Specs

  • 800 MHz Power PC G3 Processor
  • 128 MB SD-RAM
  • 40 GB Hard Drive
  • Combo DVD/CD-RW
  • 12.1 inch TFT LCD Display (1024x768)
  • 10/100 Ethernet, two USB, firewire, S-VGA output with special cable
  • Hardware Modem
  • Airport Card

    I picked up a used iBook (500 MHz). Before I loaded it with Linux, I looked over what was on the machine through the profile based on OS 9.2. I noticed that it did not have a software modem. When I got Linux loaded, I did a "cu -s 19200 -l /dev/tty00" and noticed I got on the modem. I did a "ATS11?" and it responded with a "095". Great !!!!

    I loaded the machine with a triple boot configuration. It has Mac OS 9.2, Mac OS X and Linux.



    I did a fresh install YellowDog Linux 4.0.1.

    When Linux was loaded, everything worked by default including sound*, ethernet, and X11. The caveats are below.

    Sound

    Sound works by default. When you go into KDE, sound volume by default is set to zero and you can run "kmix" and set it accordingly. Also, when KDE starts up, you get an error that can be ignored. I have no fix for it yet.

    Do a CTRL-P and you should see the "Audio I/O Plugins" and enable "AudioCD Reader 0.11d (libcdread.so)" plugin and disable "CD Audio Player 1.2.7 (libcdaudio.so)". Under "Output Plugin", select "OSS Driver 1.2.7 (libOSS.so)" option.

    Modem

    The modem as mentioned before is a hardware modem, therefore compatible with Linux. There were two different versions of the 500 MHz model of the iBook. The second version according to Apple has a software modem and should be avoided.

    Compuserve under Mac OS X

    Even though this is off topic but there are those who are interested in setting up custom scripts to dial up their Internet accounts.

    I used Compuserve Classic dialup on the Mac OS X side when I travel whcih requires a custom chat script. The script is cserve.txt. It is placed in the /Library/Terminal Scripts directory which by default does not exist and has to be created first. I got a dial-up script from a Rice University IT person and then modified it for Compuserve Classic dial up.

    DVD Playback

    I use Ogle to playback my DVD's. However, I had problems getting it to run until I found the solution on the Internet. Before you compile, you will need to do a

    The "--disable-xv" s optional and it allows you to take snapshots of the DVD image which before was a blue background. It is optional. Some of the downloads from the web site you can leave out since it is included in YellowDog such as JPG and XML2.

    Mac OS 9.2.2

    I did a complex method of loading Mac OS 9.2.2 on the iBook. I went through Mac on Linux (MOL) and loaded Mac OS 9.0.1 and then did the upgrades through Mac OS 9.2.2. Don't boot into 9.2.2 yet, the original CD's that came with the computer, you need to load the items related to Mac Classic only and nothing else. You will need to copy the files that are put on the Mac OS X partition to the Mac OS 9 partition which is the System Folder. You will need to know what you are doing. I now have Mac OS 9.2.2 CD's but you will still need to do the copy. The copy puts drivers for the video, sound, network so the machine can boot up under Mac OS 9.2.2 and not have any problems.

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    Last Updated : Sep 26, 2005