PowerBook G4 Linux Question.

Discussion in 'PowerPC Macs' started by airjuggernaut, Jun 24, 2008.

  1. macrumors 6502a

    Oct 16, 2007
    Hey everyone.

    Lately, I've been considering buying a 12" G4 Powerbook, for all my essays, and schoolwork.

    I already have an Intel Mac for all my games and other intensive stuff, so I'm not worried about power, Snow Leopard and all that jazz.

    So what I'm wondering about is, gaming.

    Yes, I know there isn't any boot camp for PPC's, and Virtual PC can barely even run Windows 98. Most of my gaming consists of Blizzard games like Diablo and WarCraft anyways, so not a big issue.

    But what I'm wondering is, If i were to put linux on it, would I be able to play some games through WINE?

    Anyone know from experience, or have an idea?

    It would be awesome if there is somehow a way get Counter Strike to run through WINE.

    I'm guessing it will probably be a no due to completely different architechtures of the CPU, but maybe it's possible?

    Anyone know from Experience, or have a general understanding about this?
  2. macrumors regular

    Mar 17, 2008
    I'm not sure how easy it would be to put Linux on it, but Wine 1.0 is finally released after 15 years of development, and I'm hearing that most windows apps run flawless, including Steam, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard games would run fine.

    Here is the list of compatible apps: http://appdb.winehq.org/
    These apps are just the couple top apps.

    Here is the download location: http://www.winehq.org/site/download
    Download the respective versions.

    Good luck.
  3. macrumors 68040


    Dec 19, 2004
    Wine or no the architecture is still PPC not x86. If Wine even function you would be emulating like with Virtual PC.

    You could run really old Windows games like Star Trek 25th Anniversary, The Lost Vikings and most 486 games if you emulated Windows through Virtual PC. You might even get away with some low end Pentium games.

    What it would be great for though is to play Classic Mac OS games. I don't recall if all G4 powerbooks can boot off of Mac OS 9, but you could find many games for the G4 through that route. Although many pre-system 7 games never worked for me in Mac OS 9. Even a few System 7 games where buggy like Duke Nukem 3D.
  4. macrumors member

    Jun 21, 2008
    My iMac G4 can boot into OS 9. I don't see why a PowerBook wouldn't be able to.

    I think all G3's, G4's, and G5's can boot into OS 9 and can emulate it if they're running 10.4.11 or lower.
  5. macrumors 68040


    Dec 19, 2004
    G5's can not boot into OS 9, they can use classic though
    The same goes with Firewire 800 model G4's.

    So since the Powerbook G4 ran well into the G5 era I am not certain if Apple stopped supporting OS 9 booting with any of the Powerbook revisions.

    This support drop could either be due to the lack of a hardware driver preventing OS 9 from booting. Or the more likely scenario the Mac's firmware just tells Mac OS 9 that it is not a supported machine and some hack may work to force it to boot.

    However looking at the apple-history.com page on the G4 Powerbooks the last Powerbook mentioned with Mac OS 9 as the minimum OS is the Powerbook G4 867Mhz/1Ghz 15" released in 2002. None of the 12" or 17" list OS 9 but start at 10.2 as the minimum as with all subsequent updates to any Powerbook. So they may not boot into OS 9 but I did not check further.

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