How to Install Modern Linux on a 1999 iMac G3 - Adelie Linux PowerPC Edition!

Installation process starts at 3:52. Click "show more" below for handy links if you want to try the install yourself!

Today we're installing a modern Linux on a 1999 iMac G3 revision D, the fastest version of the original iMac. We're using Adelie Linux, a relatively new distro that has PowerPC 32 bit as a first-class install target.

If you're going to try this, it's helpful to have these four pages handy:

The RC1 ISO didn't work for me, and I've read that Linux kernel 5+ has issues on some PowerPC. The live environment would just boot part way with some weird errors.

══════════════════════════

══════════════════════════

 #linux #powerpc #macintosh

[DouglasWalrath]

"extreme amatuer vintage computing" almost sounds like a competitive sport

[simonvannarath]

the OF reboot command you're looking for is "reset-all".

[kaitlyn__L]

That intro was perfect. I really thought the camera was pointing down at a table until you dramatically brushed the magazines off the iMac!

[JohnMiller-mmuldoor]

I installed Debian xfce on my old ppc macs like 8 years ago... worked beautifully back then I was even able to go on Facebook and play some simple flash games... don’t know what would happen today though!

[adamsfusion]

It would also be really helpful to just see the log file X produced. Once you've lived in X land for a couple decades, its arcane stanzas are a lot more understandable.

[linuxinfrench]

I found your channel a few minutes ago, and man! amazing stuff here! I learned a lot and even for Linux user there's good resources, thx a lot.

[MrHal]

Have you tried the updated Adelie Linux RC2? Just released 😉

[turbolenza]

Hello, I have a PowerMac G4 dual processor. Will this work?

[DrTheoreticalDonuts]

Adorable kitty!

Anyway, I've had issues like this on my itanium box running Gentoo IA-64 (not x86-64). Try using the "ati" driver instead of mach64 or r128.

Another resource for obscure issues is the Gentoo wiki but I'd start with the Arch wiki first as you did. Great video 😊.

[Thanatos]

Startx errors out like that unless you create an xinitrc with a client to run as the root window. Some versions will default to using xterm if you have it, but if you don't you definitely need either an xinitrc or to give it a client to launch (e.g. startx /usr/local/bin/dwm)

[RFLCPTR]

I am still so mad about the fact that my iMac G5 died only a month after I bought it off ebay.
I would love to do this myself...

[masonthedunce]

Does your .xinitrc file actually contain “exec xfce-session”?

[kbhasi]

(25:46) -I believe that's because Adélie Linux appears to be based on Alpine Linux, which in turn is designed to be an embedded Linux distribution, so it's intended to be lightweight.- (Invalidated; see first reply)

I'm somewhat familiar with Alpine Linux from the postmarketOS project, which is based on that too, probably in order to allow it to fit devices that may have limited computing power.

The only downside with Alpine Linux and its derivatives for me for now is the lack of locale support, so app UIs would end up displaying the original text strings contained within the app's source code instead of properly localised text.

[amberisvibin]

I really like this distro, it's quite neat! I've been having trouble getting it to install on my Mac Mini G4 though

[chriskeeton]

I remember having the same problem on the same revison iMac you are using. Somewhere buried in the Ubuntu forums there is a fix for it but I couldn't tell you where to start looking. If I remember right, it was a command line fix that you added to grub.

[creepyhobo]

Cool I'm watching a video about the first iMac on the last iMac!

[JessicaFEREM]

funny how the Imac is essentially the old equivalent of a computer that's mounted to a monitor via a vesa mount. surprising how modular it is.

[ww]

I’d like to see a Adelie running with a GUI. I am going to attempt to install that on my Pismo. I am adding a G4 550mhz to it.

[JessicaFEREM]

all heil the arch linux wiki. I've used that many times on my time with manjaro

[rkmugen]

The Rage 128 (r128) driver on these old iMac G3's were never supported well. Back in the day, you could get any Debian-based distro to get the X Window system running, but it seemed that nobody know how to get the underlying AGP 1x/2x/4x working at all. That's why we had to create custom Xorg.conf config files to force these iMacs to boot in ForcePCI mode. I think this was also true for all the other .RPM (ie. Red Hat) based distros as well. I think I still have my old video of me showing off my iMac G3/600 running MintPPC (debian based distro), running Blender of all things. These days, my iMac is just collecting dust in a corner of my house. It has Lubuntu 16.04 on it and i had planned on trying Ubuntu Mate, as I hear they're using Ubuntu 18.0x as a sadly support for 32-bit PPC for that distro is also dead as of this year as well. I might give Void Linux PPC a try someday.