[plug] linux4imac?

[Onno Benschop]

On Fri, 2003-06-20 at 16:55, michelle huma wrote:
> Geez Louise, feel like I need my own private Virgil here.  yellow dog & 
> gentoo & compiling my own software? realistically I doubt I will be able to 
> do that.  Ill go look at the websites though.
> M

ROTFL (Rolling on the Floor Laughing)

Ok, let me see what we can do for you. I'm a Mac-head from back in 1985,
so I think I should be able to assist - perhaps without resorting to
Geek-Speak along the way.

You stated in your very first message:

> I need to find Linux instal CD/s for my imac, the original all in one
> bubble type imac. At the moment it runs mac os 8.4 which is pretty
> much useless, cant even download shockwave onto it. 

Ok, I'm going to share with the list, as well as Michelle how I go about
answering her question - not because I'm trying to show how smart I am,
but because I've done it a zillion times before and its not hard.

First question I ask myself: What machine is Michelle talking about here
- there have been many iMacs and I can't really tell one from the other
anymore - members of the WA Macintosh User Group could, but then they
don't really know much about Linux... <http://www.wamug.asn.au/>

To get started, I need more information, so I do the following:

     1. Visit <http://www.apple.com/>
     2. Click on [Developer]
     3. Click on [Documentation] (under the Technical heading)
     4. Click on [Hardware] (under the Technologies heading)
     5. Click on [all Apple Computer Hardware] (under All Hardware
        Products)
     6. Click on [HTML] (next to Original iMac under iMac)
     7. Click on [Features] (in the table of Contents)

Now this tells me something interesting, it says that the original iMac
came with 32Mb of Memory and is expandable to 128Mb. It also says that
the iMac came with a 4Gb hard disk.

While Michelle specifically asked about a Linux install CD, she also
said that: "it's pretty much useless, can't even download shockwave"

Now reading between the lines I think that Michelle thinks that running
Linux will improve her user experience - which may or may not be true. A
simple question to ask of you Michelle is this:

      * How much memory has your iMac got?

To find the answer to this: Select About this Computer under the Apple
Menu and tell us what it says next to: "Built-in-Memory:"

The next question is:

      * How big is your hard disk and how much of it is free?

To find the answer to this: Click once on your hard disk icon, then from
the File menu select: Get Info -> General Information. (Or just press
Command-I). You'll be able to see how big the drive is next to
"Capacity:" and you'll find out how much space is free next to
"Available:"

I'm not going to go any further than this at the moment, because I'm
really not sure that Michelle really wants Linux at this stage.

So, over to you...

Onno Benschop 

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