M5183 is not an absolute identifier - it identifies the form factor rather than the specific model. It's probably a PowerMac G4 "Yikes" . Was it running Mac OS 9 when you were given it? The Apple System Profiler under the Apple menu would tell you for sure. If it has PCI graphics it's a Yikes. If it has AGP graphics it's a Sawtooth, or possibly a Gigabit Ethernet. Low End Mac has good info on all these old machines:
http://www.lowendmac.com/ppc/index.shtml You definitely need more RAM. It's cheap on eBay. I once got Debian Sarge working on a Powerbook 1400 with only 64 MB of RAM but I partitioned the disk manually and set up a 512 MB SWAP partition. That helped a lot. You would need to set up a separate yaboot partition for your machine too, you know. Cheers, Tom On Dec 21, 2009, at 10:16 PM, Wayde Allen wrote: > This thing was given to me, so I'm a bit sketchy on the details, but > the sticker on the back reads: > Power Mac G4, family# M5183, 400 MHz, 1M cache, 64 MB SDRAM, 10 Gbyte > Hard Drive/DVD-ROM. The system was probably built around 2000. The > hard drive is actually a 70 Gbyte drive so perhaps it was upgraded. > > Getting it running is merely a curiosity. > > - Wayde > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 6:48 AM, Thomas Carlson <tcarl...@sharedcup.com> > wrote: >> What sort of "old G4" are you talking about? >> >> Tom >> >> On Dec 20, 2009, at 9:16 AM, Wayde Allen wrote: >> >>> I've recently been trying to install the latest copy of DebianPPC on >>> an old G4. The install disk boots, finds the network, partitions the >>> hardrive, and begins dowloading files from the mirror. However, once >>> it finishes downloading the last file the system simply stops the >>> installation. The computer seems to be working, I can for instance do >>> an Alt-F2 to get a new shell and poke around in the system. It is >>> just the install that has stopped. Any suggestions? >>> >>> -- >>> - Wayde >>> >>> >>> -- >>> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-powerpc-requ...@lists.debian.org >>> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact >>> listmas...@lists.debian.org > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-powerpc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
