Specs

  • 1.42 GHz Power PC G4 Processor
  • 2 GB SD-RAM
  • 93 GB Hard Drive
  • Superdrive
  • 12.1 inch TFT LCD Display (1024x768)
  • 10/100/1000 Ethernet, two USB, firewire, S-VGA output with special cable
  • Software 56k Modem off of USB
  • Airport Extreme Card - with reversed engineered drivers, doesn't work though

    I bought the iBook through the Apple Online Store. Since it is different fromthe G3 series, it is setup for dual boot instead of triple boot. Mac OS 9 doesn't boot. I loaded Fedora 9 onto the machine.

    Everything works except for the Airport Extreme. It is a Broadcoam chip which Broadcom refuses to this day to release the specs in order for Linux to work on it. There are pages out there to get the firmware and to use fwcutter to extract the infor from it. If you do a ifconfig -a, it shows up but setting up fails.

    When you boot the Fedora 9 DVD, you need to put at the prompt "linux text" since the X video does not show. The screen goes to different colors. You will be using Linux Text throughout the selecting options and installing process.

    When the machine reboots, it will not go into X GUI but it will stay as text. If you want to run X either type startx after you login or edit /etc/inittab and change the 3 to a 5 in the line that says id:3:initdefault:. The next time the computer reboots it will come up with an "X" login screen.

    The following set of commands belo will get your machine up to the latest plus adds in additional fun things to use.


    yum -y remove iwl4965-firmware
    yum -y update kernel

    yum -y remove selinux-policy.noarch selinux-policy-targeted.noarch
    sleep 30
    yum -y install selinux-policy.noarch selinux-policy-targeted.noarch

    rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-9.rpm

    yum -y install libdvdread libdvdcss libmad a52dec xine xine-lib-extras-nonfree.ppc xmms xmms-mp3 xmms-faad2 seamonkey thunderbird

    yum -y update

    The above scripts removes an uneeded firmware that is not used in an Apple and then updates the kernel and the selinux policy. Afterward, it makes a connection to the "livna" library and then adds in software where you can play DVD's and mp3's. In addition Seamonkey is a diferent web browser and Thunderbrd is an e-mail client. The last line will update the software on the computer including items like security updates.

    Follow the prompts.

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    Last Updated : Sep 10, 2008