Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Get the Right Memory for Your Mac Top Quality, Competitive Price, Lifetime Backed Free Expert Support + Installation Videos too! MacBook & mini 8GB, iMac 16GB, Mac Pro up to 32GB. Click here

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Plays Well with Others

Using Linux to Give an Aging Mac More Zip

- 2005.12.07

Popularity: LEMLEMLEMLEMLEMLEM

Got an elderly Power Mac that's feeling a little suffocated by the ever-increasing demands of Mac OS X? The beautiful Aqua interface, with its rolling sheets and minimizing and zooming effects has always taxed lower-end G3s and G4s.

Provided your needs include no Mac-specific apps, Linux can provide a snappy user experience, along with modern stability, security, and performance on your older Mac.

Just a few years ago, it would have seemed like a joke to tell Mac users to wipe the Mac OS off their older Mac's hard drive and install Linux. After all, you could just use an older version of the Mac OS, perhaps along with some older application software, and enjoy a speed increase.

Besides, Linux had such a stigma as a "geek toy" or was seen primarily as a server OS.

Linux Has Become] Less Geeky

Things have changed considerably. To keep up with the latest technologies, even in commonplace things like the Web and email, you need newer software to stay up-to-date (and secure). Relying on an older version of the Mac OS and its age-appropriate apps is increasingly difficult.

For example, it's getting harder and harder to connect to today's mail servers with older Mac email clients, as other Low End Mac columnists have noted recently (such as The Trials and Tribulations of Email on Vintage Macs).

Most Linux distributions now have intuitive, graphical installers and package management systems that make installation, updating, and installing new software as easy as on OS X or Windows. In the five years or so that I've been tinkering with Linux on Mac hardware, it's never been easier to set up and maintain a Linux box and do the everyday tasks - email, web surfing, IM, word processing, spreadsheets, etc.

The best of the newer Linux distributions are a lot like OS X in one key facet: You can do a lot of things graphically, keeping the Unix stuff to a minimum. Of course, OS X still has the easiest to use desktop environment for today's common media needs, but the Linux desktops are catching up.

Is Linux Really Faster?

When pitching Linux as a speed fix for older Macs, the first question is invariably, "Is it really that much faster?"

There are too many variables to provide a definitive answer, but in my comparison of Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" or 10.4 "Tiger" on the same G3 and G4 systems, I often find Linux with the GNOME environment to have a more responsive interface than OS X's Aqua. Menus snap open as soon as you click on them. When you quit an application, its windows just goes away so you can get on with whatever you were doing next.

Picking your Linux distribution and getting it installed on your Mac may be a somewhat trying process, especially after years being of spoiled with OS X's very nice Installer. It pays to do the research and know what's going to meet your needs.

For a simple Linux desktop setup, I've prioritized my needs as such:

  • Web browsers with strong support for modern web technologies and standards compliance.
  • An email program that will let me manage my multiple IMAP and POP accounts.
  • An IM client with the ability to connect to my iChat (AIM) and Yahoo! Messenger accounts.
  • A nice text editor for HTML/PHP programming and bash scripting.
  • The ability to run the latest Apache, PHP, Python, MySQL, and PostgreSQL for testing.
  • An office package with good compatibility with Microsoft's ubiquitous Office suite.
  • A good FTP/SFTP client for connecting to both servers on my LAN and remotely.
  • A few little small games for amusement, with a First Internet Backgammon Server (FIBS) client being a top priority in this department.
  • The ability to easily connect to wired and wired networks.
  • The ability to connect to file servers and WebDAV volumes like my iDisk.
  • A nice image editor, and a way to view my photo library.
  • Manage a library of music, including the .m4a files that fill my iPod.
  • Not taking several days to accomplish the installation and setup.

While it won't be as easy as installing OS X and iLife, I think it's worth the effort for those wanting to breathe new life into old hardware.

I'm going to take the next few weeks to go over the many options out there for PowerPC Linux and hopefully help you decide which is best for your older Mac that just doesn't run OS X with enough pep.

Next week I'll review the OS that perhaps make this easier than any other: Ubuntu Linux, whose slogan is "Linux for human beings."

Responses to Using Regular Mac OS X to Set Up a Low-end Server

Thanks to everyone who wrote in last week to let me know they enjoyed my column about setting up regular old Mac OS X client as a Mac OS X Server. It turns out that I left out a few crucial pieces of software, and several readers pointed out some additions to help max out the server potential of your low-end, OS X-capable Mac.

The QuickTime Streaming Server, which I indicated was only available as part of the full Mac OS X server, can be had for free as Darwin Streaming Server. Once again, you don't get the GUI that comes with OS X Server, but it is truly cool that Apple offers such a powerful media streaming solution for free.

Another project that I wish I would have mentioned last week is Webmin. A free, Perl-based app, Webmin requires installation via the Terminal, but once that's done, a small web server runs on your server, powering the web-based Webmin interface. Webmin can then be accessed via a browser from any machine that can reach your server.

Webmin is a thoroughly comprehensive, from editing config files, to stopping and starting services, all the way down to managing your hardware. LEM

More Linux on Low End Mac

  • PPC Linux, a series of articles by Jason Walsh, May-Aug. 2002
  • Unix and the Mac, a series of articles by Adam Loiacono, Jan.-May 2002

Recent Plays Well with Others articles

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Plays Well with Others articles copyright ©2005-06 by Leaman Crews. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.