Hey fellow PB owners, I joined this list today because I bought my first Mac a couple of months ago, and I've been having fun with it. It's a 233Mhz Series I Wall Street w/ a 2.1GB HD and 96MB of RAM. Before you turn up your nose, you should know that I bought it in the clearance section of a GoodWill store for $5! The only problems with it as far as I could see were that it was stuck in sleep mode, and it was missing the power supply. Apple sent me a free Titanium-style PS since the machine qualified for the recall, and after buying a set of Torx screwdrivers, flushing PRAM, and removing the HD to reset PM settings, I was off like a shot. Reset the battery, replaced the drive contents with Mac OS 9.2.2, and I've been experimenting since then. Everything that I've tested works, including the FIR port, although I think that the internal backup battery may be going dead prematurely. From the look of things, this machine saw very little use from its previous owner(s).
I installed Yellow Dog Linux 2.2 on the machine the other day, and was disappointed with the numerous glitches in the installer. It was nice to see that YDL incorporates libraries to handle the PBs' intricacies, though (such as the contrast and brightness buttons). I then sampled Mandrake Linux 8.2, and although the installer was very nice, Mandrake is too poofy for my taste. Also, there were some ambiguous references in the installation process due to the fact that Mandrake hasn't taken the time to customize their PPC version of Linux very well (the installer is loaded with x86/Windows references, as if that's the installation platform). For example: when choosing a mouse, one could select PS/2, USB, serial, or busmouse. I chose "busmouse" in hopes that they meant ADB, and not the now-defunct proprietary ISA bus interfaces that used to be found on some x86 machines of yore. The mouse tested ok until I actually started X11 for the first time, and had no mouse control. Word to the wise: I think that one has to install USB support when using an ADB peripheral. Supposedly, PPC Linux handles them in roughly the same way. All in all, I'm a little disappointed with Linux on OldWorld machines. Bootstrapping takes quite a while since Mac OS has to proceed pretty far into the boot process before BootX (which is annoying in its own right, especially, for some reason, when used with YDL) can be triggered. When I successfully got an Open Firmware command prompt on my WallStreet, I had a brief hope that I would be able to choose another boot point after all, and bypass BootX. But so far, Open Firmware doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot for me.... Does anyone know of a resource that details the differences in Open Firmware commands and functionality between OldWorld and NewWorld machines? Next stop: OS X 10.1. Armed with enough speed hacks, I think I can pull it off, and not have to fiddle with a dual-boot environment. I just want a nice devel platform where I can code PHP, play with MySQL, watch DivX movies, and have a *N*X command line. And maybe set up a caching-only DNS server. If anyone here has successfully installed Mac OS X 10.1 or higher on a legacy G3 PowerBook, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks for listening. --Todd PS, Am I right in assuming that AU/X is incompatible with Mac OS 9? -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! | RoadTools $30 PodiumPad available at Apple retail stores, $20 Traveler CoolPad at Staples. Both in white for iBooks at <http://roadtools.com>. Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
