Re: PowerBook G4 12"
On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:07:16 -0800, "Logan Airth" <logan.airth@gmail.com>
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.
It may depend on exactly what powerbook do you have, but my 1.5Ghz 12" PB
works flawlessly with debian only. The only quirks are related to the
nVidia video card : it works out of the box, but the performances are not
that great. Using the 'nouveau' driver from experimental solved that. But
the suspend-to-ram ("sleep" feature) is still not available, and I think
this is the only big hassle when using this machine.
I must mention that the install went smoothly, and that installing testing
on this machine works very well.
> 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.
You're absolutely not obliged to dual-boot it. The only thing to be taken
care of when partitioning is the requirement for a partition map at the
begining of the disk, and a small HFS partition for yaboot. I think that's
explained in the installation manual. Basically, follow the steps for a
"newworld" macintosh (that's how are called the "newer" powerbooks, like
yours).
> 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?
I would advise testing (aka lenny), as stable (aka etch) is quite old, and
lenny is (hopefully) soon to be released as stable.
> And finally would there be any recommendations for alternatives to
Debian?
I heard that Yellow Dog linux used to be the distribution of choice for
ppc, but I never used it.
After choosing debian, I personnaly don't need any other alternatives ...
Regards,
benjamin
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