Hi Thomas,I love the PowerBook 17. It is a great looking machine with some nice features. It is quite big but I chose screen size over the the convenience of a smaller machine.
OS-X is great from some points of view and not so good from other points of view. It is more personal preference really and I have to admit that I am no OS-X expert at all. It is very easy to use once you know where things are. I used to know earlier versions of MacOS quite well and MacOS-X is quite different. I really love my Linux destop setup at work with Gnome, Sawfish and the virtual desktop arrangement. Apparently you can install Gnome and Sawfish on MacOS-X which would give you the choice. I tried but it involves using "fink" and compiling packages. The compiles failed and I gave up.
I have now finally got X working on the PB17. It was basically my fault for not listening to the advice of the experts on the various lists. I needed xfree86 version 4.3.0 or later. I found some prebuilt .debs that Daniel Stone put together and used apt to install it. He has a few mirrors around the world. Do a google search and you will find them. I only got it going yesterday and haven't tested it much but I am a happy chap than I was yesterday. X was my biggest frustration with the PB17 so now that it is up and running I suspect I will be very happy with it.
Airport Extreme support is the only other thing I would want. It is not quite a showstopper for me but may be for others. I'm hoping someone is working on drivers for it and it will be available sooner rather than later.
Regards, Brendan Simon. Thomas Nyman wrote:
HiI noticed your post on the debian list and decided to take a chance and send you this email.I am basically an i386 guy however recently I have become very interested in Apples Powerbook G4 17" (1,33 GHz PowerPC G4)model nr M9110*/A.It looks very nice and seems to have some neat capabilities such as the backlit keyboard and dvd-burning capabilities.Anyway, I was wondering if you could give some feedback on the machine, speed , battery-life and just general comments on how it works and what you think of OS-X ( i would be getting Panther). But even more interesting is find out how your attempts at installing debian have progressed. Have you been able to get debian working as a dual-boot on the machine? Are there some things that do not work in debian? I seem to have read that the airport extreme wlan card might not work in debian..have You been able to get it to work?Once again, this is a shot in the dark, and if You dont have the time or the inclination then just disregard this email. I am however very interested in all information on how well the 17" works with debian etc.Best regards Thomas Nyman