Imac G3 running Xubuntu

[Codeless]

Hey, as my title implies, I have an old Imac G3 that is running Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) on it. It runs fine, loads into Xfce fine, but I still feel like it could be faster. I am new to Linux so pardon my noob language, but I was researching online and read something about changing the color depth from 24 to 16 in the .xorg file or something? It was confusing me so I decided this would be a good place to get some straightforward answers on what is being discussed in relation to the color depth. How can I change the color depth to best suit this Imac G3? And are there any other modifications I can do to make it faster? I do have network access via the imac btw.

thanks in advance for your help

[Rubberman]

How much RAM is in this system?

[Codeless]

How much RAM is in this system?

128 megabytes

[coopstah13]

thats low for xfce I think, especially on ubuntu which is not well known for being resource friendly

you should try a lighter WM, open/black/fluxbox or icewm

[Codeless]

thats low for xfce I think, especially on ubuntu which is not well known for being resource friendly

you should try a lighter WM, open/black/fluxbox or icewm

Ok keep in mind Im very new to linux. What is WM? lol. And would it work on the imac g3?

[Codeless]

thats low for xfce I think, especially on ubuntu which is not well known for being resource friendly

you should try a lighter WM, open/black/fluxbox or icewm

Ok keep in mind Im very new to linux. What is WM? lol. And would it work on the imac g3?

[vrkalak]

I too have an older laptop with a low RAM (195Mb)

I have tried installing both xubuntu and LinuxMint-Xfce ... and both were too heavy.

I can install any of the Linux OS distros with less than 400Mb ISO.files and the very low DE/WM

DE = Desktop Environment
WM = Window Manager

PuppyLinux with Xfce is OK
as is most any distro with Fluxbox, Openbox or JWM (Joe's Window Manager)

There is a list of the available WM/DE for Linux >> xwinman.org

Only problem, of course, is that the OS has to be installed before you can change the WM. You need to find an OS that uses one of these, by default. Most of the various PuppyLinux distros work.

[coopstah13]

I too have an older laptop with a low RAM (195Mb)

I have tried installing both xubuntu and LinuxMint-Xfce ... and both were too heavy.

I can install any of the Linux OS distros with less than 400Mb ISO.files and the very low DE/WM

DE = Desktop Environment
WM = Window Manager

PuppyLinux with Xfce is OK
as is most any distro with Fluxbox, Openbox or JWM (Joe's Window Manager)

There is a list of the available WM/DE for Linux >> xwinman.org

Only problem, of course, is that the OS has to be installed before you can change the WM. You need to find an OS that uses one of these, by default. Most of the various PuppyLinux distros work.

the only problem is we're talking about imac g3, which is powerpc processor, so this limits the number of distros you can install, which puppy is not one of them

[Rubberman]

I would suggest that you can install a G3-capable distribution and not start a window manager, but configure it to start a light-weight X desktop UI when you want. One of the reasons why OSX will run well on these systems is that a lot of the graphics code is in ROM, and Linux is unable to utilize that, resulting in a "fatter" operating system in order to handle the GUI.

[Codeless]

I would suggest that you can install a G3-capable distribution and not start a window manager, but configure it to start a light-weight X desktop UI when you want. One of the reasons why OSX will run well on these systems is that a lot of the graphics code is in ROM, and Linux is unable to utilize that, resulting in a "fatter" operating system in order to handle the GUI.

Ok what is X and what is UI? lol