Hi Know How community! Big fan of the show; have been watching since the beginning

[G+_Billy Miller]

Hi Know How... community! Big fan of the show; have been watching since the beginning.

 

I have a few older PowerPC-based Macs laying around (a G3 iMac and an eMac). They both still work perfectly fine, but ever since Apple abandoned the PowerPC platform, their usefulness has been on a steady decline.

 

I think it would be a cool idea to have a segment on the show on how to either update PowerPC Macs to a relatively current Linux distro, or finding other constructive uses for these old Macs while remaining on OS X. I don't want to see these computers collecting dust or being made into a fish tank!

 

Thanks,

Billy/beanboy89

[G+_John Mink]

different from this?    http://twit.tv/show/know-how/5

[G+_Billy Miller]

A bit different. That episode primarily focused on x86 PCs. PowerPC Macs, while old computers, have their own quirks, which I feel are deserving of their own segment on the show. Somewhere, someone out there has a dual-processor dual-core Power Mac G5 which isn't being used to it's fullest potential. Those later G5s are still powerful machines.

[G+_Anthony Elliott]

PPC Macs are still good options for low powered uses. A good option is as a home server. I used a G4 as one for years. Set one up as a file server and plug in some external drives(the G3 iMac would have to be either firewire or network attached since it would only have usb1.1, the eMac may have usb2.0).

 

Don't know about linux distros, but you can get older PPC versions of OSX server for cheap. OSX 10.4 and 10.5 server are still fairly robust in features(in some cases more flexible than the current stripped down server apps)  and can be a good way to learn about server services.

 

Then there is always this...