Apple Mac : what model for Ubuntu ?

[ABrady]

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:23:43 +0100
Vincent Trouilliez <vincent.trouilliez at wanadoo.fr> wrote:

> Dear Mac friends,
> 
> 
> I am fancying an old beige Mac, tower case, to build a little Ubuntu
> machine to play with networking with my main, PC machine.
> 
> There is not much choice on Ebay here in France, and I am looking at
> this one (item #5146428104)
> 
> http://cgi.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5146428104&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT
> 
> That is the tower case I want. I wanted a Power Mac G3 but this one
> seems a bit older, it says Power Mac 8600/200 "604e" processor.
> 
> Does that mean that it runs at 200MHz ? Is it likely to be as "powerful"
> as an Intel Pentium (one) 200MHz ?
> 
> It has 64MB of RAM, 2GB disk and Ethernet and CD-ROM and ZIP drive, so
> would be perfect for what I want to do with (basic server install of
> Ubuntu, with no DE).
> 
> Having no idea how this Motorola CPU compares to my old Pentium 200MMX
> board, I would like to find out before bidding !
> 
> Auction ends in 24 hours or so, and current price is only under 20 Euros
> (say 12 or 15 USD), so it's tempting !!! :-)

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=112397

I can't say if it will meet your needs or not. Apple doesn't offer OS X
for it, so I have doubts that it's going to be powerful enough for much
of anything. The site above shows it's only good to OS 9 as well.

The 200MHz clock speed will run a little better than the equivalent
Intel/x86 model. My own 400MHz version feels about like an x86 running
around 750MHz to me. But it's a G3 and is still even supported by Apple
(until maybe 10.4, anyway).

That doesn't mean you won't be able to install any form of linux on it,
but I question if it will handle anything newer than a couple of years
old unless it's specifically made for the older machines.

That's all hearsay and opionion, though. The ones I run at home are all
G3/G4 models, so I don't have much experience with the older ones.

At the price it might be worth trying it. I just wouldn't have my hopes
too high.