Linux on Macintosh PowerBook G3

[Scorpioff]

I have a Macintosh PowerBook G3 (300MHz) with about 160MB of RAM.

What is the best productive Linux that I can install on it, with a decent interactive, responsive and capable GUI and some Office applications? (With the least effort - hopefully direct from a distro CD install with no messing around).

I tried Fedora 7 / 8 but they are way too resource hungry.

[nolimit974]

have you tried using slackware...puppy or dsl?

[Scorpioff]

Then I'll check them out, thanks.

[JayMan8081]

It's not all on a CD but Debian has a net install that will work on a PPC and will allow you to only install what you want. It lets you pick your window manager so you could pick a lower resource window manager like XFCE or Fluxbox instead of Gnome/KDE which most newer distros use.

[ph34r]

Ubuntu, use the alternate install cd.

Or debian, but it will be easier to get it all pretty, slick, etc. with Ubuntu...

[Scorpioff]

Ubuntu Alternate CD... always wondered what that alternate one was about. Will give that a try, followed by Puppy if Ubuntu doesn't work out. My gf likes the sound of "puppy".

Thanks for all your help folks. Will report back and let you know how it performs. :)

[ph34r]

The Ubuntu alternate is just a simple text installer, not a live cd with desktop like the "normal" Ubuntu is...

[Scorpioff]

...unfortunately, I cannot get the PowerBook to boot into any CD no matter what I do.

Looks like it has become junk.

[mrrangerman43]

...unfortunately, I cannot get the PowerBook to boot into any CD no matter what I do.

Are you using the right platform? Powerpc (http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/4.0_r3/powerpc/iso-cd/)

[ph34r]

Yup, make sure you are using the PPC stuff... last Ubuntu for PPC was 6.10

To boot from the CD on the Mac, when it boots, hold the C key down on the keyboard...