Limeux.
Are you ready for the next chapter in the continuing saga of “The iMac That Would Not Die” (or possibly more appropriately “The iMac That Pat Just Wouldn’t Let Rest In Peace”)?
I didn’t think so.
After having my fun with Mac OS X Server 1.0, I decided I would use the iMac for testing purposes… mostly playing around with client/server stuff with my Cube running Mac OS X Server 10.4 (aka the server not from the Clinton administration).
Unable to figure out a way to back up the precious Mac OS X Server 1.0 drive (multiple partitions with weird OpenStep file systems installed…), I decided the best idea was to remove the drive entirely and upgrade the 6GB drive to a semi-respectable 60GB. While I was at it, I also upped the RAM to a semi-respectable 192MB.
With the system specs cranked up all the way to, uh, like, 5, I figured installing OS9 would be a snap. The plan was to get the firmware upgraded so that I could just install OS X via Ethernet. Thus taking my Apple-dweebdom to the next level.
After countless unsuccessful attempts however, my Apple merit badge was torn from my Steve-Jobs-sash and set aflame. OS9 was a no go, and even OS X didn’t work. Even after reformatting the drive so that the first partition was less than 8GB (a limitation with the original non-slotloading iMacs), it still didn’t work.
Finally, I decided to take the two birds with one stone approach. That being, “hey, let’s upgrade my Cube’s hard drive, and just throw the old drive with OS X already on it in the iMac.” So that’s what I did. And it worked. Kind of. Until I rebooted.
Okay, fuck OS X, I’m putting Linux on this bitch.
You know, since OS X was so easy to install, Linux should be a snap, right? No, wait, that doesn’t make any sense at all.
Ubuntu seems to be the flavor of the week in the Linux world right now, and just like Mac OS X, there’s a desktop version of Ubuntu and a server version of Ubuntu. Since it’s Linux though, it has to be more complicated than that (yet still simpler than Windows). Beyond the server and desktop versions, there’s also version 6.10 and 6.06 LTS (Long Term Support). There’s also 5.10, but we’re not going to go into that. Basically 6.06 LTS is more stable but less feature-rich than 6.10. My friend Frank gave me his 6.06 LTS Live CD a while back, so I decided to use that. (This turned out to be a very bad idea.)
Basically a Live CD is a hybrid disc that allows you to boot off the CD and run Linux, or also install it on your hard drive. But now we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
While popping in the disc and holding down C got me to a command prompt, once the Ubuntu GUI kicked in, the iMac display kicked off. I could still hear the CD-ROM drive plugging away though, so I knew it was still loading, it’s just the display couldn’t pick up what the disc was putting down. After a little googling, I found out that this was a common problem among older iMacs and it just required editing a few lines in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Oh, is that all? Welcome to Linux, Pat.
So after the disc stopped spinning, I hit control+alt+F1 to drop to the command line. Uh… control+alt+F1? Maybe they keys are mapped weird because this is a Mac keyboard? command+alt+F1? Tried a few more combinations. Nothing. Just for kicks I hooked the keyboard into my TiBook. Wait. Really? Seriously? The control keys are broken? Both of them? Goddammit.
Several days and one keyboard later…
Okay, c… wait… live-powerpc… wait… control+alt+F1… ah, command line. sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf… change some refresh rates, blah blah… ctrl+o ctrl+x sudo killall -HUP gdm Tada! Now we’re talking. Install <click>, Language <click>, Time Zone <click>, Create new user <click>, and partition <click>… <click>… <click>. Goddammit. Okay, Ubuntu PPC Forums, here I come.
The next day…
The consensus seems on the Ubuntu Forums to be that old iMacs have a better time with the server installing the version of Ubuntu rather than the desktop version since the installer is less resource intensive (techincally all versions of Ubuntu require at least 256MB of RAM).
So I download all 550MB of server 6.06 LTS and burn it to a disc. Pop it in, hold down C, and… oooh, DOSy! It’s ugly, but it works. More or less exactly like the desktop installer only with a DNS or LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) option. Took about an hour to install. And… drumroll…
/pci@80000000/mac-io@10 … /vmlinux : input/output error.
Godfuckingdammit.
Today…
So I download all 688MB of Ubuntu 6.10 Desktop. Burn that to a CD. Boot. And… <click>, <click>, <click>… partitioning utility that doesn’t crash! Yay hooray! Play around… throw in a ext3 partition, HFS, a little FAT32 (Linux is multilingual like that), and… success!
So yes, it only took a week (which is much less time than it took to get the Mac OS Server 1.0 password), but I now have a Lime iMac running Linux on my desk. It’s very nice, and probably substantially faster than Tiger would have been. Now if only the sound card would work… and my Mighty Mouse… and Flash… and… and…
Lime iMac: kill me.
Leave a Reply