Lucid on G5 single - is there a reason to install?

**casbahdk** · June 29th, 2010

I am considering purchasing a new, cheap, tower or midi tower PC and install Lucid on it as the only OS, but I have an Apple G5 single sitting around with OS X Leopard on one internal HD and an old install of Debian Lenny on the other HD. I am in two minds as to whether an Ubuntu Lucid PPC64 install will satisfy me, after having converted 100% to Ubuntu for all of my normal tasks. What goes under the plus and minus columns? I know there is no Flash for PPC... Is Chromium available? Shutter? Plug-ins for Thunderbird? Do users find themselves spending way too much time trying to compile PPC versions of software? Anyone that wants to put in their two cents, jump in

**linuxopjemac** · June 29th, 2010

With Midora you can now watch HTML5 video, at least it works in Debian Squeeze. DOn't know about Ubuntu Lucid though.

**casbahdk** · June 30th, 2010

Originally Posted by linuxopjemac

With Midora you can now watch HTML5 video, at least it works in Debian Squeeze. DOn't know about Ubuntu Lucid though.

Good to know, thanks.

**svtguy88** · July 2nd, 2010

I've been using my PPC G4 as my main computer for a few years, and Linux/ubuntu as the main OS on my (non PPC) laptop for a while as well. I just got Debian up and running on my G4. First impressions are that it runs reasonably well.

However, you are limited. As you said, flash support is flaky, at best (nothing from Adobe and the open source options don't seem to pleased with PPC from what I've seen--they install, but videos are ehhh). Hopefully flash will get addressed soon. It's really the only thing that makes my G4 lag behind a bit.

**casbahdk** · July 2nd, 2010

What about the selection of software? How much more limited is the selection of programs and Thunderbird extensions on the PPC platform? Do you find yourself compiling software on a regular basis?