On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 2:01 AM, Wouter Verhelst <wou...@debian.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 10:07:16AM -0800, Logan Airth wrote: > > Good morning. I recently acquired a PowerBook G4 12" and I was > > thinking about installing Debian. I have had some experience running > > other flavours of Linux on the x86 platform. I have been doing some > > research however since the hardware that I am using is fairly old, I > > have not been able to find recent information regarding the install of > > the OS nor any complications that I may run into. I don't really want > > to partition my drive to try to install an OS that is going to involve > > days of work getting to a workable status let alone retain the > > portablity that I am accustomed to. On the otherhand I don't mind > > putting a say a day or so of work to get it running, I am not looking > > for a multiple day project. > > Good; Installing Debian on my laptop (also a 12" PowerBook G4) is a > one-hour project, including configuration and everything :-) > > It might've helped if you specified what type of 12" PowerBook, however. > The CPU clock speed is usually enough to figure that out. > > > Regarding the install itself, partitioning-wise, I have been seeing in > what > > research I have been able to do alot of the material has made mention of > > essentially dualbooting the system. Is this nessecary? I am not > interested in > > retaining OS X. > > No, it's certainly not necessary. I've used my powerbook for years > without OSX. > > If you had an oldworld machine, it might be easier to setup in dualboot, > however; but since it's a G4, it's not an oldworld. > > > Also it is not very clear what would be the best version of Debian to > > install. Would it be better for me to install the Stable version or > > the testing version? > > Both will work. However, the testing version is close to release and > will have the more shiny new software. > > If you have an nVidia video card, and you want the external video to > work, you will need the 'nouveau' driver, which is only available in > experimental; you would have to install at least testing, if not > unstable, for that to work. > > The other problematic thing could be the wireless. In testing, you'll > want the b43 driver; in stable, you need to use the (older) bcm43xx > one. After that, you'll want to install b43-fwcutter/bcm43xx-fwcutter to > get the firmware, and your card should be working. > > > And finally would there be any recommendations for alternatives to > Debian? > > On this list? Come on :-) > > You could try Yellow Dog if you prefer a RedHat-like distribution, but I > can't vouch for its quality. There's a Gentoo port to PowerPC, too, > which I've played with in the past. Other than that, I dunno. > > -- > <Lo-lan-do> Home is where you have to wash the dishes. > -- #debian-devel, Freenode, 2004-09-22 Thank you all for your excellent information. My apologies regarding the lack of information on my platform. For those that care but about it, I am running a PowerBook G4, 1.33Ghz. with 60gB HD and the nVidia Geforce Go 5200/ 64mB. The outcome of the install is quite good. I ended up installing Lenny with my only issues arising from the install of the Broadcom wireless drivers. The repository had a package for the drivers, however when getting the drivers with apt-get the package was suprisingly broken as the package attempted to download further data from a external source that no long existed. However with some quick work from my friend google I found a source for the data required and promptly installed it manually (Which I might add was most likely the most ineffiecient method but it works). Other then that I had a further minor complications getting X up and running however currently I am using the nv driver, but I may make a further attempt with getting the above mentioned nouveau driver. Lastly I was able to get some right-click functionality by mapping my middle and right click to F11 and F12. I am happy to say that the overall experience took maybe two and a half hours, but I am by no means a vetern. Again thank you for your help, and it was much appreciated.
