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Power Mac G4 3.1 and cube 450

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JohnKCG
Posts: 1
Joined: 2018-06-15 14:43

Power Mac G4 3.1 and cube 450

#1 Post by JohnKCG »

Hello Debian Community, this is my very first post in debian, I am writing here because I would like to know how well will debian 8.10 ppc will perform on two old Apple machines, their hardware are these:

Apple PowerMac G4 3.1

Processor G4 400 mhz
ATI video card
1gb ram
two drives, 80gb and 130 gb

The problem with this machine is the processor, but If debian runs so so I can upgrade it to a SSD so it could go faster

Apple Mac cube 450mhz

Processor G4 450 mhz
ATI video card
1gb ram
Unknown Har disk

I can upgrade ram to 2gbs and hard disk to ssd's, even the processor's if I can find ones compatible with the machines, but it will be good to know how good they can be for debian

I looked here on the forums and on Google and it just talks about old Ubuntu, lubuntu and Debian versions, on debian page it says that it might support even G3 machines, but there are no reviews for debian 8 in G4 machines

ASMPWH0212
Posts: 3
Joined: 2018-08-18 03:41

Re: Power Mac G4 3.1 and cube 450

#2 Post by ASMPWH0212 »

I remember seeing something related to this on youtube a while back and someone actually attempted putting a version of Linux on an old mac but I think switching from a traditional drive to the SSD may cause you some trouble because of some proprietary protections when it comes to their hardware and changing things around. also, I don't think would make a difference much anyway when it comes to those older computers because of bottlenecking issues and whatnot, but definitely would like to give that a try myself. I'm pretty sure someone else on here would have much more knowledge and experience than myself about this type of thing though.

arzgi
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Re: Power Mac G4 3.1 and cube 450

#3 Post by arzgi »

ASMPWH0212 wrote:I remember seeing something related to this on youtube a while back and someone actually attempted putting a version of Linux on an old mac but I think switching from a traditional drive to the SSD may cause you some trouble because of some proprietary protections when it comes to their hardware and changing things around. also, I don't think would make a difference much anyway when it comes to those older computers because of bottlenecking issues and whatnot, but definitely would like to give that a try myself. I'm pretty sure someone else on here would have much more knowledge and experience than myself about this type of thing though.
The only info I can give, is that Jesssie was the latest Debian that had PowerPC support.
https://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/index.en.html

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oswaldkelso
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Re: Power Mac G4 3.1 and cube 450

#4 Post by oswaldkelso »

If you search my username you'll find loads of bits n bobs on Debian PPC (some more useful than others :mrgreen: ) A lot will be out of date. Wheezy was the last good Debian PPC IMO, so I'd try Gentoo if you want a more up to date setup


edit: This has peaked my interest and I may just fire up my old imac 333Mhz an try to upgrade :lol:
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Ash init durbatulûk, ash init gimbatul,
Ash init thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
My oldest used PC: 1999 imac 333Mhz 256MB PPC abandoned by Debian

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