Installing Xubuntu on a G3 iMac
I work in a school where we have lots of old iMacs that are barely usable under OS 9.2. The newest browser we can get for OS 9 is Netscape 7.0, which crashes a lot (repeatably on Gmail, for example).
Xubuntu is a derivative of Ubuntu Linux designed for low-end machines. It uses the XFCE desktop. I’ve just finished installing Xubuntu on a 400 Mhz iMac. It went reasonably smoothly, and now that I know the few tricks listed below, doing it again should be quite easy.
The steps:
1. Put the Breezy Badger for PowerPC install disk in the CD drive.
2. Reboot.
3. At the first prompt, type “server” and hit return. This will install everything in normal Ubuntu install except the GNOME desktop.
4. Install the Xubuntu desktop and the GNU display manager using apt-get:
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop gdm
5. To get the graphical interface working, I had to tweak /etc/X11/xorg.conf a little. The first change was to alter the HorizSync and VertRefresh settings. I also switched from the fbdev driver to the ati driver. The snippet below shows the original settings commented out and the new settings added. (Link to full xorg.conf.)
Identifier “Generic Video Card”
# Driver “fbdev”
Driver “ati”
Option “UseFBDev” “true”
EndSectionSection “Monitor”
Identifier “Generic Monitor”
Option “DPMS”
# HorizSync 28-51
# VertRefresh 43-60
HorizSync 60-60
VertRefresh 43-117
EndSection
6. The last tweak was to add a printer to CUPS manually. To enable the web administration for CUPS, I added a root password:
sudo -s
passwd
In /etc/cups/cupsd.conf, I changed RunAsUser to No, so that CUPS would run as root, and not switch to run as the user cupsys, as I believe this is what disables the web interface:
RunAsUser No
Then restart CUPS:
/etc/init.d/cupsys restart
Here is what ended up in /etc/cups/printers.conf: (Yes, I live in a farmhouse, and I work on Sunday nights)
# Printer configuration file for CUPS v1.1.23
# Written by cupsd on Sun 08 Jan 2006 07:34:40 PM ESTInfo Farmhouse
DeviceURI socket://192.168.1.131
State Idle
Accepting Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
Overall, Xubuntu is working really well– much better than OS 9.2. It’s only got 64 MB of RAM, but Firefox runs surprisingly well. I plan on maxing out the memory when I get the chance.
The Xubuntu people have been planning on releasing a CD version of Xubuntu coincident with the release of the Dapper Drake in April. I found the XFCE file manager, xffm, to be a little squirrely, and I couldn’t get it to connect to our file server through Samba; maybe that will work in the next release, or maybe I will have figured out how to configure Samba. The Dapper release of Xubuntu will likely be based on XFCE 4.4, which will allegedly include the first release of Thunar, XFCE’s new file manager.
Hmm. If Thunar is good, I might switch to Xubuntu entirely. So far, XFCE seems like a fast version of GNOME to me, and I spend most of my time in Firefox and a terminal window anyway.
January 22nd, 2006 at 8:12 am
would this make an 800 Mhz G3 run better too, or os OS X better suited for a machine that fast?
January 22nd, 2006 at 9:05 am
I expect that Tiger would run reasonably well on an 800 MHz machine if you max out the memory, but I would expect Xubuntu to still be slightly faster, though slightly less smooth and pretty as well.
To me, the real problem is browser compatibility. For example, on 10.2, you can’t run Safari newer than 1.2 or 1.3. Pre-2.0 Safari was a relatively weak browser; now it’s good competition for Firefox (though Safari can’t render SVG’s natively yet, etc.). On the other hand, the OS X build of Firefox 1.5 has an unpleasant bug involving holding the mouse down and high CPU usage. The point is that both Xubuntu and 10.4 get you a modern browser, which makes a much bigger difference than the slight speed advantage you might gain with Xubuntu.
This leaves out all the non-technical reasons you might prefer Xubuntu. Schools get 10.4 for $59 per computer. Xubuntu is $0 per computer, and it’s still being actively developed, so there is a good chance that problems I have will be fixed without having to pay for an upgrade. It’s true that Apple is still releasing updates to 10.4 (10.4.4 just came out last week), but the updates are security fixes and “features” in iTunes like the irritating Apple Store window at the bottom of the screen.
April 6th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
damn, I’m so close I can taste a GUI desktop and even booted gnome up for a single session. I look forward to trying the server install tomorrow morning…. to late tonight.
April 10th, 2006 at 8:04 am
everything worked great after the server install. The only thing I had to do differently was edit my source.list to add the net repositories. Thanks for the great post; it has breathed new life into an old Mac and has got me thinking that a little more RAM and this G3 will be a nice little computer for my daughter.
Thanks again!
May 14th, 2006 at 11:50 am
I installed OSX 10.3.9 on a 266MHz iMac with 256MB of RAM and it works excellent as a web machine. You’re right that OS9 has no modern browser and iCab is pretty unfinished last time I checked. Xubuntu on it is great, but why not just run Ubuntu? Seems like it would be a lot easier, 400MHz is plenty and it would make networking it less difficult. RAM for those machines is cheap at MacSolutions. But whatever you are doing at the command line sounds impressive. I thought I was the last person to bother using those old iMacs. Nice post. Just thought I’d add my experience. OSX runs surprisingly well on them, but the biggest hurdle is the hard drive capacity more than anything else. If you don’t install all of the languages or X11 there’s plenty of room.
October 11th, 2006 at 7:41 am
I have just finish installing xubuntu for powerpc in an imac. Every thing seams to be running fine with the graphic interface, but I have not been able to configure a printer. I have an Epsom C62. Can you give me some advise?
Walter
Guatemala
October 18th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Sorry, Walter Arreaza of Guatemala– I don’t know a damn thing about printers, other than the little bit about CUPS above. Maybe google xubuntu CUPS?
December 13th, 2006 at 8:13 am
I’m looking for Alex Melamed, is this Alex u have in your blog israelian and lives in canada?
Please answer at my mail address
January 7th, 2007 at 9:09 am
I’ve had an old iMac G-3 400mhz up and running Xubuntu for about 6 months without rebooting as a TOR server. Nice distro and I had no trouble installing.
February 6th, 2007 at 3:20 am
Thanks for your posting this. It has been of much help.
Installed xubuntu 6.10 Alternate on G3 iMac 266 MHz 1999-01 Lime, 266 MHz 160MB RAM Tray loading CD-ROM, Rage Pro Turbo graphics controller.
Install took a really long time. I kept thinking it was hung. At least it’s up and running and much more pleasurable than Mac OS 8.5. Thinking about using it in the kitchen for xmms listening, casual web access to look for recipes, news, check email, and maybe LAN messaging. Nothing demanding, really. Though, I might like to see how Fluxubuntu performs when released for PPC.
Having issues with the following:
Screen space not fully utilized. An unequal black border 1/4-1/2″ wide at max runs around offset 1024×768 displayed area. Only two other lower (useless) resolution setting show in config applet. Used your xorg.conf for ati driver, sync values and modes. Set to 16bit default. Disabled loading “dri” as recommended in Ubuntu forum though, I don’t know why.
Unable to access shares on Windoze and Linux boxes on my LAN. Installed LinNeighborhood and pyNeighborhood with no luck.
Need to know which Opera 9 package to install, if you have any idea. I much prefer Opera to Firefox. I tried deb sarge from Opera site with no luck. Maybe you have a better sources.list than I?
——————-
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Bill Gates: The most effective thing would be if I could sit down with them and just take them through the new look for a couple of minutes, show them the Sidebar, show them the way the search lets you go through lots of things, including lots of photos. Set up a parental control. And then I might edit a high-definition movie and make a little DVD that’s got photos. As I went through, they’d think, “Wow, is that something I could use, would that make a difference for me?”
Dream on, Bill.
June 1st, 2007 at 11:22 pm
I think that with an iMac 400 you can install without problems also KDE or GNOME. I use KDE on an iMac 333 and it runs very well!
Ubuntu is fantastic!!!
–
Gio
*****************************
The computer are like air coolers: they stop working well if you open Windows!
June 19th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Has anyone installed using Dapper Drake? I just wanted to know if there was anything new to expect during install. Also I tried to download Dapper Drake from the official web site and it ended up being a live cd which doesn’t load into the desktop successfully so I’m afraid if I do find a real install cd it won’t work on my imac 600 slot loader.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I have installed Xubuntu on an iMac g3 with 266 and I love it. I have one question for you . I have not been able to intall Adobe Flash on it. I can find a verion for the x86 but not the PPC. Did you run in to this? Do you know of a fix? Curious to hear your answer.
March 8th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
@D. Goodwin: My understanding is that Adobe doesn’t release Flash binaries for PPC or source for any platform. You might see how good Gnash is (my understanding is that’s it still pretty rough), or just fill the rest of your days cursing proprietary platforms like Flash.
Good luck.
March 28th, 2008 at 7:54 am
I’ve installed Dapper on an 400mhz imac g3 slot loader. I had troubles with the live cd from the official site, so I downloaded the alternate install cd. This worked flawlessly the first time. The imac booted to the cd. When the prompt came up I hit “enter”. The alternate install then went through the rest on its own. The only interaction required was for picking time zones and language. I had no problems with the display and its running very smoothly.
September 12th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
re. Flash on PPC - I think the most recent available version is either 6 or 7… I was able to locate this wihtout too much difficulty - but didn’t keep notes as I needed 8 or later - this is not available..
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:00 am
nice.. i’m currently installing xubuntu 8.10 on a powermac g3-350 with 448 megs of ram. i’m curious.