Hi Fred, I just finished installing Linux on my iMac g5; because of the 64 bits issue, you will feel kind of limited. I did try to install pretty much all Linux distros that were ppc64 compatible. I can't say that I'm knowledgeable, though; just like you, I am just starting to play with Linux on Intel and IBM processors.
You can forget about mint, unless you use very early versions, but brace yourself for bugs related to the g5 processor. Fedora 12 worked good and it is the only distro that has out of the box support for your broadcom card. The software repositories for ppc are not very well supplied, though. I felt I lost a lot of control over my system though; no more playing around with CPU scaling for instance. Ubuntu worked pretty good, but is not very well supported, and could load my sound card (chip), whatever I did. Had the same issue with Fedora 16 (after much work arounds for the install). The best distro that opens the most possibilities is the latest Debian stable release (wheezy ppc64 in my case). Airport does not work out of the box, but there is a work around (b43-fwcutter firmware exrtactor), complete control over your system, and I was able to compile minitube for ppc64 by following the instructions that came with the source code. Next, I'm installing the rythmbox server to use my android phone as a remote for the Linux app, as these iMacs sound pretty good. Conclusion: follow my advice or not, but IMHO, the most powerful distro for g5 ppc64 is Debian. Whatever you decide to do, good luck and keep us posted of your progress. Cheers, Quattro5. On Dec 26, 2011 12:44 AM, "Fred Thiel and Janet Thiel" <fth...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > > I've got a 3.1GHz iMac core i5 with a spare 200 MB partition. I've always been intrigued by Linux systems and have read about several on this and other Mac lists. Any suggestions for a Linux newbie for a simple version? > > Thanks much > Fred > > -- > You received this message because you are a member of the iMac Group, a group for those using Apple iMacs and eMacs. > The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml > To post to this group, send email to imaclist@googlegroups.com > To leave this group, send email to imaclist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist -- You received this message because you are a member of the iMac Group, a group for those using Apple iMacs and eMacs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to imaclist@googlegroups.com To leave this group, send email to imaclist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist
