Linux Format forums

Re: Wondering what to do with an old Mac mini

Marrea — Wed Mar 06, 2013 9:40 pm

Author: Marrea

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 9:40 pm

Just thought I�d report back to say I installed Debian Squeeze on the Mac mini three days ago without any problems, either with booting from the DVD drive or yaboot. It was all pretty much automatic. The CD booted first time and the initial yaboot screen tells you to simply type �install� to start the process. As regards partitioning, I opted for �Guided - Use entire disk� and accepted the suggested layout, which suited my needs.

It has all been running quite nicely so far, with one exception. It seems that Squeeze on a powerpc is no more able to run Flashplayer than Mac OS X Panther 10.3. So no viewing of BBC News videos or YouTube on the mini unfortunately. For YouTube I was advised on the Debian User Forums to try Minitube, which I have installed, but it is not very satisfactory as the videos are jerky and the sound not much better. I think I shall just need to accept that there is limited support for powerpc now. But at least I am putting the machine to some use, which is better than having it stored away in a cupboard doing nothing.

Re: Wondering what to do with an old Mac mini

Rhakios — Fri Mar 01, 2013 9:16 pm

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 9:16 pm

Marrea wrote:

lok1950 wrote:

RE that copper clip it could be Apple's way of detecting whether their warranty is voided.

Indeed. And a typical example of Apple's over-engineering, most manufacturers made do with a sticky label.

Re: Wondering what to do with an old Mac mini

Marrea — Fri Mar 01, 2013 6:26 pm

Author: Marrea

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 6:26 pm

lok1950 wrote:

RE that copper clip it could be Apple's way of detecting whether their warranty is voided.

Re: Wondering what to do with an old Mac mini

lok1950 — Fri Mar 01, 2013 5:35 pm

Author: lok1950

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 5:35 pm

RE that copper clip it could be Apple's way of detecting whether their warranty is voided.

Enjoy the Choice

Re: Wondering what to do with an old Mac mini

Marrea — Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:28 am

Author: Marrea

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:28 am

Right, the machine is now sorted. Yesterday we re-opened the case, replaced the PRAM battery and successfully shut the case again. The copper metal clip hopefully is in the right place!

Following scooter�s suggestion, I have decided to try the Debian netinst CD first and see how I get on with that, and will download a copy later today.

As I have no experience whatsoever of installing Linux on a PowerPC I have started reading through the Debian installation documentation (which I never bothered to look at previously when installing Debian on a Windows PC!).

The first thing that is new to me is yaboot, which I have not come across before. If I understand correctly, this is the bootloader used to boot Linux on PowerPCs, rather than Grub. What I am not sure about is whether I will need to take any special action re yaboot or whether it is dealt with automatically during installation. My intention is to get rid of OS X Panther altogether and only run Linux on the Mac mini, so I won�t be dual-booting.

Also there is a section in the Debian Installation Guide which talks about invoking OpenFirmware by using Command+Option+o+f while booting. I think this is referring to a manual boot if your CD drive won�t boot automatically, so hopefully I won�t have to get involved in that.

What to do ??

scooter — Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:27 pm

Author: scooter

Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:27 pm

Hi Marrea,

You could start with this link

http://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/

Cheers

Re: Wondering what to do with an old Mac mini

Marrea — Wed Feb 27, 2013 9:32 pm

Author: Marrea

Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 9:32 pm

The memory arrived this morning (those Crucial boys are pretty quick!) and has been installed. However, we then discovered that putting the case back together was rather more difficult than opening it. So much so that it took us numerous tries to get the blooming thing to snap together and unfortunately during this struggle a copper clip fell out, leaving us wondering where it had come from. I managed to find a photo on the net which shows where it should be (see below - I have arrowed the offending item) but puzzlingly there seems to be nothing for it to clip onto. We have tried to put it back where shown but it is more or less hanging in thin air. Can anyone confirm exactly what this clip is for and whether anything dreadful will happen if we haven�t put it back correctly?

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Annoyingly (why I wonder, does one start these things ), having finally firmly snapped the case shut, we are now going to have to open it again because I am pretty sure the PRAM battery needs to be replaced. On every reboot I have had to re-set the date and time which I think is a pretty sure indicator that the battery has had it. After all, it�s been in there for about seven years.

Re: Wondering what to do with an old Mac mini

Marrea — Tue Feb 26, 2013 4:30 pm

Author: Marrea

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 4:30 pm

Thanks for the link, jlturriff.

Much to my utter amazement (and his!) , hubby has now got the case open with no dramas.

I have accordingly just ordered a 1 GB stick from Crucial. Once that arrives and is installed I can then turn my attention to which distro to try first.

(We used the razor blade technique. Inserted that first on one side to make a bit of a gap, slid the putty knife in, released that side, moved to the opposite side, again inserted the razor blade, slid the putty knife in, released that side. All that was then needed was a very small amount of extra tweaking on the first side - and that was it. Job done!)

Re: Wondering what to do with an old Mac mini

jlturriff — Tue Feb 26, 2013 1:36 am

Author: jlturriff

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 1:36 am

DistroWatch.com has a nice search tool that lists a bunch of distros that run on PPC, some I didn't expect.

http://distrowatch.com/search.php

Leslie

Re: MAC

Marrea — Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:59 pm

Author: Marrea

Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:59 pm

scooter wrote:

I have Debian PPC running on a G3 ...

Thanks for that, scooter. I'd be well pleased if I could get Debian running on my Mac mini.

We've been looking for a suitable putty knife but there is not much of a selection locally where we live. We bought one this morning but I'm not at all sure it is going to be flexible enough for opening the case.

MAC

scooter — Sun Feb 24, 2013 11:01 pm

Author: scooter

Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 11:01 pm

Hello,

I have Debian PPC running on a G3 with 650mb ram; you can do a netinstall and load as much, or as little as you like.

All good fun !!!

Re: Wondering what to do with an old Mac mini

Marrea — Fri Feb 22, 2013 10:49 am

Author: Marrea

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2013 10:49 am

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I suppose my preference would be to run something like Xubuntu or Lubuntu, but apparently even they require at least 384 MB RAM for the desktop CD.

I think my first step should be to attempt to upgrade the RAM to 1 GB (the sticks seem to cost between about �15 and �22 depending on where you buy them). I have checked with my other half but he doesn�t have the necessary type of putty knife in his toolbox so we shall have to get one. However, he has kindly offered to try and open the case carefully for me. We�ve looked at various videos on YouTube etc and there seem to be various techniques. Some people simply free one side and then the other, other people start at one side and work round all three sides, others insert a razor blade first to make a bit of a gap to insert the putty knife. We�ll just have to experiment and see how we get on.

Re: Wondering what to do with an old Mac mini

towy71 — Thu Feb 21, 2013 10:39 pm

Author: towy71

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2013 10:39 pm

Doh! didn't notice the G4 bit <slap_forehead_smiley>

Re: Wondering what to do with an old Mac mini

johnhudson — Thu Feb 21, 2013 9:12 pm

Author: johnhudson

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2013 9:12 pm

With 256Mb I would assume you could run a modern LXDE distro on it.

Re: Wondering what to do with an old Mac mini

Rhakios — Thu Feb 21, 2013 6:32 pm

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2013 6:32 pm

Didn't know Puppy was available for PPC. However a quick FWSE shows a distro called PowerPup, so there we go.

Edit: Hmm, last updated 2009.

I suppose there's Debian and Yellow Dog.

Edit: Hmm, again, even Yellow Dog looks like it's no longer actively supported, just some community and enthusiast support.