Replace yellow dog

**Windsurferdude** · June 14th, 2009

I just bought an IBook G4 1.2 MHz with a little over 500 mb of ram from ebay. It has yellow dog 6.1 installed. I tried to replace yellow dog with new version of Xunbutu but can't figure out how to do it. I have been able to run the live cd, but the system will not let me install it. I have done a few searches and it looks as if yellow dog is very difficult to replace. Thank you very much in advance. Scott

**MikeTheC** · June 14th, 2009

I'm not really familiar with getting Ubuntu (current versions) for PPC. I know they're out there, but where... couldn't say.

I *do* know that you can easily get Debian Lenny for PPC, no sweat. I'm not honestly sure what benefit Ubuntu is, per se, on older PPC-based Macs at this point anyhow. Besides, supporting stuff like sound and especially video (other than just plain-jane 2D) is a PIA on PPC.

FWIW, I run a G4 Mac mini with Lenny as a file and web server. It works fantastically in that role.

**Simian Man** · June 14th, 2009

Yeah I don't believe Ubuntu officially supports PowerPC, I'd choose a distro that does. If you want stability, the Debian suggestion is very good. If you want a newer desktop experience, Fedora also has great PPC support.

**jnat64** · June 14th, 2009

If you want to also test the other side of the fence, NetBSD has no trouble with those platforms, and builds faster than the Linux variants. On modern systems it is more troublesome, but every old machine I've put Net 1.x or 2.x on just screams.