GavoKaotik
August 20th, 2008, 04:03 PM
Hi, after trying a lot, yesterday I finally installed Ubuntu 8.04.1 on my B&W G3. Why "finally"? Well... It gave more than a headache and still I'm not getting some stuff!
I'm a total noob in this Ubuntu-Linux universe... But I wanted to give it a shot, trying to "reuse" my old G3 (and mostly because I can't get the Mac OS X Tiger 4 Install CDs :) ).
This is the hardware that I got, to give you an idea of what I've been dealing with:
Power Macintosh G3 Blue & White (Rev1)
PowerPC G3 @ 350 Mhz
6 GB Hard Disk
CD-ROM Drive (yeah, just CD-ROM... T_T)
640 MB RAM
ATI Rage Pro 16 MB VRAM
15" CRT Monitor (a really oldie, actually with Jaguar it could only hang 1024x768 @ 60 Hz refresh rate)
The first issue I've found booting from the LiveCD was with my monitor. Apparently the standard booting screen was on a over-60 Hz refresh rate, so all I got was a black screen. I lost my patience on that part several times ^^. I tried to boot with the "live video=ofonly" option. Everything was going good, until reaching the part of "Executing local boot scripts (/etc/rc.local)" or something like it. My Mac stucked there for almost 2 hours!
I stood away from my G3 from almost 3 days, obviously unhappy... =P
The last night I gave it another shot. After resetting the PRAM, I booted with the option "live-nosplash-powerpc", left my room to get a snack, and when I came back the LiveCD booted great! Only one thing... The screen resolution was only of 800 x 600 @ 60 Hz.
After installing Ubuntu (which took me about 30 minutes), the LiveCD was ejected and the system booted for the first time. It was funny that after the "Loading Kernel" message, my screen "blacked-out" (i guess it was for the loading splash screen). A few moments later, however, the login window appeared and I logged in. I noticed that the resolution stood at 800 x 600 @ 60 Hz and I can't change it. The rest of the system seems normal... Except for the lots of addons and other apps (Flash and Java, for example) that weren't ported to the PowerPC architecture, the unability to enable the visual effects (even normal, maybe the video card isn't that good...) and the fact that there's no app that can play a MP3 file (a totally minor thing). Also noticed something with the Chess game. When I try to change to 3D View, an error appears saying that ocurred an unknown error with OpenGL and Python. That worries me because I wanted to install Blender on it and Blender uses Python.
Anyway, after that long story:
Why I can't switch to a resolution of 1024x768?
Is my video card compatible with the visual effects and 3D apps like Blender?
How can I play MP3s?
Thanks for reading this. Actually is my first post (YAY! =P). Sorry if there seems to be something wrong with my English. I'm from Paraguay ^^.
I'm a total noob in this Ubuntu-Linux universe... But I wanted to give it a shot, trying to "reuse" my old G3 (and mostly because I can't get the Mac OS X Tiger 4 Install CDs :) ).
This is the hardware that I got, to give you an idea of what I've been dealing with:
Power Macintosh G3 Blue & White (Rev1)
PowerPC G3 @ 350 Mhz
6 GB Hard Disk
CD-ROM Drive (yeah, just CD-ROM... T_T)
640 MB RAM
ATI Rage Pro 16 MB VRAM
15" CRT Monitor (a really oldie, actually with Jaguar it could only hang 1024x768 @ 60 Hz refresh rate)
The first issue I've found booting from the LiveCD was with my monitor. Apparently the standard booting screen was on a over-60 Hz refresh rate, so all I got was a black screen. I lost my patience on that part several times ^^. I tried to boot with the "live video=ofonly" option. Everything was going good, until reaching the part of "Executing local boot scripts (/etc/rc.local)" or something like it. My Mac stucked there for almost 2 hours!
I stood away from my G3 from almost 3 days, obviously unhappy... =P
The last night I gave it another shot. After resetting the PRAM, I booted with the option "live-nosplash-powerpc", left my room to get a snack, and when I came back the LiveCD booted great! Only one thing... The screen resolution was only of 800 x 600 @ 60 Hz.
After installing Ubuntu (which took me about 30 minutes), the LiveCD was ejected and the system booted for the first time. It was funny that after the "Loading Kernel" message, my screen "blacked-out" (i guess it was for the loading splash screen). A few moments later, however, the login window appeared and I logged in. I noticed that the resolution stood at 800 x 600 @ 60 Hz and I can't change it. The rest of the system seems normal... Except for the lots of addons and other apps (Flash and Java, for example) that weren't ported to the PowerPC architecture, the unability to enable the visual effects (even normal, maybe the video card isn't that good...) and the fact that there's no app that can play a MP3 file (a totally minor thing). Also noticed something with the Chess game. When I try to change to 3D View, an error appears saying that ocurred an unknown error with OpenGL and Python. That worries me because I wanted to install Blender on it and Blender uses Python.
Anyway, after that long story:
Why I can't switch to a resolution of 1024x768?
Is my video card compatible with the visual effects and 3D apps like Blender?
How can I play MP3s?
Thanks for reading this. Actually is my first post (YAY! =P). Sorry if there seems to be something wrong with my English. I'm from Paraguay ^^.