Has anyone had any success re-vamping an old iBook G4 with a linux distro?
I've been searching the linux forums without success. I have an Ubuntu distro but the iBook G4 won't boot from the CD (I've tried the usual holding down 'c' and, when that didn't work, holding down 'opt' which at least got me a novel looking screen, but still not boot from the CD).
Am I missing a trick, or do I need a different distro?
Any help much appreciated.
Holding down the Option key should get you the Startup Manager.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1310?viewlocale=en_US
Whether a Linux CD should show up there, I don't know.
YellowDog Linux seems to be the best supported Linux distro on G4's
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/support/hardware/
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/support/hardware/apple-ibook.shtml
Even though on one site that it says Ubuntu works on G4's it's a older version most likely and Ubuntu apprantly has dropped support for PPC.
From what I recall you have to download a PPC version of Linux. I've tried Ubuntu for PPC and that worked well on a Clamshell. The only drawback was the fact you couldn't install x86 apps on the PPC architecture.(Thing like skype for Linux wont work) it's very limited on what you can install and what will work.
The same process applies for installing the software, holding the 'C' key down on booting and it will start the install process. Just make sure it's the PPC version of Linux.
I use YellowDog on PPC computers
If you have got an Ubuntu PPC ISO, it was perhaps a download error or an error during the ISO burning process.
Best Linux Distro for old iBook G4?
