh_j
It seems that as in life everyone has a different experience.
I definitely don't like the sound of no display at all, but surely at
least there would be an 640x480 window set at a jaunty angle in one
corner of the screen, something to work on.
Still hoping for a plug and play linux. Possibly there is no such
animal. Hmm. Thanks for that narrative B'ichela.

Well, I suppose text only would be considered a screen ;) I do
know that the knoppix for PPC does work in graphical mode. Slackintosh
works (by default, it only uses text mode, until you configure x.org
(why do they call it that instead of XFree86 is beyond me)). Debian
(which all of the ubuntu distros are based on.) starts out in text
mode. same type of setup issues with x.org as Slackware. with my built
in ATI graphics controller it can be difficult to get it working.
If you are used to using xf86conf or xf86config on the PC side
of Linux, you may find you have to tweak the settings for the mac.
Easiest is to fire up knoppix PPC version. set up your HDs and copy
the xorg.conf file from /etc/X11 to a thumb drive and copy it into
your new system. Thats what I did. I also took the time to really look
at that file. Ugly, nasty little beast with millions of commented
lines, that helped some in getting it working better for me.
Being I am visually impaired no GUI at startup isn't a major
deal as long as I can easily get things working.
Problem with the unbuntus is that they seem to have decided
that they needed to do things in graphics mode. they didn't have a
text option. and possibly because I only had 192MB of ram the systems
got indigestion and couldn't move. Definlaty stuff that mac with as
much ram as you can. You mentioned you had 640MB. you should be OK
then. I still strongly suggest the knoppix for the PPC. as it ran OK
with only 192MB of ram. Being I was originally mainly a Slackware
user, I liked slackintosh 11.0, but fastest way to get GUI going, with
slackintosh, was to use the knoppix xorg.conf file as I mentioned above.

[hugh_j]

Post by B'ichela

Post by hugh_j
It seems that as in life everyone has a different experience.
I definitely don't like the sound of no display at all, but surely at
least there would be an 640x480 window set at a jaunty angle in one
corner of the screen, something to work on.
Still hoping for a plug and play linux. Possibly there is no such
animal. Hmm. Thanks for that narrative B'ichela.

Well, I suppose text only would be considered a screen ;) I do
know that the knoppix for PPC does work in graphical mode. Slackintosh
works (by default, it only uses text mode, until you configure x.org
(why do they call it that instead of XFree86 is beyond me)). Debian
(which all of the ubuntu distros are based on.) starts out in text
mode. same type of setup issues with x.org as Slackware. with my built
in ATI graphics controller it can be difficult to get it working.
If you are used to using xf86conf or xf86config on the PC side
of Linux, you may find you have to tweak the settings for the mac.
Easiest is to fire up knoppix PPC version. set up your HDs and copy
the xorg.conf file from /etc/X11 to a thumb drive and copy it into
your new system. Thats what I did. I also took the time to really look
at that file. Ugly, nasty little beast with millions of commented
lines, that helped some in getting it working better for me.
Being I am visually impaired no GUI at startup isn't a major
deal as long as I can easily get things working.
Problem with the unbuntus is that they seem to have decided
that they needed to do things in graphics mode. they didn't have a
text option. and possibly because I only had 192MB of ram the systems
got indigestion and couldn't move. Definlaty stuff that mac with as
much ram as you can. You mentioned you had 640MB. you should be OK
then. I still strongly suggest the knoppix for the PPC. as it ran OK
with only 192MB of ram. Being I was originally mainly a Slackware
user, I liked slackintosh 11.0, but fastest way to get GUI going, with
slackintosh, was to use the knoppix xorg.conf file as I mentioned above.

I see what you mean now. I thought at first that you meant that linux
wouldn't recognise the monitor at all calling for some inspirational
keyboard trickery to sort it.

The only unix I've done is some tampering with the Terminal to get
sendmail and pine and apache to do the biz on a beige g3. I don't mind a
good .conf file if I have a couple of hours to spare, but the only real
benefit to this is the sense of achievement. Nothing is actually achieved.

What seems to be happening is that whenever I am called upon to do some
creative work I decide that it's time to make sure that the machine is
in tip-top condition first. This normally takes care of the first 72
hours, and then the rest of the week is taken up with collecting up
screws and bezels and taking them out to the shed, sweeping up and
rearranging the toolkit and downloading some more garbageware. By then
the fever has passed.

If the Linux bug persists I will definitely download knoppix and give it
a go. Today's big event was finding a spare ATA slot and stuffing an
internal Zip under the CD.

The 640mb includes all the 128's I could pillage from the beige and
still leave it one stick to run with. It's the most I've ever had, but
it makes no difference to the productive output, which currently stands
at none.

Cheers.

[B'ichela]

Post by hugh_j
I see what you mean now. I thought at first that you meant that linux
wouldn't recognise the monitor at all calling for some inspirational
keyboard trickery to sort it.

No such "Mumbo Jumbo" required. Of course knowledge of
vi/vim/elvis helps.

Post by hugh_j
The only unix I've done is some tampering with the Terminal to get
sendmail and pine and apache to do the biz on a beige g3. I don't mind a

That at least gives you some idea how to setup debian and
Slackintosh. Slackintosh uses the bsd style init system where as
Debian uses the Sys-V version.

Post by hugh_j
If the Linux bug persists I will definitely download knoppix and give it
a go. Today's big event was finding a spare ATA slot and stuffing an
internal Zip under the CD.

Don't forget this web site for Mac compatible linux stuff
<http://penguinppc.org/>
there you can find a few distros to try. My B&w didn't come with an
internal Zip drive either. But then
again it is an older B&W G3/300 version and the ATA controler is
flaky. Thats why I have two SCSI cards in mine and two SCSI hds.
Right now they are narrow HDs on a AHA-2940UW-MAC card (got to get a
few wide drives cables and terminators... perhaps someday soon I will.
the other card is a AHA-2930CU-MAC (this card was used in my Pentium
Linux machine for years, it worked without the bios on the PC,
as a dumb card. On the mac, its rom works great!) This controls a
Microtek X6EL flat bed scanner and a external Iomega 100 ZIP drive.
It has 160MB in it and like you I scraped the bottom of the ram barrel
to get it up to that. I use it to scan my raw comic strips into
Graphics Converter 5.9 (registered)
where I clean them up and caption/color/shade them. I then send them
to my Lexmark E232 via appletalk.
I could have done Linux on it... but for what I use it for...
I felt Linux would be overkill, Plus I also do my books in Clarisworks
4.0 on my Imac G3/400 (they are both networked via netatalk on my Pentium
100 (an old but reliable beastie. all wide SCSI, even runs my website! (see
my signature below))

[I R A Darth Aggie]

On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:40:52 GMT,

+ works (by default, it only uses text mode, until you configure x.org
+ (why do they call it that instead of XFree86 is beyond me)).

Mostly because x.org hasn't been XFree86-related for quite a
while. The first iteration of the x.org X server was a fork from
XFree86 4.4RC2, and was rebranded as x.org v6.7. That was early 2004.

Most distro's have gone with x.org. And it shows:

Our current release is XFree86 version 4.6.0 and was released on
10 May 2006.

http://www.xfree86.org/releases/rel460.html

[B'ichela]

Post by I R A Darth Aggie
Mostly because x.org hasn't been XFree86-related for quite a
while. The first iteration of the x.org X server was a fork from
XFree86 4.4RC2, and was rebranded as x.org v6.7. That was early 2004.

What does x.org have for advantages/disadvantages to xfree86?
From what little I know.... I haven't see anything other than creating
some confusion.

[I R A Darth Aggie]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:00:36 GMT,

+ > Mostly because x.org hasn't been XFree86-related for quite a
+ > while. The first iteration of the x.org X server was a fork from
+ > XFree86 4.4RC2, and was rebranded as x.org v6.7. That was early 2004.
+ >
+ What does x.org have for advantages/disadvantages to xfree86?

Lots.

Part of their effort was to make the X tree more modular. So, if you
wanted to code a driver for your video card, you could without having
to understand the whole of XFree86. You'd just need to understand the
driver interface.

One of the other complaints about XFree86 was that graphics card
vendors found it difficult to work with them. Submitted code would sit
so long, and the XFree86 tree would change enough that the submission
would need to be reworked before it could be used. This is much less
of an issue, particularly because x.org is modular.

Additionally, XFree86 lost a most valuable resource, the Debian X
development team, which insured that their code would be able to run
on many platforms.

+ From what little I know.... I haven't see anything other than creating
+ some confusion.

You haven't been looking. All main-line linux distributions have
transitioned to x.org's X server. There is *no* confusion.