[CentOS] ppc questions

Karanbir Singh

mail-lists at karan.org
Thu Sep 15 14:07:21 UTC 2005


Chris Mauritz wrote:
 >
 > The 32bit PPC release is for the older G3/G4 macs, no?  I've got a
 > pile of unused G4 400-800mhz powermacs just sitting around

The ppc32 distro will work on any NewWorld G3, G4 based machine ( and 
32bit ibm power, like the older rs6k's ) - it _also_ works fine on the 
MacMini and G4 Xserve's.

With some common sense tweaks, a G4 450Mhz is a very usable machine 
running CentOS4 in 386MB of ram. Much more usable than OSX Tiger.

 > that I'd love to
 > get some use out of, but I don't think they'd be very responsive with
 > OSX tiger.

how much of Ram do these machines have ? if its anything >=256 megs, you 
have very functional and usable desktop machines there.

 > My children's school has a lab full of Macs so I'm
 > wondering if I donated the machines, installed CentOS and then
 > volunteered some
 > time each week to train someone how to maintain them, that might be
 > better than having them collect dust at the office.

Sounds like a plan, go for it - if you have any issues, feel free to 
drop a message here or come find us on #centos-ppc / #centos on 
irc.freenode.net

 > As for PPC64, has anyone done benchmarking between a ppc64 and OSX
 > system on the same G5 hardware?

Linux wins hands down. I am sitting typing this out on a Dual G5 2ghz, 
and I find Linux to be much more responsive than OSX.

anandtech had a write-up recently where they compared OSX Server to 
Linux on the server side of things, iirc correctly - Linux came out on 
top. A bit of googling should dig up the exact article.

- K



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