Power Mac G4/466 a pretty good Linux platform

I haven't booted the Power Mac G4/466 running Debian Etch in a while, but I did so today because I'm about to move the box and its massive LaCie electron22blue monitor. So I wanted to power it up, do a software update and get it on the cart.

This is a nice box on which to run Debian. I've complained at length at how poorly Fedora 9 installed and autoconfigured on this box and how startlingly better Debian Etch did with that same task. Sorry to repeat that, but it bears repeating.

Since I've set up this box, I've discovered both an original set of PowerPC G4 Macintosh install CDs, which I suspect are OS 9, with a slew of equally original discs for Classic Mac applications, everything from Adobe Pagemaker and Illustrator to MS Office.

I'm not about to install Mac OS (but at least I'd get Flash support from Adobe, which sees some kind of screwed-up wisdom in supporting the all-but-dead PowerPC OS 9 but not PowerPC Linux, which isn't exactly a front-burner OS but at least is currently supported and would get more use if Flash and a modern version of Java ran on it).

I suppose I'd consider throwing OS 9 or OS X on this box, but with Debian running great, I just don't see it happening.

I had trouble when I tried to install OpenBSD on this PowerPC box, but now I think I have a handle on how to get it to boot:

If I'm not wrong, I can make the disk bootable with:

# fdisk -u wd0

On a not-totally-unrelated, our photo-department systems guru Roger Vargo keeps Macintoshes of many vintages and OSes running as well as I've ever seen them, and he's got a handful of Power Mac G4s running OS 9.

I was surprised recently to see a G4 running OS X 10.4 and doing it very quickly. The last G4 I saw running OS X before this was a total disaster, with any action on the user's part taking many seconds to even begin taking effect.

But this G4 was as fast as you'd want it to be.

It did have dual CPUs — maybe 400 MHz each — and at least 1 GB of RAM. Yep, you can stuff those G4's with up to 1.5 GB, I believe. It screams fairly well in OS X. Could you imagine getting near 1 GHz of CPU and 1 GB of RAM on the PowerPC platform in Debian, OpenBSD (and at that level, maybe even in Fedora)?

And they tend to have DVD-ROM/CD-R drives, plus gigabit Ethernet built it. Apple had gigabit Ethernet in the late '90s? Yep, it seems they did.

And the ATI video card built into my G4 does a great job with this huge, hefty LaCie monitor. The generic onboard video circuitry in my el-cheapo Maxspeed Maxterm thin client delivers a much fainter image on the same CRT monitor (and didn't do well at all when I hooked it up to an LCD monitor an age ago). But this G4 delivers superb graphics in Debian.

In other words, if you have a G4 or G5 at your disposal (and Flash isn't important to you or what you do), you might want to go off the reservation and try GNU/Linux or one of the BSD projects on it. (NetBSD, OpenBSD and FreeBSD all maintain PowerPC ports).

As it is, I can see this G4 being my main home box in our office, should we ever get all the accumulated junk removed enough to return the space to genuine office use. I kind of, sort of need Flash, but it's not a total deal-breaker.

I can only hope that upgrading the G4 from Etch to Lenny keeps all of the Debian goodness I've been enjoying so much. And there's always that next install of OpenBSD.

Endnote: Since we're not allowed to keep boxes (computer or otherwise) on the floor at the Daily News' new digs, I've had a desk packed with boxes (computer and otherwise) ever since we moved here. I hate to take the G4 down, but right now the G4 case has served me better as a Post-It bulletin board than as a working computer, and I hope to somehow rectify that with this change of CPU scenery.

And this: I'd love to try Slackintosh, the Slackware port to PowerPC, on this box.