An Ubuntu-based distro is the easiest for new users. You can use Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Zorin-OS, or any Ubuntu based distro and you should be okay. Linux Mint and Zorin have a desktop environment (DE) that mimics the classic Windows desktop and generally caters to new users. Zorin has a pro version that you can pay for support while Linux Mint has an active community forum to ask questions to other users.

I'd recommend the Samsung netbook to start. Linux has better support for x86 CPU's out of the box and Intel graphics also tends to be supported well too.

Robhalfordfan wrote on 2024-09-02, 18:07:

ibook g4 - mid 2005 14 inch - possibly triple boot with mac osx tiger and osx leopard and possibly add a fourth - Morph OS […]
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ibook g4 - mid 2005 14 inch - possibly triple boot with mac osx tiger and osx leopard and possibly add a fourth - Morph OS

specs are

CPU - PowerPC 7447a (G4) @ 1.42ghz
Graphics - 4X AGP ATI Mobility Radeon 9550 - 32mb
RAM - 1.5GB
HDD - 250gb ide HDD

i have try to look myself but got lost and confused where to start and what would work best

This is more of a question for a vintage Mac forum; I feel like I have seen lots of YouTubers recently doing Linux stuff with older Macs, but I think it was mostly early Intel machines.

Not sure how many distributions will have a relatively current PPC build... although maybe I should ask the obvious question, do you want a relatively current distro? i.e. modern kernel, recent web browser, etc ?

I would avoid the g4, for the g3 imac I tried linux (mintppc) on you had to rewrite the BIOS or some such, which was not reversible. But ymmv of course.

As a long-standing occasional user of debian, I'd suggest that or ubuntu. Ubuntu can sometimes work out of the box as it were, but it's debian underneath (or was last time I used it). Depends what sort of experience you are after - debian is closer to the metal, and if you stick to "stable" everything should work. Ubuntu is rather gaudy and trying to be consumer desktop system a la Windows mostly, which I find somewhat cloying and sometimes it feels a bit confusing because (like later Windows) things seem rather "buried".

Possibly a good idea to research what you want to run, and see what distributions your software is availa ble for (and/or what would be involved in installing it). Debian (and distros based on it like Ubuntu) has a good package management system that can manage dependencies (ie install whatever else you'll need in terms of libraries or other tools). Where things can get tricky (for me anyway) is where you want to do something off the beaten track.

Incidentally isn't there some Ubuntu version in the MS App store so you can use it on Windows 10 (and presumably 11)?

Ubuntu and its progeny (mint, lububtu, xubuntu) are progeny of debian, but are *not* debian.

Ubuntu likes very new packages, while debian likes 'very stable' packages.

Ubuntu also has no issues housing NonFree in the repo, while Debian pearl clutches over that.

For these low spec systems, i'd affirm using an ubuntu variant. Xubuntu (using xfce as the desktop) is very lightweight, but doesnt sacrifice much. Mint uses either Mate or Cinnamon for the DE, and expect 'newer hardware.'

recently, yes, MS seems to have come a long way since the infamous Halloween Letters, and has a dedicated 'subsystem for linux' now, which can have a linux userspace. (Eg, can run a DE and linux programs)

ratfink wrote on 2024-09-02, 20:30:

Incidentally isn't there some Ubuntu version in the MS App store so you can use it on Windows 10 (and presumably 11)?

That's using WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux). Virtualized kernel. Not sure how you get any GUI stuff working in WSL; I never got far enough along playing with it...

And certainly WSL2 won't run on the OP's x86 system, which may not even have VT.

progeny of, based on - aren't they the same thing?

For the netbook, I’d recommend something lightweight like TinyCore.

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-02, 20:43:

ratfink wrote on 2024-09-02, 20:30:

Incidentally isn't there some Ubuntu version in the MS App store so you can use it on Windows 10 (and presumably 11)?

That's using WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux). Virtualized kernel. Not sure how you get any GUI stuff working in WSL; I never got far enough along playing with it...

And certainly WSL2 won't run on the OP's x86 system, which may not even have VT.

Indeed, but if they have a more capable windows pc as many of us do, it might be a simple, relatively hassle-free way to have a look before installing on one of the OPs proposed target machines.

You've reminded me though - it's so much nicer to run linux on something reasonably fast.

i think this where i got lost as there is so many different versions of linux and looking for something that is lightwight, run smooth and fast ish but also modern ish where it still supported and easy update-able also looking to be geared towards gaming and wanting to doing on either my netbook or ibook g4 for portability

wouldn't mind both gui and command line, to learn it

what does ymmv mean
what DE mean in that context

ratfink wrote on 2024-09-02, 20:48:

You've reminded me though - it's so much nicer to run linux on something reasonably fast.

Isn't that true of every OS? The definition of "reasonably fast" just happens to differ for different OSes...

But that leads to an interesting observation - Haswell-era business desktops are near free at this point. With the great impending Windows 11 ewaste cycle, Skylakes and Kaby Lakes will be headed to the same place. If your goal is actually to run modern Linux, why would you want to run it on anything other than that? (Unless, of course, you're a professional YouTuber, in which case you make your living doing silly things that make no sense on camera). Leave the retro systems for the retro OSes...

Robhalfordfan wrote on 2024-09-02, 21:01:

i think this where i got lost as there is so many different versions of linux and looking for something that is lightwight, run smooth and fast ish but also modern ish where it still supported and easy update-able also looking to be geared towards gaming and wanting to doing on either my netbook or ibook g4 for portability

Sorry to be a bearer of bad news, but why would you think you can have something "still supported and easy update" and "modern ish" on hardware that, in one case, was absolute bottom of the barrel 15 years ago and, at the time, was comparable in performance to a ~2001-2 decent system, i.e. over 20 years old.

And the other hardware is... about the same, adding to the picture that it's a quasi-abandoned ISA. The G4 at 1.4ish GHz was state of the art in late 2002. YouTubers still run desktop Linux on PPC G5s for fun, but few others do. I don't think anyone has made a non-server PPC machine in 18 years.

Linux is great, there are lots of nice things about Linux, but... it's not going to get you 'modernish' on 20+ year old systems.

If you want that kind of a Linux experience, go and get yourself a Dell OptiPlex sandy bridge or ivy bridge desktop for <$100, run the latest Ubuntu x64, and you'll get the Linux experience you want. Not on hardware from a decade earlier with 1/8th (or less) the CPU performance and 1/8th the RAM...

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-02, 21:11:

Sorry to be a bearer of bad news, but why would you think you can have something "still supported and easy update" and "modern i […]
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Robhalfordfan wrote on 2024-09-02, 21:01:

i think this where i got lost as there is so many different versions of linux and looking for something that is lightwight, run smooth and fast ish but also modern ish where it still supported and easy update-able also looking to be geared towards gaming and wanting to doing on either my netbook or ibook g4 for portability

Sorry to be a bearer of bad news, but why would you think you can have something "still supported and easy update" and "modern ish" on hardware that, in one case, was absolute bottom of the barrel 15 years ago and, at the time, was comparable in performance to a ~2001-2 decent system, i.e. over 20 years old.

And the other hardware is... about the same, adding to the picture that it's a quasi-abandoned ISA. The G4 at 1.4ish GHz was state of the art in late 2002. YouTubers still run desktop Linux on PPC G5s for fun, but few others do. I don't think anyone has made a non-server PPC machine in 18 years.

Linux is great, there are lots of nice things about Linux, but... it's not going to get you 'modernish' on 20+ year old systems.

If you want that kind of a Linux experience, go and get yourself a Dell OptiPlex sandy bridge or ivy bridge desktop for <$100, run the latest Ubuntu x64, and you'll get the Linux experience you want. Not on hardware from a decade earlier with 1/8th (or less) the CPU performance and 1/8th the RAM...

not bad news at all
i am aware that full on modern Linux will not run these machines

when i say modern ish, i mean something close as to it, that would run on there old systems within the specs and not looking to do modern gaming, more retro gaming , web browsing, possibly emulation and something to new try

Robhalfordfan wrote on 2024-09-02, 21:25:

when i say modern ish, i mean something close as to it, that would run on there old systems within the specs and not looking to do modern gaming, more retro gaming , web browsing, possibly emulation and something to new try

You're not going to do any web browsing on that hardware (except maybe very specialized retro web sites).

Web browsing, thanks to the so-called "modern web", is among the most hardware-intensive activities done on modern computers. These machines were barely capable of handling web browsing 12-15 years ago.

Try getting one of the retro browsers for OS X on the G4. I forget what they're called now. Used to be TenFourFox then that guy gave up, then I think it was InterWebPPC but that may have been abandoned too, etc. It's basically unusable on a G4.

I would suggest using the G4 for retro Mac stuff, too bad it doesn't boot the classic OS, but at least it'll run Classic under Tiger. Tiger should scream on a 1.4GHz G4; Leopard may... struggle... a bit. And the netbook... I don't know. I don't want to offend any netbook fans here. And then get something else for your Linux exploration.

Robhalfordfan wrote on 2024-09-02, 21:01:

i think this where i got lost as there is so many different versions of linux and looking for something that is lightwight, run smooth and fast ish but also modern ish where it still supported and easy update-able also looking to be geared towards gaming and wanting to doing on either my netbook or ibook g4 for portability

Given that hardware involved, you'll have better luck with the NC10 netbook. That has an Atom N270 CPU, which is 32-bit only and doesn't support x86-64 so Ubuntu, and its derivatives, simply will not work as Ubuntu dropped 32-bit x86 support in 2017. The upstream Debian still supports 32-bit x86 in i686 form and it's probably one of the few remaining mainstream Linux distributions to do so.
Given the 2GB memory, you'll need to run a lightweight DE (desktop environment) like XFCE or even LXDE. The iGPU only supports OpenGL 1.3 and fully-featured composited desktops like GNOME or KDE Plasma require OpenGL 2.0. KDE Plasma will likely run as it has a software compositing fallback whereas GNOME will rely on the underlying graphics stack to use llvmpipe which uses the CPU to perform compositing, which will be slow. The latter 2 DEs do consume more memory so it's unlikely it can run a modern browser at the same time.
It should still run a modern browser like Firefox (ESR version in Debian) but browsing the modern web wouldn't be pleasant given the slow CPU and limited RAM.
As for the iBook, the last version of Debian to support 32-bit PowerPC was Debian 8 in 2015 (which is also the last version to support i586). Searching for "ibook g4 linux" on the web brings up a few recent-ish hits using either old Linux distributions or going hard-core and rebuilding it with Gentoo.

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-02, 21:35:

You're not going to do any web browsing on that hardware (except maybe very specialized retro web sites). […]
Show full quote

Robhalfordfan wrote on 2024-09-02, 21:25:

when i say modern ish, i mean something close as to it, that would run on there old systems within the specs and not looking to do modern gaming, more retro gaming , web browsing, possibly emulation and something to new try

You're not going to do any web browsing on that hardware (except maybe very specialized retro web sites).

Web browsing, thanks to the so-called "modern web", is among the most hardware-intensive activities done on modern computers. These machines were barely capable of handling web browsing 12-15 years ago.

Try getting one of the retro browsers for OS X on the G4. I forget what they're called now. Used to be TenFourFox then that guy gave up, then I think it was InterWebPPC but that may have been abandoned too, etc. It's basically unusable on a G4.

I would suggest using the G4 for retro Mac stuff, too bad it doesn't boot the classic OS, but at least it'll run Classic under Tiger. Tiger should scream on a 1.4GHz G4; Leopard may... struggle... a bit. And the netbook... I don't know. I don't want to offend any netbook fans here. And then get something else for your Linux exploration.

Now theres an interesting one.

I wonder if there are many who agree.

Is browsing the web among the most hardware-intensive tasks you can do on a modern computer?

I never had a "netbook" nor an Atom based system. Where they really that bad?

As to the OP.
I know Linux but so little about the hardware I couldnt say.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-03, 03:14:

I wonder if there are many who agree.

Is browsing the web among the most hardware-intensive tasks you can do on a modern computer?

Browsing the web and other web-adjacent things, e.g. electron apps, absolutely. Look at the memory usage of web browser tabs and electron apps. Biggest reason a business laptop can't have 8GB of RAM anymore is that there just isn't enough RAM for all the web stuff.

(Now, obviously, I mean in the context of mainstream things. If you're doing 4K video editing, huge number crunching, etc, then that will continue to guzzle all the hardware you can throw at it.)

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-03, 03:14:

I never had a "netbook" nor an Atom based system. Where they really that bad?

Yes!

I had a Dell Inspiron I-forget-the-model-number (found it... 1012) netbook, it was the second generation with the N450 instead of the N2xx and Win7 starter instead of WinXP. I foolishly kept throwing money at it to try and make it less dreadful:
- upgraded the near useless 1024x600 panel to 1366x768
- doubled the RAM from 1GB to 2GB
- upgraded the wifi to a dual band card
- put in a 64GB SSD. Now, keep in mind, I was doing this in... 2011 maybe, when SSDs cost serious money.
It remained utterly bad. Finally I came to my senses and sold it on eBay... in early 2014. Wow. Can't believe I tried that long to make that thing passable.

Think about it this way: these Atoms are around 1.6GHz. Maybe they do a bit more work per clock than a HotBurst like my late-2001 1.9GHz Willamette, maybe at best they could be equivalentish to a 1.6GHz P6 like a Banias or something but I'm pretty sure the Banias has better performance-per-clock than the Atom. I could probably look up some better benchmarks but this estimate is good enough. Either way, that puts you somewhere around early 2002 performance at best, maybe closer to 2001. But guess what, you're not running early 2002 software. You're running 2010-era software. At a time when my aunt was getting a Q8400 with 6 or 8 gigs of RAM, my mom was getting a Q8200S with 8 gigs of RAM, etc, this thing has a ~2002, at best, processor. And we are talking about a decade that took people from 1GHz PIIIs to 3+GHz quad-core C2Qs - average computer performance probably went up 15X in that decade.

Add the useless screen, the hopelessly slow hard drive, and everything else on top of that.

And it always comes down to RAM. 1 gig of RAM was great in 2002. Passable in 2006 on XP although you really started to want more. 2GB was great for XP in 2006, but... felt a bit tight for 32-bit Vista, so you go to 3GB in 2007. Then that starts to feel tight too, and so you bite the brave x64 bullet and go to 8GB by about late 2008, 2009. And then this thing comes along and ships with 1GB, i.e. an amount that was on the lower end for XP in 2006-7, and the max RAM you can put it in is 2 gigs.

I think with XP, they were... barely passable. But on 7? Hell no.

If you wanted a cute affordable laptop in 2010-2011, get one of the Acer 1830T or similar with 11.6 inch 1366x768 screens, real dual-core i3s, and the ability to have a civilized amount of RAM. Those machines were great for the money, too bad Acer gave up making them in the Sandy Bridge generation.

I suggest Linux Mint. It's easy to get into, has less problems operating and has the familiar Windows feel. Plus the forum community is quite helpful and friendly. Though, I did see problems installing on some machines, but generally it just works.

Once you are familiar with the Linux ecosystem, you will feel want to explore other options. But when it comes to Linux, its all personal preference, and you tend to stick to what you like.

The only reason I don't suggest Ubuntu is the so-called Unity Desktop Environment (DE). And also other distros that use Gnome3. It doesn't work like the usual Windows-que way, but more like a smartphone/Windows 8 kind of thing which doesn't make sense for a desktop. You can't put anything on the desktop without tweaks, and you can't change much without tweaks. And you can only see 1 application at a time, like a smartphone. You can't have multiple windows on the same desktop, and you can't have shortcuts on the desktop without heavy tweaking. But Gnome3 works well if you don't want to tweak anything, and works well in a home TV entertainment system in which you just run games and emulations, since you don't need to switch between applications, as I have installed as mentioned below.

I was using Arch Linux with KDE for a very long time, but I got tired of keeping it up to date everyday due to the rolling release nature of Arch, and frequent breaking of applications due to the non-stop updates. Though you don't need to update, it's very tempting to do it everyday. Plus, the community there are .... toxic may be a strong word, but yeah...they behave as though they are Linux Gods there. 🤣

Right now using Debian 12 Stable with XFCE DE. I just want something that is dependable and stable. Right now using Debian in my main laptop and one of my desktops, and Fedora in another desktop which is attached to my TV for gaming.

(I still do have Windows installed in it's own hard drives in all these systems, just for those hard to run under Linux or too much hassle to make them work - mostly games, and for some applications that can't work outside of Windows properly - like the Gold Box Companion, which runs the SSI AD&D Gold Box games with enhancements like automapping, fix command for those that do not have it, etc. But for the rest, I just run the games and other software under Linux. But I only boot once in a while - 1 or 2 months to keep the Windows updated nowadays.)

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-03, 04:14:

Browsing the web and other web-adjacent things, e.g. electron apps, absolutely. Look at the memory usage of web browser tabs and […]
Show full quote

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-03, 03:14:

I wonder if there are many who agree.

Is browsing the web among the most hardware-intensive tasks you can do on a modern computer?

Browsing the web and other web-adjacent things, e.g. electron apps, absolutely. Look at the memory usage of web browser tabs and electron apps. Biggest reason a business laptop can't have 8GB of RAM anymore is that there just isn't enough RAM for all the web stuff.

(Now, obviously, I mean in the context of mainstream things. If you're doing 4K video editing, huge number crunching, etc, then that will continue to guzzle all the hardware you can throw at it.)

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-03, 03:14:

I never had a "netbook" nor an Atom based system. Where they really that bad?

Yes!

I had a Dell Inspiron I-forget-the-model-number (found it... 1012) netbook, it was the second generation with the N450 instead of the N2xx and Win7 starter instead of WinXP. I foolishly kept throwing money at it to try and make it less dreadful:
- upgraded the near useless 1024x600 panel to 1366x768
- doubled the RAM from 1GB to 2GB
- upgraded the wifi to a dual band card
- put in a 64GB SSD. Now, keep in mind, I was doing this in... 2011 maybe, when SSDs cost serious money.
It remained utterly bad. Finally I came to my senses and sold it on eBay... in early 2014. Wow. Can't believe I tried that long to make that thing passable.

Think about it this way: these Atoms are around 1.6GHz. Maybe they do a bit more work per clock than a HotBurst like my late-2001 1.9GHz Willamette, maybe at best they could be equivalentish to a 1.6GHz P6 like a Banias or something but I'm pretty sure the Banias has better performance-per-clock than the Atom. I could probably look up some better benchmarks but this estimate is good enough. Either way, that puts you somewhere around early 2002 performance at best, maybe closer to 2001. But guess what, you're not running early 2002 software. You're running 2010-era software. At a time when my aunt was getting a Q8400 with 6 or 8 gigs of RAM, my mom was getting a Q8200S with 8 gigs of RAM, etc, this thing has a ~2002, at best, processor. And we are talking about a decade that took people from 1GHz PIIIs to 3+GHz quad-core C2Qs - average computer performance probably went up 15X in that decade.

Add the useless screen, the hopelessly slow hard drive, and everything else on top of that.

And it always comes down to RAM. 1 gig of RAM was great in 2002. Passable in 2006 on XP although you really started to want more. 2GB was great for XP in 2006, but... felt a bit tight for 32-bit Vista, so you go to 3GB in 2007. Then that starts to feel tight too, and so you bite the brave x64 bullet and go to 8GB by about late 2008, 2009. And then this thing comes along and ships with 1GB, i.e. an amount that was on the lower end for XP in 2006-7, and the max RAM you can put it in is 2 gigs.

I think with XP, they were... barely passable. But on 7? Hell no.

If you wanted a cute affordable laptop in 2010-2011, get one of the Acer 1830T or similar with 11.6 inch 1366x768 screens, real dual-core i3s, and the ability to have a civilized amount of RAM. Those machines were great for the money, too bad Acer gave up making them in the Sandy Bridge generation.

Yeah I just had a google about to check out some performance data.
I didnt realise they made a CPU that late that under performed so much.

Have one of these in a NAS.
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Tur … 50/m7165vsm3190

That CPU is shocking but even if performs better than an Atom N450.

Why did you buy these machines exactly?

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-03, 11:48:

Why did you buy these machines exactly?

In my case, foolishness? They were cheap, cute, small, and... just the cool/trendy thing. (Famously, Steve Jobs was asked about Apple making a netbook, that's how cool they were...)

And I think the early Linux ones were functional, then Microsoft scrambled to start selling XP licences at a discounted price to compete with that, and the XP ones were also liveable. Then came Windows 7.

In hindsight, yes, these things made no sense. And they are just another of the things that contributed to people thinking 'Windows = slow junk; Mac = nice' in that era.