# IMAC Graphite G3 400mhz - what to do?



## fuzzymemory (Oct 10, 2006)

I got a IMAC Graphite (CRT-model) from a friend. The OS seems to be very messed up & in need of a reinstall... but, I have no software for the system. What are my choices here? Should I: 1) buy an old copy of the system discs; or 2) get some Linux variant since I don't care what OS the computer is running as long as I can browse the web.
If I should just get OS CDs, where would I get them? Do they still sell them?
If #2, linux, then what's the best Linux distribution for a system with a 400mhz G3?


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

well, there are all kinds of places to get old mac os cds, but apple only sells the latest os. macsales.com is one place. and ebay is another. if all you plan to do is surf the web, i'd get os x (which is unix based) 10.2.something (try to make sure you get a retail copy) and then update it to 10.2.8 (updates are free from apple).

as for a distro, not being a linux user myself, i don't know what is all out there. but i do know of linuxppc ( or ppclinux, can't remember which way it is), and i would think that it would be the best one for the computer. you already know that your cpu is a g3, but it is also known as a powerpc (ppc) cpu, incase you see it listed that way.


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## shuuhen (Sep 4, 2004)

Welcome to TSF.

What OS is currently on the machine? How is the computer behaving? If you want to try to fix the current OS, we can troubleshoot the current issues.

Mac OS X would be a great option. It is based on a Unix OS, so you have the power of a BSD system with a much simpler GUI.

Yellow Dog Linux should work quite well. It has been designed with Mac hardware in mind. Versions 4 and newer are based on Fedora Core, while all versions before 4 are based on Red Hat. I've run YDL on a couple of machines with great results.

Debian Linux works fairly well. It's not quite as easy to install as Yellow Dog, but shouldn't be too hard. The package managment system is a little nicer in Debian. You will probably have a little trouble with getting the GUI working at first.

Gentoo Linux can be difficult to get working on some models of Macs. It is also one of the harder distributions to install. The payoff is it has a great package management system and the idea of the system is to stay as current as possible. I'm not sure how well it would perform on a 400 MHz system, but it should be acceptable. If you go this way, it will probably take a really long time to install some software, such as KDE and Firefox.

Overall, I'd recommend Mac OS X for the machine. If you want to go with Linux, I'd recommend YDL unless you have a good level of knowledge of Linux.


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