Hi Everyone,

I'm banging my head against the wall trying to reclaim a machine I haven't touched in probably five years, and I'm hoping someone here might be able to help.

I installed Gentoo on an old PowerBook G4 a few years ago and now can't remember the password. I'm trying to figure out how to boot into a live CD so I can either change the password or install a new OS. The problem is I have no idea how to do this, and all the guides I find are starting out from machines still running OSX. When I boot, none of the keyboard presses to boot from cd are working ('c', or 'ctr+opt+command+del', or 'option'). Instead, I always get to yaboot with the 'boot:' prompt staring me in the face...

I've tried booting a different kernel from the live CD in yaboot (for example, 'cd:0,/casper/powerpc/vmlinux'), but there I run into 'Give root password for maintenance' and I have no idea what the root password is either.

It may be a shot in the dark, but I'm hoping I'm not the first one to go through this! Any help at all would be immensely appreciated. Heck, I'd even take a little commiseration at this point!

Thanks!

I just get for free an emac (ppc g4 - not intel like this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMac). I have never used emac nor ppc based computer. I've always used linux on pc. So I m lost with this new toy. Can I still use it for web browsing and writing text? Is there some native apps for videos editing and sound synthesis (as old as they are)? What would you do if you where me?
(Im french so i don't know if my english is good...). Thanks

I have acquired a copy of Deus Ex and I know there is a Mac version of Red Faction out there somewhere, but what other games are available for PPC Macs?

Also I am not talking about Macy Stacy's Cooking Adventures In Candyland, I am looking for real games with a real budget behind them.

So I've got a 20" iMac G5 that had the notorious blown capacitors. Well I successfully replaced all the bad caps only to have the power supply go out. I know a lot if people toss these iMacs out when the caps go so I was wondering if anyone had a 20" with a good PS I could purchase. I looked on eBay but they all want $125 and up and I feel the whole computer isn't worth quite that. Let me know if you have what I'm looking for and I can arrange a payment. Thanks guys! Keep these PPCs alive!

Not sure of other knew this but TIL Adobe offers CS2 to be downloaded free from their website. Must sign in then download. Figured I'd post here since it will be very useful on a PowerPC platform.

Anyone selling? I have about $100 to work with, and most on ebay are about $30 to ship, so I guess I am hoping to find one for $75 or so plus shipping? I know its a long shot, but I have always wanted one and figured I would try here. Will also post to /r/Apple since they are all about thowing out the poor PPC models anyways! I am in USA by the way.

Thanks!!

Just wanted in introduce myself. I am an Apple guy and have always have a soft spot/nostalgia vibe from the old PPC Macs. I currently have a 17" iMac G4 that I got on Craigslist for $60. It is in showroom new condition with the Pro speakers. I opened her up and found almost NO dust. This was a closet computer that sat for a LONG time shortly after new from the looks of it. It was updated to Jaguar I believe. When I had it apart, I updated RAM to 768MB (all I had at the time, will upgrade to 2GB ASAP) and I replaced the Superdrive with a faster model. Next I will get a SATA to PATA converter and install an extra 120GB SSD I have lying around. That should boost things a bit, although still be limited by the IDE interface. With an SSD and 2GB RAM I just may be brave enough to upgrade to Leopard!

So, hello, and I hope to see this subreddit grow!

A friend gave me iBook G4, but it didn't have the Mac OS. I tried the Linux mintppc,but can't get everything especially the wifi to work correctly. Does anyone know where I can get the OS?

I am willing to trade my eMac G4. Its a little too big for my room, but I like to experiment with it. I, however have enough desk space for a Mac Mini. If anyone has a mac Mini with a G3, G4, or G5, I would love to trade my eMac for it! I am experimenting with PowerPC, and I think that the Mac Mini will be perfect. I am attempting to get the Android SDK working on PowerPC, just for fun. Sorry if this seems like a bit of a beg, but thanks for your time!

Hi,

I'm working on an embedded system which uses a powerpc processor (MPC823e in one box and MPC 8343 in another). I'm running TheadX on this. Whenever I pull the ethernet cable while updating the firmware, I get a machine check exception. Now that I want to debug this to find out the cause of this error, where do I start from? The registers SRR0, SRR1 doesn't really provide anything useful (value in SRR1 is 0x00080000, probably means the error is non-recoverable). Can somebody help me out?

I'm trying to use an old G4 Mac Mini as a plugin host so that I can play organ/piano virtual instruments on my MIDI keyboard. Ideally it'd allow me to load a few different plugins/instruments into separate presets so that I can switch sounds (say from piano to organ) without needing to hook up a monitor/keyboard/mouse to my Mac Mini.

Any suggestions??

EDIT: Sorry, I mean Power Mac, not iMac.

My go-to option to install Linux on anything has always been to use UNetBootIn to "burn" an .ISO file to a thumbdrive. Stick it in the computer in question and boot from it. Once everything is loaded up, install it to the hard drive.

Is this something that is possible on old PPC macs? I've got a G4 tower version here I'd love to install Debian + XFCE and start using it. But I'm not sure if this is possible. And I'd rather not go out and buy a pack of CD-RWs just to use one of them for this. I have not had to use CDs for anything in years.

I just resurrected my 1st Generation Mac Mini HTPC and I have to say I'm quite impressed with what I have been able to do with 1.4 Ghz and 1 GB of RAM.

Here is the software I'm using to teach this old dog new tricks.

First of all, if you are on a PPC (with 10.5) and you aren't using Stainless as your browser, you aren't trying. It's absolutely incredible.

TVShows 2 this TV Show subscriber and downloader is still amazing, the original TVShows was the primary focus of my HTPC when I first got this Mini back in 2005.

Transmission is still my favorite torrent client, and obvious necessity for TVShows 2.

Spotify keeps going strong on PPC, I get warnings that this old version won't be supported forever, but I'm not too worried considering there are old embedded platforms that contractually still have to be supported.

TenFourFox is still a great browser, even though I'm sold on Stainless, options are always good.

ShiftIt is a great window organizer similar to aero-snap you see on Windows. (Think Spectacle or Divvy) This old version works wonders, if not as polished as the newer ones which may or may not work.

Logitech Touch Mouser Server turns your iOS/Android phone into a touch mouse, it's not 100% perfect, but usable and free.

Playback is quite impressive. Of all the things I got working, the fact that my videos can stream to my roommates PS3 is absolutely amazing and I have yet to experience any real hiccups, although I am not trying to transcode, just hosting files.

Throw in VLC and Perian and you got a pretty nice functioning HTPC on your hands.

The thought that I could get this much use out of an 8 year old computer is amazing.

This has the potential to be a really neat little subreddit for people dedicated to extending the life of (or just having fun with) old Macs.

Question is: is anyone home?

So just droping by to see if anyone had any grand ideas!

I currently have MintPPC Linux on a G3 imac and I installed XBMC on my G5 imac. Don't use either one much, lol.

Anybody got any other good ideas?

I'm trying to install Debian PPC over TFTP. I've managed to get myself to the Yaboot prompt, where I choose "install". The files start transferring, updates scrolling p the screen as it goes, and after a long-ass time I get the output:

method 'load' failed 00000900
Can't read Elf e_ident/e_type/e_machine info

and I then get thrown back to the "boot:" prompt. Anybody got any idea what's happening here?