http://blogs.gnome.org/view/alexl/2005/12/07/0

Contrary to other spotty search-tools out there, this one even finds stuff !

Oh, and a little reading:

http://lowendmac.com/crews/05/1207.html

I've got an old Mac 7200 that it would be interesting to try that on. I'll be upfront about this. I'm not likely to do so. But for sake of argument, what type of hard drive space does one need? Memory? Which version of Linux?

Linux on a 33Mhz CPU with a 512k HD and 2mb RAM will run faster than a 3.4Ghz P4 Wintel box all decked out.

quote:

Originally posted by BN:
I've got an old Mac 7200 that it would be interesting to try that on. I'll be upfront about this. I'm not likely to do so. But for sake of argument, what type of hard drive space does one need? Memory? Which version of Linux?

I have Ubuntu Linux running on a G3-upgraded Supermac with 144 MB of RAM and a 5 Gig SCSI HD + an ATI Rage128 GPU.

I wouldn't exactly call it fast, maybe comparable to OS X on a G4 400 :-) It's definitely usable (i use it for surfing the web, E-Mail and a little bit of programming here and there).

Anything better in terms of processor, RAM and HD will be better in terms of performance.

look here:

http://www.ubuntulinux.org

For an OldWorld-mac some tweaking during installation is required. NewWorld-machines just work.

Look here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Installation/OldWorldMacs

Another "just works" distribution is Yellowdog Linux, which requires a little less fiddling on OldWorld Macs. I had YDL 3.0 running before i switched to ubuntu.

http://www.yellowdoglinux.com

Cheers and good luck.

Right, brother K., I just ordered the free Ubuntu installation CD. I hope it will arrive soon.

Ubuntu looks pretty nice to me: crisp fonts and no Aqua-style bullshit in the GUI. I think I'll try it on my G4 700Mhz eMac.

In K. we trust.

For an OldWorld-mac some tweaking during installation is required. NewWorld-machines just work.

Thanks for the info, klapauzius. I had Lycoris running on my PC at one time. But I ran into trouble when I tried to add programs that I had downloaded from the web. My level of “geek comfort zone” doesn’t extend down to the command line or other low-level tweaks so I’m probably going to pass on doing anything tricky with my old Mac. But I’ve got an old PC sitting around that is connected to DSL (so that should make downloading some free version of Linux easy). Maybe that will be a future rainy-day project.