Give your old PowerPC Mac a new lease of life with Ubuntu Linux

By David M Williams
Wednesday, 29 October 2008 09:30

Opinion and Analysis

Windows Vista gets a bad rap for its hefty hardware requirements, but it's not alone. Apple's MacOS X platform has left a lot of Macs with PowerPC G3, G4 and G5 chips out in the cold. However, Linux isn't just for the Intel set; here’s how Ubuntu to can bring new life to your old Mac too.

It’s pretty well known that Linux is a lean operating system which can perform reliably on aging hardware. This has been used to good effect by hardware hoarders as well as those recycling written-off business equipment for personal or charitable purposes.

This month’s theme has been “I didn’t know you could do that in Linux” and today’s tip is that Linux distributions exist for a variety of processor architectures, not just those made by Intel (and AMD) as used most famously in Windows PCs.

In particular, Ubuntu – widely regarded the friendliest Linux distro – offers a PowerPC release.
Now, Ubuntu 8.10 – Intrepid Ibex – will be coming out imminently, and that includes for PowerPC as well as Intel. You can download 8.04 – Hardy Heron – right now, as well as any previous version.

These PowerPC releases are found under Ubuntu’s “ports” download area. First select the version number, then the architecture which in this case is “Mac (PowerPC)” and “IBM-PPC.”

Ubuntu is Ubuntu; the fact you’re running on a PowerPC won’t make any difference for the most part so any help you get or information you read about working on Ubuntu Linux will apply equally to you.

This said, Ubuntu stopped officially supporting the PowerPC port after version 6.10 – Edgy Eft. It has been “community” supported since then. If this is a concern to you, my recommendation is to download version 6.04 – Dapper Drake – which is an LTS release of Ubuntu. The “LTS” stands for “Long Term Support” and Ubuntu guarantee support of it until sometime next year.

If you’d like to give your aging Mac new life through Ubuntu first check out the PowerPC FAQ on Ubuntu’s wiki but after that you’ll be falling in love with your iBook and iMac all over again.