Comments on: PowerBook G3 Wallstreet Old World Mac Linux Installation

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:06:00 +0000

I'm not sure if I am ready to go through the whole time consuming process again. Finding the time is also the difficult part too. I'm sure I could probably get this old Apple Wallstreet working, but then what would I use it for?

I guess someone could use it to do word processing or simple writing or even getting on the Web or answering an email or two. How fast would it be? Is it worth it? Maybe, maybe not.

I do know, and agree with you, while the newest Linux distros are quite powerful in what they can do, they are a "little too much" for these older machines. I was looking at Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux for another PC and thinking I might try to install one of those distros on a WinBook PC.

By: L____y

L____y — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:52:00 +0000

I found this searching for the best Linux for my Wallstreet. I have previously ran openSUSE on it. OpenSUSE 10.0 was great. Unfortunately, 10.1 had a kernel that broke compatibility with the Old World machines and the 10.2 kernel proved buggy with the backlight. 11.0 runs fine, albeit very slow on the stock 266Mhz chip. I had a G3/466 at one point, but it wouldn’t play movies, so I sold it in the hope of finding a G4 for it (but they have become very rare ….) More RAM will help out. 384 is decent, but the 512MB is very recommended due to the slow speed of the cpu. With RAM, you must make sure you get PC66 or PC100 ram that’s Low Density. A guy on eBay has been selling 512MB upgrade kits for $45 plus shipping. Highly recommended to say the least.

Linux gives these old machines a new lease on life, but the newest distros are a little too much for it. I’ve been investigating trying to put together a light weight distro like Damn Small or puppy, but haven’t had the time.

By: Jim Warholic

Jim Warholic — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:39:00 +0000

Thanks Kevin for the heads up of using WamCom for a web browser. I thought I'd let our readers know that the browser can still be downloaded from www.wamcom.org. I just downloaded it myself, and giving it a try.

I still need a pram battery for my PowerBook G3. I'm losing the date and time. Does anyone know where to find one of these pram batteries below the cost of $25.00. It seems like this battery should be below $10.00 in cost.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:32:00 +0000

Awesome post. These wallstreets are still chumming along everywhere I go. I own a 266mhz/192mb ram and have OS 9 installed on it. I primarily use WamCom (a version of mozilla) to browse the net. I have a cisco Aironet 802.11B cardbus adapter that I got on ebay for $8 installed and still have the original 4GB HDD. I haven't really upgraded the machine because I don't find a neeed.

The keyboard on the thing is amazing. It sits on my coffee table for when I need to look up something or at times shoot off a quick email.

cheers!