Problems installing linux on an old iMac G3

[badbit]

I have an old iMac G3 (333 mhz, 256 mb RAM, 160 GB HD). I used it to listen to music and online radio, but it's so limited now that I wanted to install a lightweight linux distro to bring it back to life.

I've tried a number of distributions and none of them work. At first they booted from CD and then said that they couldn't mount the filesystem. So I erased the MacOS X partition and reformated the drive with the UNIX filesystem. Still, every distribution I've tried crashes when trying to boot the kernel (Yellowdog, Slackintosh, Xubuntu, FreeBSD).

The last one I tried was Finnix, and when I tried to boot the kernel the following message appeared:

cd:2,/boot/linux: Unknown or corrupt filesystem.

I can't even use fdisk as no distribution will boot. I don't want to do anything fancy with my iMac, I just want a bash prompt and some basic tools like vim and ssh. Any ideas?

[jayd512]

Hello and Welcome!

I've never played with a G3, but perhaps a minimum Debian install would be what you're looking for.

[badbit]

I just tried Debian Minimal. It presents me with the "boot" prompt, I type "install", then it shows:

Please wait, loading kernel. . .

And after what appears an eternity, it shows:

Read failed.

And goes back to "boot:" That has happened with every distribution I have tried.

I'm burning then on a CD-RW, could that be the problem?

[jayd512]

If you're using the same disc each time, you might try a fresh one.
Also, check the following link for some tips on checking the md5sum and burning your disc.

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ins...ll-cd-dvd.html

[badbit]

Can't believe the CD-RW was the problem, I have just booted Finnix!

Thanks for your time.