Fedora 16 on MacMini G4

[Gerrit .]

I'd like to install F16 on a G4 machine with 512MB RAM. Is it possible to
do a text mode install? Normal install stops with a message that 768MB of
ram is necessary.

[Josh Boyer]

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 1:55 PM, Gerrit . <gerrit.g5(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  I'd like to install F16 on a G4 machine with 512MB RAM. Is it
> possible to do
>  a text mode install? Normal install stops with a message that 768MB of ram
>  is necessary. 
Not really, no.  Also, there has been very little attention paid to 32-bit
powerpc in F16 overall.

josh

[Britt Dodd]

Is there any particular reason why this is the case? The LiveCD
doesn't even work. I have three G4 machines, and I wouldn't mind
building some of the things needed for F16 on ppc32 (G4), but in order
to get more usage on F16 on ppc32, at least the LiveCD needs to work.

Right now, for me, the best option is gentoo on G4 -- which wouldn't
be good for a desktop system.

I have these G4 machines:
* Powerbook G4 1.67
* Powerbook G4 500
* XServe G4 DP 1.00

Britt

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 7:24 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 1:55 PM, Gerrit . <gerrit.g5(a)gmail.com&gt;
> wrote:
>
>  Not really, no.  Also, there has been very little attention paid to 32-bit
>  powerpc in F16 overall.
>
>  josh
>  _______________________________________________
>  ppc mailing list
>  ppc(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/ppc

[Josh Boyer]

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 11:22 AM, Britt Dodd <brittman914(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  Is there any particular reason why this is the case? The LiveCD
>  doesn't even work. I have three G4 machines, and I wouldn't mind
>  building some of the things needed for F16 on ppc32 (G4), but in order
>  to get more usage on F16 on ppc32, at least the LiveCD needs to work. 
If you mean reasons why there was little attention paid, it's mostly because
the people doing all the work all have ppc64 machines only.  A handful of
32-bit boots were done, but things didn't work very well and the priority was
on 64-bit machines.  So much so that the default package arch on 64-bit
machines is ppc64, which is a departure from the ppc-on-64-bit userspace that
was carried for several years.

If you mean reasons why there is a 768MB memory requirement, it's likely
because the installer's memory requirements have grown to such.  It used to be
1GB or higher, so at least some effort went into reducing the requirement.

As for the LiveCD, I personally don't remember that ever working on PowerPC
but I will admit my usage of it would have been non-existent.  You might try
the boot.iso (also called netinstall.iso or something?) to get a simple CD
sized image to play with.

>  Right now, for me, the best option is gentoo on G4 -- which
> wouldn't
>  be good for a desktop system. 
I thought Debian also had a PowerPC port that was somewhat looked after.

josh

[Klaatu]

>  
>  I thought Debian also had a PowerPC port that was somewhat looked after.
>   
I run Debian on G4 and G5 computers (about 2 G4's in production as web dev 
sandboxes, 4 G5s at work as backuppc boxen) and can confirm it runs quite 
nicely. Even with a desktop.

It ain't Fedora but it's well maintained and does function quite reliably 
alongside its x86_64 RHEL and Fedora companions (although I am anxious to pull 
one of the G5 boxen and try out the fedora ppc installer :-)

- klaatu


>  josh
>  _______________________________________________
>  ppc mailing list
>  ppc(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/ppc 
- klaatu

[David Gardner]

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 10:02 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

I thought Debian also had a PowerPC port that was somewhat looked after.


It does, as does its derivatives (Ubuntu, Mint). You have to use the
netinstall iso though, as the live CDs don't work there either. I haven't
had any luck installing the 32-bit versions on my G4 tower, though, so I'm
still running Ubuntu 10.04 on that system.

-- 
David Gardner
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