Re: iBook G3/700 Ubuntu experiment
2009/8/8 Arnel Tuazon a.tua...@gmail.com: Well I thought I'd give my old iBook G3 some new life by installing Jaunty Jackalope as I kept hearing about Ubuntu and how great it is. All I can say is if you're a regular Joe computer user, Linux is still not for you IMHO. I don't understand how an OS (Linux) after all these years and with all the past hype still seems like it's in the beta stages as an OS for the masses. Ease of use it ain't (well maybe just for Ubuntu as I haven't tried YDL in 4 years). I'm sorry to hear you say that, but as a Linux user and occasional evangelist for 13y now, I have to admit that *as a modern Internet desktop OS* it is essentially an x86 OS. As a server, it can be just fine on various non-x86 machines, including PowerPC. The problem is that although Linux itself is open source, some of the fairly critical parts of the GUI desktop are not; they are proprietary binary blobs supplied as freeware by large commercial companies like Adobe. This applies to a number of things you might reasonably want, such as the Flash player and Skype and drivers for quite a variety of hardware. Some other bits, such as Adobe Reader, one can more happily live without. Without these, you will have a sub-optimal experience, to say the least - and alas there is little chance of them ever appearing. On a very basic x86 PC, Linux is entirely capable of being installed and used by a non-expert user these days. Indeed it can be better for newbies than for those with a little PC experience. A common problem is people thinking that they know how to do things on a computer, when actually, all they know is how /Windows/ does something. So, for instance, if they want to play RealPlayer, they think ah! I need RealPlayer. I'll go to the Real site, download it, install it and I'll be running. The snag is, that's not the way it works on Linux, and that method will be very hard, complex, failure-prone and probably won't work. If they simply stuck how to play realplayer video on ubuntu into Google and followed the instructions, they'd be fine. Either way, sadly, for a modern distro like Ubuntu, a 700MHz machine is a low spec. My 1.6GHz PC laptop struggles with Ubuntu! Frankly, if your Mac can run OS X, you're better off with OS X than any flavour of Linux. The only exception is if you're trying to build a server and either can't afford OS X Server or it is not suitable for the requirement. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpro...@gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: iBook G3/700 Ubuntu experiment
On 08/08/09 8:48 AM, Mark chris...@fuse.net wrote: That version of Ubuntu is not the latest and greatest - but yeah the latest and greatest still isn't exactly ready for the masses. Adobe plug ins for Linux are distributed the same as for Mac Windows. Not sure why that was a problem. I'd be happy just to have an iBook G3 700 that worked. :-) Really? I went back to their site and that's the latest version (Jaunty Jackalope 9.04) for both Intel and PPC. Ubuntu recommends NOT to install the plugins from the 3rd party companies, but to go through their app installer. Also I did try to install it through Adobe and there was a problem with the Linux plugin installing on a PPC. I also remember having a problem with another plugin for something else and it was because the Linux version was CPU specific. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: iBook G3/700 Ubuntu experiment
Arnel Tuazon wrote: Well I thought I'd give my old iBook G3 some new life by installing Jaunty Jackalope as I kept hearing about Ubuntu and how great it is. All I can say is if you're a regular Joe computer user, Linux is still not for you IMHO. I don't understand how an OS (Linux) after all these years and with all the past hype still seems like it's in the beta stages as an OS for the masses. Ease of use it ain't (well maybe just for Ubuntu as I haven't tried YDL in 4 years). As for Ubuntu, even with all the apps that are apparently out there for it, it really isn't meant for the PPC. I thought with the end of Apple's support for PPC that Linux was the way to go to get some extra life out of my old Macs especially with web browsers and their plugins. The OS did boot up the iBook much faster than Tiger and Panther, but aside from using Open Office, Firefox was sluggish and I spent hours hunting down plugins to make it work with certain sites i.e. Flash, Quicktime. Also a few plugins wouldn't install on a PPC. I still couldn't find any plugins for Flash and Quicktime. I even installed the ubuntu restricted packages. I got as a far as getting sound from movie trailers and a screen saver effect instead of the video. I don't know, the whole experience was frustrating at times and the old iBook felt sluggish with several apps. Someone had recommended Ubuntu over YDL because of the amount of apps out there. I say most people only need a few of the apps any way to get what they need done. In the end I installed Tiger and the iBook is actually working pretty smoothly. I installed NeoOffice over MS Office to see how much faster it is. I am impressed with it. I may try YDL some time in the future with maybe my G4/1.6GHz Powermac and see how that goes. iBook G3/700 648MB RAM 30GB hd That version of Ubuntu is not the latest and greatest - but yeah the latest and greatest still isn't exactly ready for the masses. Adobe plug ins for Linux are distributed the same as for Mac Windows. Not sure why that was a problem. I'd be happy just to have an iBook G3 700 that worked. :-) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
iBook G3/700 Ubuntu experiment
Well I thought I'd give my old iBook G3 some new life by installing Jaunty Jackalope as I kept hearing about Ubuntu and how great it is. All I can say is if you're a regular Joe computer user, Linux is still not for you IMHO. I don't understand how an OS (Linux) after all these years and with all the past hype still seems like it's in the beta stages as an OS for the masses. Ease of use it ain't (well maybe just for Ubuntu as I haven't tried YDL in 4 years). As for Ubuntu, even with all the apps that are apparently out there for it, it really isn't meant for the PPC. I thought with the end of Apple's support for PPC that Linux was the way to go to get some extra life out of my old Macs especially with web browsers and their plugins. The OS did boot up the iBook much faster than Tiger and Panther, but aside from using Open Office, Firefox was sluggish and I spent hours hunting down plugins to make it work with certain sites i.e. Flash, Quicktime. Also a few plugins wouldn't install on a PPC. I still couldn't find any plugins for Flash and Quicktime. I even installed the ubuntu restricted packages. I got as a far as getting sound from movie trailers and a screen saver effect instead of the video. I don't know, the whole experience was frustrating at times and the old iBook felt sluggish with several apps. Someone had recommended Ubuntu over YDL because of the amount of apps out there. I say most people only need a few of the apps any way to get what they need done. In the end I installed Tiger and the iBook is actually working pretty smoothly. I installed NeoOffice over MS Office to see how much faster it is. I am impressed with it. I may try YDL some time in the future with maybe my G4/1.6GHz Powermac and see how that goes. iBook G3/700 648MB RAM 30GB hd --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
