Reliable Distros

[messels]

Hi, i've been trying to get fedora up and going for the last couple of days.

i wiped my ibook g4 a week ago and put ubuntu on there. too many issues w/ hardware detection...which led me here.

off the ppc-mirrors i've downloded F6. working off a g5 imac, i've been unable to get disc1 to mount before burning. is this an issue?

first time i stuck disc 1 in (after burning, not noticing that it didn't mount before burning like every other disc--so, disc 2, 3, etc all mounted before burning), it booted off the disc, i could see it detecting hardware. then it just sat there. no prompt for a new disc; heck, eject button didn't even work. had to restart in ubuntu so i could get the disc out...

any suggestions?

[stevea]

I don't track the PPC topics, but I'll suggest you download the F7 disks and then run the sha1sum utility before burning these to CD/DVD. If tha tdoesn't pass then don't burn em.

[Gnafu the Great]

Also, if you have a DVD drive (which I'm guessing you don't, as it sounds like you're burning the CD ISOs), you could give the Fedora 8 Test 3 live CD for PPC a try. It's bigger than a CD, so it needs a DVD-R/RW. Also, look into network boot, which would allow you to pull files from the DVD ISO mounted on your G5 over a local network using a minimal boot CD. This would allow you to try F7 or even F8T3, even if you don't have a DVD drive.

[messels]

Also, if you have a DVD drive (which I'm guessing you don't, as it sounds like you're burning the CD ISOs), you could give the Fedora 8 Test 3 live CD for PPC a try. It's bigger than a CD, so it needs a DVD-R/RW. Also, look into network boot, which would allow you to pull files from the DVD ISO mounted on your G5 over a local network using a minimal boot CD. This would allow you to try F7 or even F8T3, even if you don't have a DVD drive.

am i crazy?

http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/7/ppc/

each of the US mirrors only lists F-6... ??

that's why i was asking for some recommendations.

[FriedChips]

ummmm maybe....
http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/fedora.redhat/linux/releases/

[messels]

i see...everything is in releases and not core...<for someone not use to doing this whole OS swap-out, that's REALLY weird...yeah...i'm a noob...don't hate.>

[messels]

ummmm maybe....
http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/fedora.redhat/linux/releases/

thanks, ganfu and stevea. :)

[messels]

Also, if you have a DVD drive (which I'm guessing you don't, as it sounds like you're burning the CD ISOs), you could give the Fedora 8 Test 3 live CD for PPC a try. It's bigger than a CD, so it needs a DVD-R/RW. Also, look into network boot, which would allow you to pull files from the DVD ISO mounted on your G5 over a local network using a minimal boot CD. This would allow you to try F7 or even F8T3, even if you don't have a DVD drive.

and the real problem is i don't have a dvd burner... <blush> :|

[Gnafu the Great]

and the real problem is i don't have a dvd burner... <blush> :|

I would recommend you search around for network installation. You don't need any DVD drives for it :). Shouldn't be too hard to find the info; I think I've even posted a quick rundown once or twice before :p.

[P. Enguin]

If you are looking for reliable PPC architecture supporting Linux distros let me suggest Xubuntu Dapper Drake (6.06.1) LTS, it is one of the few that seems to work fine on my Power Mac G4. Kubuntu worked great except it didn't want to let me acess root, so I couldn't change any system preferences, which stunk. Ubuntu and Mandriva wouldn't boot, but it could have been an error in making the ISO CD or something like that. Fedora 6 has been working beautifully, but now GNOME is crashing on me. I will play around with it until I get it to work, because I really like Fedora and it had the easiest install of all the distros I've tried so far. It is sure unfortunate that all of the latest linux distros seem to come out on Intel or AMD processor compatible formats before they are released on PPC : (