what's the potential for a powerbook g4 titanium?

casbonano

Hello world.

I am not only a total newb to linux, but to computers in general past being an end user. besides taking up computer science as my second major so that i can learn as much as possible, i am making it a point to read books and joining internet groups.

All have pointed to linux.

I would like some opinions of how much potential my first apple machine has with linux. specs are as follows:

-Apple G4 Powerbook Titanium

-667mhz processor

-256mb ram

-optical=combo (cd/dvd-r, cd-rw)

-60gb hd

-pc adapter card slot

-no wifi

-usb and firewire.

-OS X (10.2.8)

i am getting the faulty optical drive replaced for under 200 bucks, and could upgrade the ram to 1GB for another 100 or so.

in my dreams, i would like to someday build an OS from the ground up, just to learn how its done. but thats some time away. my question is whether or not this hardware is viable for linux (slide!!!) and if so what kind of applications. I hear old (p)pc's are great materials for making servers, for example.

please remember that i am a total newb. i am just now learning how to get around on linecommands (terminal). basic stuff like "man", "pwd, ls, mkdir" and so forth. i have no real programming language experience or knowledge, other than having written the "hello world" program in ruby.

thanks ahead of time for your help

ps- this isnt my only machine by the way. I have an imac, a macbook, and am about to purchase a new macbook pro in a couple of weeks. the g4 powerbook is going to be strictly a "project and learn" machine. thanx,

woboyle

It is certainly adequate to run Linux pretty well, and there are distributions which have been ported to the Powerchip and Apple architecture. Have fun!

mfillpot

The following link directs you through distrowatch to their index of Linux based distributions that are available for the powerpc architecture (the Mac G4 processor is a PowerPC chip).

http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=All&origin=All&basedon=All&desktop=All&architecture=powerpc&status=Active

casbonano

mfillpot wrote:

The following link directs you through distrowatch to their index of Linux based distributions that are available for the powerpc architecture (the Mac G4 processor is a PowerPC chip).

http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=All&origin=All&basedon=All&desktop=All&architecture=powerpc&status=Active

thanks for the link. sounds like exactly what i was looking for. i will make sure to check it out.

mfillpot

Carlos,
Since you expressed interest in ubuntu for the powerpc (mac), here is some information.

The guide at https://help.ubuntu.com/9.10/installation-guide/powerpc/index.html details the system requirements and steps necessary for installing ubuntu on your system. The page at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/9.10/release/ lists altternate installation disks for ubuntu 9.10, including for the PS3 and powerpc(MAC).