Several questions (Airport card-not Extreme, iMac G4, Ubuntu to Fedora?)

renichms · #1 21st September 2008, 11:19 PM

I have recently put Yellow Dog Linux on my PS3 and Ubuntu on my G4 iMac.

With the iMac, I have experienced a few problems so I have questions about Fedora. First, the problems: in Ubuntu, I cannot use any closed WPA/WPA2 wireless network and last night it ceased to connect wirelessly at all. I have run all over Ubuntu forums for help and no one cares to even read the problem much less help so for this issue, I have just a few questions. Does Fedora (most current version) support a normal (NOT Extreme) Airport card out of the box? If so, will I be able to connect to a closed, WPA/WPA2 Airport wireless network?

If the answer to those questions is yes and all I would have to do is put in my wireless network settings and be connected, that leads to the next question. Would I be able to just wipe the Ubuntu partition on the iMac and install Fedora in its place? It has well over 15GB allotted to it so I would think that would be plenty. The Mac OS on the iMac has no problems getting full strength signal from the Airport, BTW.

Basically, an OS that cannot connect to the network is completely useless to me. I'm looking for a Linux distribution that already supports my quite old hardware so I can learn a bit more about it. Ubuntu has a number of errors just in starting up and cannot connect to networks so here I am, considering replacing it with Fedora.

Additional info, if it helps: 800MHz G4 17" iMac, 512MB SDRAM, Mac OS 10.3.9, Ubuntu 8.04.1, both on the 80GB internal HDD. Regular Airport card that can connect to Belkin 802.11g with MIMO router (problematic at times) or Airport Extreme.

If Fedora will fully support my hardware and can be slapped onto the existing Ubuntu partition, do you think it is worth the effort to replace Ubuntu? I've been networking for a very long time now and have some basic certifications and crap for it but I do get tired of constant network failures and scrambling to reset the configuration every few minutes. Thanks for any advice.

RN

marko · #2 22nd September 2008, 12:17 AM

You don't have to take a risk, just get a Live iso file of Fedora, burn that to CD and try it out on your hardware.

renichms · #3 22nd September 2008, 12:21 AM

Will the Live CD allow me to adjust network settings so I can see if Fedora will work better with my setup? So far, I've had no luck connecting to networks from Live CDs (though those have been Ubuntu 6, 7 and 8). I headed straight for Fedora because I read somewhere (forgot where) that Fedora was more wireless friendly and had a more predictable update schedule.

RN

EDIT: Also, is the PPC DVD and/or CD a Live CD? What I've found just says it's install (but got it downloading an hour or two ago anyways).

marko · #4 22nd September 2008, 02:27 AM

I just went looking around on http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora and see there's
no Live version for PPC that I can see.

I just assumed PPC had live CD/DVD but I only see Live Fedora's for i386 and x86_64
so that could be a problem. You'll probably have to bite the bullet and install it.
There's also Yellow Dog Linux, since it's specifically for PPC it might be a good bet.

renichms · #5 22nd September 2008, 02:47 AM

Thanks for the tips. I'm hoping someone here has a regular Airport card and has it working. Ubuntu claims to support it but it doesn't work and I can't find anything about it aside from an offhand statement about it being fully supported in documentation.

Yellow Dog works well on the PS3 but I still can't get switched from OpenOffice 2.0 to 2.4.1. Since installing things works differently, I've tried following every bit of YDL and OpenOffice advice I could find and still no go. Hopefully, someone will come along and just simplify it all so more people can adopt Linux. It's not a good sign when techies can't get it to work.

If I can get confirmation that the Airport cards work with Fedora (downloaded 9), I'll gladly switch.

RN

renichms · #6 22nd September 2008, 11:43 PM

Airport card works now in Ubuntu but Ubuntu does not support WPA/WPA2. Does Fedora support WPA/WPA2 out of the box?

RN

defraz · #7 23rd September 2008, 05:58 PM

I have airport extreme and work perfectly in fedora 9 on my ibbok, i don't see why normal airport shouldn't work as well since is more supported afajk.
Generally speaking j feel fedora better than ubuntu in ppc, if you know what you do go also for debian testing but fedora is more polished imho.

Sorry for non being sure with airport question, in your pants i would go for dvd (my dvd was out so i had to use 7 cd...) or netinstall.

Lastly, ydl3 is a bit of outdated now, it's easier to install and setup but fedora 9 has a higher potential...

renichms · #8 23rd September 2008, 08:10 PM

Actually, I repartitioned the HDD and Mac is back on it in the big block and I'm installing Fedora now. I'm going to put Ubuntu onto another small spot and try to get it to work but if not, I can test Debian and such in its place.

RN

renichms · #9 24th September 2008, 02:59 AM

I tested Fedora 9 and it works exactly as it should with my wireless setup. So I abandoned the idea of putting Ubuntu back on and went just with Fedora. It's downloading updates now. Frankly, I like it a lot more than Ubuntu (though I like Ubuntu fine when it is hooked into the network with a cable).

RN

breitboi · #10 20th October 2008, 08:31 PM

defraz,

I am new to the linux world and recently switched from ubuntu to fedora 9 in hopes of solving the WPA issue. I have a G3 and use the airport extreme. Have you been able to connect wirelessly using WPA/WPA2 using your ibook and the airport extreme?

Thank you for your help. This has been a relentless search for me.

defraz · #11 20th October 2008, 10:38 PM

sorry, i never used wpa, however the situation should not be different than other distribution with newer b43 wireless driver! sorry

breitboi · #12 21st October 2008, 04:28 AM

no problem, thank you for your quick response.