[TriLUG] Debian on PowerMac G4

[Greg Brown]

First off.. HOWDY WEAVE!!!  Long time, no chat.

For the PowerPC hardware I used to run Yellow Dog Linux.  I have to admit,
it's been years since I ran YDL; the G3 machine I ran it on gave up the
ghost long ago and my G4 mini is still running OS X.  YDL is Red Hat based,
not Debian.  I'm only mentioning it because it was purpose-built for the
PowerPC archicture and it runs very well.

I believe fellow Ex-Oculaner Mark Turner installed Debian (or was it
Ubuntu?) on a G4 but he had to compile a good bit of it as I recall.

http://us.fixstars.com/products/ydl/
http://us.fixstars.com/support/downloads/ (YDL mirrors)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Dog_Linux

Greg

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 5:02 PM, Brian Weaver <cmdrclueless at gmail.com>wrote:

> It seems that hardware failures are sort of forcing me to pull out
> some old hardware that I've never tried to install Linux onto. I have
> an old 686 box that's been running well for a long time with Debian
> Etch, and other versions before Etch. However in the last few months
> I've experience 3 hard drive failures on the solo software RAID that I
> use for the main user data storage. I'm lazy and don't tend to do
> backup but about once per month on average so the RAID has saved my
> bacon quite a few times already. I don't know why the system has been
> eating drives up recently; one drive was brand new and only lasted 2
> months.
>
> Even though I have the system hooked up to a UPS, I'm thinking it
> might be a power supply problem. I guess I could just be having a run
> of really bad luck; I wish I could get frequent flyer miles for
> Murphy's trips to my house. Because the hardware is fairly ancient and
> I'm beginning to have my doubts about the hardware I thought I would
> "upgrade" to the last remaining spare piece of hardware in my house, a
> PowerMac G4. I'm hoping this will be a short term migration until I
> can figure out what new hardware I should get as a replacement.
> However given the current economic times it may become a long term
> replacement despite my best intentions.
>
> Has anyone had any luck installing Debian on a G4 or similar hardware?
> I'd like to know what type of pitfalls I'm likely to run into so I can
> get the new system up and running as quickly as possible. I guess I'm
> going with Debian to ease the migration from the existing server, it
> helps that I'm really familiar with the management since that's what
> the old server runs. Also, I use a ubuntu desktop on my work laptop
> which is almost the same to administer.
>
> Thanks
>
> -- Weave
>
> --
>
> /* insert witty comment here */
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