OK. Trying to put together a 'puter for Grannie. Something cheap (means on hand) but up to date. I think Ubuntu Linux will be the solution. The second beige G3/233mHz/192mB desktop was choking on OSX, so I formatted and did a clean install of OS9.2.2 from the eMac disk Mike got me. It runs, but that is a slooooow machine in Classic, and is almost completely unsupported with up-to-date browsers and mail clients.
BTW, Mike - Apple has a tech sheet that says the grey screen with the refusal to go to Open Firmware is the result of upgrading the beige G3 to a hard drive larger than 8gB and then downgrading again. Takes some fiddling with the PRAM to restore it.
Downloaded the Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) .iso file and burned it to a CD. Found out that the beige Macs are "Old World" and will not live-boot Linux without a resident Linux kernal. Downloaded BootX and have to burn a disk to transport it from the G5 to the G3, since the G5 has no floppy and the G3 still is not networked.
From all indications, I will have to reformat the G3 hard drive and partition it, then reinstall a minimal OS9, add the BootX, and create a Linux Kernals file in the System folder. At that point, from what I have been reading, the Ubuntu CD should live-boot. That's what I get for being cheap. "New World" Macs live-boot the Ubuntu CD straight out of OSX. So do the Intel/AMD based machines (and if I could scrounge an old Winders laptop from somebody's roadside trash, I could have a modern go-go-'puter!).
The Ubuntu CD comes packed with the whole system and applications -- Open Office, Thunderbird, and Firefox included -- and a desktop that looks and handles like XP. All I will need will be a PCI modem card and a video card with S-Video out (Grannie will need to use dial-up or DSL, and her TV is bigger than my 20" screen and has an S-Video port -- might be easier for her to see). I saw a Radeon 7000 card on eBay for a buy it now price under $40.
Once that is running, I'll have to put something together for Mix. Jesse still has that 6400 and he isn't using it; it should easily run the same Ubuntu release.
After a Decade
6 years ago
I knew about the problem with the hard drive. Why do you think I never really had any problems with that computer?
ReplyDeleteI know you did. That's why it was sitting unused.
ReplyDeleteBurned the BootX CD, and copied the Linux Kernals folder to the 9.2 System Folder. Put the BootX extension in the extensions folder and the BootX app in the Control Panels. Copied /powerpc/vmlinux and powerpc/initrd.gz to the Linux Kernals folder and renamed initrd.gz to ramdisk.image.gz.
Ran BootX, set the options, and booted into Linux. Boot dumps me into a shell before it finishes. Everything gets loaded into the ramdisk, and I have to figure out how to make it load onto the second hard drive partition.
It has been a long time since I worked at a command line interface...
Sounds like quite a bit of work just to get somebody a workable email solution... If it twere me, I'd just leave OS X on it, get her a Yahoo email account, and log her in with the browser open permanently. But that's just boring me. I take no pleasure in jerry rigging puters to do simple tasks, I'm much too busy for it and don't have the patience. I prefer to surf slowly on my 2001 (translation-slow) iBook when necessary, and (GASP!) actually prefer my speedy little IBM laptop from work most of the time...
ReplyDeleteWhen (1) you are broke and (2) you have several machines available for the job and (3) an updated X will not load on an "Old World" G3 (at least not this one, since it repetitively crashes after X is installed with the cheater installer), then you look for a solution that fits the situation. Aside from which, Linux is as similar to UNIX as MW OS-9 on the Color Computer was, so I thought it was going to be fun.
ReplyDeleteas i stated, what is fun for others when it comes to puter tinkering is not usu fun for me. can you put OS9 on it and get it going with an older browser?
ReplyDeleteUnder OS 9 the choice of browsers is pretty much limited to IE 5 or Netscrape 3. The Mozilla browsers have left OS 9 behind.
ReplyDeleteWith Linux, I would be able to stay current with the apps.
Actually, there is a possible solution with OS 9. Netscape created version 7 while OS 9 was still a widespread application and as a result Netscape 7 is supported in OS 9. Not ideal as it has a lot of AOL bloat in it (AOL had taken over netscape at this point. Thus the jump from 4.7, the best version of netscape ever to 7.0 an annoying yet usable version.) If it were me looking to do this I might just put OS 9 with Netscape 7 on the machine for her. But, hey, what do I know? ;-)
ReplyDelete