![running linux on a mac g3 running linux on a mac g3](https://increasinglyadequate.com/images/mac.jpg)
- #RUNNING LINUX ON A MAC G3 INSTALL#
- #RUNNING LINUX ON A MAC G3 SOFTWARE#
- #RUNNING LINUX ON A MAC G3 DOWNLOAD#
You can download 14.04 and 16.04 from this page, earlier versions from this page, where you can also get version 12.04 for PowerPC, among many other architectures. That’s also the latest version available for PowerPC at present. Version 14.04 was released in the 4th month of 2014, and 16.04 in the 4th month of 2016.
![running linux on a mac g3 running linux on a mac g3](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/21/5a/2f/215a2f1835d873119951d755d5cf352f.jpg)
![running linux on a mac g3 running linux on a mac g3](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Wki8KhhVKaQ/maxresdefault.jpg)
Ubuntu Linux has a simple numbering scheme for its versions. Lubuntu is known for having a lighter-weight user interface, LXDE – similar to what Simon Royal used when he put LXLE on an old PC. After talking with others in our small-but-growing Linux PPC Facebook group, I settled on Lubuntu as a good starting point. It’s my most powerful PowerPC Mac, so I figured it would be a good way to take Linux for a spin. My original testbed was a Late 2005 2.3 GHz Power Mac G5 Dual with 3 GB of RAM and two hard drives, one with OS X 10.4 Tiger, the other with OS X 10.5 Leopard. If only I’d had a blank CD-R or DVD-R, it would have been a lot easier! This time around I wanted to create a “live” flash drive so I could make sure it actually worked before committing to installing Linux on a hard drive. Everything was handled through the command line in the late 1990s. Back in the olden days, Linux was a text-based operating system similar to MS-DOS. I’ve experimented with Linux and BSD Macs going back to the Mac IIci era, and I’ve never had much luck.
#RUNNING LINUX ON A MAC G3 INSTALL#
I’m going to make it a lot easier for you to install Linux on your old PPC Macs. It took me a couple weeks of research, asking questions of our Linux on PowerPC Macs group on Facebook, and experimenting before I could finally boot into Linux 14.04 from a thumb drive. So I thought I would bring the possibility to the attention of the curious ghacks readers before they toss out those old Macs to make room for other projects.It’s not particularly easy to create a bootable USB flash drive so you can try running Linux on a PowerPC Mac.
#RUNNING LINUX ON A MAC G3 SOFTWARE#
On top of that I had the whole of the Linux catalog of software at my disposal.Īnd now I am faced with reviving an aging eMac in the same way. I really felt like I was using a much newer laptop. With Linux on the machine it felt much more powerful than it should have. The version I used on the laptop was Ubuntu. The Mac in question was an old G3 800 Mhz iBook. But after a few OS X updates I realized it wasn't the processor but the version of OS X that was placed on it. At first I attributed it to the processor speed. I shouldn't have to even type the fact that the machine ran very slowly. The machine had a Gig of ram along with the G3 900 Mhz processor. When I received it it had the latest version of OS X it would support. Within the last year I purchased an older eMac which had a 900 Mhz processor. One of the issues with trying to use those older Macs is that they do not meet the requirements of newer versions of OS X. There are, and they will make that old machine seem like it's younger and snappier than it ever did. Do you have an old Mac G3 or G4 lying around doing nothing? Did you know that old dinosaur could make a great server or desktop with the help of everyone's favorite open source operating system Linux? Most people don't realize there are Linux ports for PPC.