Hi Chas Yes Linux CAN see upgrade cards. I got my iMac 233 (first ever Mac) with 32MB RAM, 2MB VRAM and the bog standard 4GB drive. Dropped in my 20GB Seagate and upgraded the RAM to 160MB (well my Mac techie did this but he showed me how to do it). I had OS 9.0 installed and loaded Yellow Dog Linux 2.1 using the last 10GB of the drive and dual booting. To run Panther I installed the NewerTech 466 Upgrade (no FireWire but it was only AUS$150), and Yellow Dog fired up no problem. Just ran faster so I can safely say that the accelerator was picked up, and would expect nothing less of PowerLogic and Sonnet. I am sooo tempted to get a Sonnet Crescendo 7200 G3 500, but then again I could buy another second hand iMac for the same money, or save towards another G4 tower. My original plan was to use Linux on the PC and 7200 to network them together without needing to spend AUS$400 on Dave or PCMacLAN.
My 7200 has 160MB RAM, which is really overkill for that machine. I used it until I upgraded the iMac and then lent it to my eldest grandson, until his mates bragged about their Pentium 4 PC's. Obviously his mates never told him that you cannot measure processor performance just on speed alone! I found my 7200 120MHz performance similar to a Pentium II 233/266, proving the general observation that a motorola chip performance is equivalent to an intel running over double the motorola clock speed. We both know Intel's 'solution' to curing Pentium 4 performance inefficiencies is to make it run faster so the problems are not so apparent, rather than think out the design and address the issues. I began using Caldera Linux on the PC back in 1999, since I often use Unix at work, and sometimes needed a unixy environment to test stuff at home. May interest you to know that most 3D rendering suites at Hollywood (and Bollywood) use unix/linux boxes and Macs. I have never done any video editing/conversion but the major Video App for Linux is Main Actor. Cinelerra is the most powerful linux Video app but seems to be aimed at pro rather than home users. LVE, Kino, AVIdeMux etc are basic, but incomplete, a bit like what Paint is to PhotoShop on the PC for analogy. As with most Linux apps these are 'Bleeding Edge' technology and are continually under development/enhancement, but when they do mature they are hard to beat and worth the early headaches. As for rendering times, I do know of a company here in Aus specialising in Computer Generated special effects for movies that use Unix/Linux boxes, with single frame renders taking up to 6 hours, and that's using loads of HP-UX Servers!! Their Systems Administrator is the guy who wrote the screen saver for The Matrix! Before I got into macs and Linux, my main non Jokedows machines were Amigas! I still have my A1200 Power Tower with a Typhoon 25MHz 68030 Accelerator card and 34MB RAM. Also got Debian Linux for 68000 (Amiga/Atari) after seeing Linux and KDE running on an Amiga 1200, but have yet to install it! So if Linux and KDE will run on a 68030 with 34 MB RAM, then I know it will run on a Power PC 601 120MHz with 160MB RAM! Trondheim University in Norway once used an Amiga 1200 running Linux to host their web site! In hind sight what I'd spent on my Amiga could have gotten a couple of iMacs or a G4! For photo editing I have gotten into Gimp a bit and even got the PC version as it does most of what I do with PaintShop Pro, yet is free! When I first saw Panther, my immediate impression was that it looked similar to Linux KDE (Kool Development Environment), with the similar background screens, toolbar/dock at the bottom of the screen, and it had a Terminal so I could play with Unix. I will say this for Linux, the kernel is not as bloated as Mac OS X hence it will run on non-G3 older stuff. Generally I was more than chuffed with the apps that came bundled via open source, especially Star Office/OpenOffice, Xine, Kwrite, GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program - not some Linux sex aid). I may even use my 7200 as a duke box, but I'll need to put in a bigger SCSI drive as the 1.1GB is not big enough to load a graphical environment for Linux and keep enough space for swap files etc! then again it does have the 2500 Apple Jet printer and an external SCSI Zip drive so I may still end up flogging it! Hope my ramblings help. Best Regards Pete "To mess up a Mac OS X box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just need to work on it." -----Original Message----- From: iMac List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Charles Martin Sent: Saturday, 12 June 2004 10:32 AM To: iMac List Subject: Re: Alt OS > From: "Moulton, Pete" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > There are some great advantages to running Linux on a Mac, especially > if > you have a slower machine that cannot run Mac OS X like the 601, 603 > and > 604 based PowerPCs that appeared before the G3. Hi Pete! I actually DO have a couple of those machines around and they are seriously underused. I've often thought about running Linux on one of them, but I never seem to get past the fundamental question: after I've installed Linux -- what then? I suppose I could put OpenOffice on em and make them little work stations, but beyond that -- do you have some suggestions on things I could run on a Linux (say) G3-upgraded 7100 (for example)? Can any Linux "see" those G3 upgrade cards? Before answering that first question, bear in mind that I don't have much interest in web serving (yet) or games. If you think I can get not-awful speed video transcoding (turning AVI files into MPEG-1 or -2 using FFMPEG or something like that), that would certainly get my attention. If you don't think it's list-worthy, feel free to contact me off-list. PS. Thanks for noticing my sig! Steal away! :) _Chas_ "To mess up a Mac OS X box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just need to work on it." -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... 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