Very old purple imac......with mac OS9 (yes I know.....)

**Jackalyn** · June 25th, 2012

Yes I know....the apple store laughed when I told them. I have this purple imac sitting on my desk - cannot bear to part with it as we are old friends.

I do know I could install OSx and upgrade it, but was wondering seeing as I have linux.....Can I install it?

I keep seeing things that say 'alongside OSX' It would not really matter if I lost everything as I cannot really use it for much anyway. I just might work with a dongle and some kind of adapter for the internet?

Just really be nice to have the thing actually useable and don't have the money for OSX and upgrades at the moment.

Thanks J

**Jackalyn** · June 26th, 2012

I think I posted about this yesterday but if any very old -as in imac users out there have ever used ubuntu on it would love to hear how they did it. I read somewhere I don't use the same disk so I have not tried this. Or am I insane trying to do anything with a front slot loading machine (imac)?

(Probably not insane, but it is a bit like having a magic toy that put my laptop back into use so why not see what else it can do!)

**sudodus** · June 26th, 2012

It depends what computer you have, particularly if it is

1. a power pc or
2. an intel or amd (ibm compatible) pc.

If you let us know the model of your Mac, we can suggest what iso file you should download to boot Ubuntu.

**nothingspecial** · June 26th, 2012

Hi, welcome to the forums

If you do not get any replies within 24 hours or so, rather than creating a new thread, please bump your original one back to the top.

You can do this by replying to your own thread, either with any further information you have or by simply saying "bump".

I have merged them for now.

Thanks.

**rsavage** · June 26th, 2012

You should be able to install Lubuntu. Follow the links here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCDownloads and use the alternate CD (I'm guessing you won't have enough ram for the live CD).

The early G3 iMacs (and indeed the G4 imacs) are notorious for graphics problems so expect to be dumped at a terminal prompt when you reboot. You'll probably have to setup an xorg.conf to fix this - have a look at the PowerPC FAQ about this. If you are prepared to invest a little time sorting that out then there should be no barriers to installing linux on your machine (although I don't own one).

**skullmunky** · June 27th, 2012

I have an older mac, a beige G3 tower, running Ubuntu. Works great. But I don't remember exactly how I did it

your iMac should be a little easier - mine is an 'old world' mac which meant some weird finagling with the boot sequence.

**Jackalyn** · June 27th, 2012

Thank you so much. I am going to have a go when a more savvy computer friend is around to help. Mine is also an 'Old World Mac. I asked the mac shop who got all funny about my owning an antiique! But whatever I have it will work with OSX if I install that. - Maybe then it is worth a try!

But they were great in their time weren't they.