I was given this old Mac, I believe it’s from about 1997-1999, and it has two drives installed. One I managed to get Leopard 10.5.9 installed but thats the highest version that will work on this old thing. The other drive has Leopard 10.5.8. I was wondering if there is a Linux distro that would support it. I was thinking of leaving the 10.5.9 on the one drive and installing Linux on the second. Does anyone have any experience with these old Macs? Thanks
Hey KatM.
I started my Linux journey almost 2 years ago using just such machines. That said…it was the hard way. Those machines require a ton more chill than the newer ones. So arm yourself with this info and once you get it booted and point it to your USB with your distro you MIGHT be able to get it to run. Keep in mind that the older distros may not be supported any longer so you likely won’t be able to get updates, etc. But it is a great education in Linux!
to boot a G4…Hold down Apple+Alt+O+F while booting. Then enter boot usb1/disk1:,\yaboot
That is assuming your USB stick is in USB1. Could be usb2 or 3 or even 0 (zero). Poke around. Have fun! I actually still have a 12" PowerBook running Mate…but a very old version.
Thanks. I just installed Debian 32 bit on a very old gateway laptop, not as old as the mac, but they don’t even sell the battery for this thing anymore. Everything works except the sound, which i don’t know if it worked before the install, but everything else seems to work ok, but very slow!
I really just kept the G4 cause its cool looking 
and my friend gabe me the original keyboard, mouse, and cool little speakers.
