stereobus Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 I have been given a G3 iMac. I have a small pub and thought it might make a good machine for customers to surf You Tube and such. Since this is an old and slow machine, I was thinking about installing Xubuntu Linux on it since it is not a very resource hungry OS. However I have heard some horror stories of multimedia playback on Linux. I realize that I can run OS X on this machine but I have heard that it is painfully slow. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathmetalscottie Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 ok what would probably be your best option is to go for a Linux distro. I would suggest going with Sabayon just because it's built on Gentoo Linux and will run really fast. Plus, you will get all of the codecs and video drivers you need, right out of the box. Also, I would suggest upgrading your RAM to 512mb unless you already have. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-470930 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embio Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 Xubuntu 7.10 - automatic codec grabbing Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-471266 Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrentess Posted October 16, 2007 Share Posted October 16, 2007 I think Xubuntu 7.10 too. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-472541 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted October 16, 2007 Share Posted October 16, 2007 http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=65723 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-472600 Share on other sites More sharing options...
tha_toadman Posted October 17, 2007 Share Posted October 17, 2007 ok what would probably be your best option is to go for a Linux distro. I would suggest going with Sabayon just because it's built on Gentoo Linux and will run really fast. Plus, you will get all of the codecs and video drivers you need, right out of the box... Agreed! That's my recommendation too. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-473669 Share on other sites More sharing options...
~pcwiz Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 If you are installing linux, get Ubuntu but one thing: I tried Ubuntu a while a go (I think it was release 5 or 6) on a 500MHz G3 iMac and due to video problems it wouldn't boot so you can't be sure it will work. If Ubuntu doesn't work get Debian Linux PowerPC port. What is the processor speed of the iMac G3? I had a 500MHz G3 iMac and it ran OS X 10.3 Panther VERY fast. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-473884 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 If Ubuntu doesn't work get Debian Linux PowerPC port. Exactly. He can't get better than Debian+Xfce for a low specs PPC box. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-474088 Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nonny Moose Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 Go get 10.3 if you have a machine under 500 MHz. Get 10.4 if you have a machine over 500 MHz. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-474512 Share on other sites More sharing options...
~pcwiz Posted October 19, 2007 Share Posted October 19, 2007 I say don't go to 10.4 no matter what iMac G3 you have. Tiger comes on a DVD and most iMac G3 models don't have a DVD-ROM so Panther is still the BEST choice. Other than its a bit old, 10.3 runs very fast on 400MHz+ G3s. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-474594 Share on other sites More sharing options...
benwinship Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 Basically just what everyone else said, but 10.4 ran amazingly on my 700mhz G3 with 1gb RAM, but anything under 500mhz i would say to use 10.3 or 10.2 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-476522 Share on other sites More sharing options...
stereobus Posted October 24, 2007 Author Share Posted October 24, 2007 I checked out the Sabayon project site and it looked pretty cool, but I didn't see a PPC build. There seemed to be only x86 and x86 64 bit. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-479568 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 I checked out the Sabayon project site and it looked pretty cool, but I didn't see a PPC build. There seemed to be only x86 and x86 64 bit. Indeed, I don't know why people recommend their favorite distro with a total disregard for the user needs. Besides Sabayon runs best on fast, modern boxes. Then I could recommend openSUSE for that matter, at least it does have a PPC port: http://en.opensuse.org/POWER%40SUSE Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-483012 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conroe Mac Posted November 1, 2007 Share Posted November 1, 2007 Xubuntu works fine, but it's no Ubuntu Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-489554 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mebster Posted November 1, 2007 Share Posted November 1, 2007 Go get 10.3 if you have a machine under 500 MHz. Get 10.4 if you have a machine over 500 MHz. I ran 10.3 and 10.4 on a iMac G3 with 500mhz with 512mb and I was surprised to notice the speeds were the same. I was expecting the 10.3 system to be faster and so persuading me to keep that. However with no clear difference I decided to keep 10.4 on it. So if you're deciding which version to install I suggest you try both. Also I couldn't get youtube videos to play very smoothly. It wasn't that bad but slow and slugging enough for me not to try it unless I had to. ALso divx videos were a certain no no. Think it was to do with the lack of QE/CI. Let me know how video on your system is if you decide to stick with OS X. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-489672 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheese N' Pancakes Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 if i were you i'd do a case conversion tp ATX get a small 17" LCD. throw some extra ram in her and then i'd make a custom wallpaper with the pub logo and everything to make it look nice Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-495051 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayanami Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 I had 10.4.9 on a G4.... I can't remember if it was a 400, 450, or 500 though. Wasn't too bad. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/66367-linux-or-os-x/#findComment-495551 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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