Am I asking too much of this beast? (first post)

[kcfoxie]

Hello everyone,

So I've been impressed with the demeanor on this forum. It is unlike many other forums for other PPC distributions of Linux.

I've got to admit, I'm not -exactly- a noob. I'm not a total novice, but I'm certainly no professional here either. I've installed YDL4 (perhaps it was 5?) on an iBook, and that had to be the most painless install of any OS in my life.

Well, now I have an iMac, circa 2001, it's got Firewire and its that hot Ruby color with the translucent case. I'm pretty sure she's just 400Mhz... which the iBook on YDL was just 300MHZ and I was impressed with its speed.

My obvious questions are: I've elected to install 5.0.2 due to not seeing CD images for 6.0. I don't think this iMac has a DVD-ROM; however I could use the Combo drive in my little Leopard running 12" G4 Powerbook to boot the installer on the iMac if I had to.

1) Is YDL 6 a worthwhile upgrade on something with 320MB RAM?


I realize that Adobe abandoned the PPC Linux market when they got their hands on Flash. This is one of MANY reasons I cannot stand Adobe and don't like using their products. I'm also not that huge a fan of YouTube, when the fastest machine in my house is like a 1Ghz AMD system... the Macs are all PowerPC and sub-800Mhz.

2) SWFDEC or GNASH or both for YouTube compatibility? Is it even going to be worth it?

2a) What about the Firefox plugin to download the FLVs and play them in VLC?

And well lastly... this is a bizarre question that Google wasn't able to answer (the other two I've read a lot about on other forums, but I want YDL users thoughts since I've chosen YDL... since it installs and Ubuntu is a little cranky Debian whore in drag)....

3) Is there a method to Sync a Motorola or Apple iPhone to Evolution or any other contact manager using Yellowdog?

This latter one is likely the most important, esp. if there is a method to extract photos from an iPhone (emailing reduces quality). I'm about ready to just give up on the iPhone, to be the honest, nice device and all.. but I hate the whole it only works with iTunes bit. Plus, I really don't text that much, and I find that I have way more rollover minutes than I'll ever use... its just an emergency device to me. I use the camera more than anything else, and really, for $30 I can get a better 2MP camera with a flash. Ugh I hate being a consumerisitc American some days.


I appreciate all the insight. I know some of these are repeat questions that you're tired of answering. I'll admit I've been somewhat lazy in searching, and I must applaud the search function for YDL's forum.... A LOT more accurate than say Ubuntu

Cheers and thanks for the opensource answers!

[uncooldude]

Well, first of all, OMG,"Ubuntu is a little cranky Debian whore in drag"? LMAO. I'll have to keep that in mind, but, hey, isn't Debian still supporting the G3 PPC? So, what all is wrong with Debian? I haven't tried her out yet.

Second: I've got a g3 iMac with v. 5.0.2 installed on it. I think that, if your hardware is not specifically listed as being supported, you prob. won't be able to get 6.0 to work -- then again, I'm not even close to being an expert. i WILL tell you, if you have an IDE hard drive, and it's bigger than 120 GB, be careful. Your installation probably won't go too smoothly unless you know all the facts first. (If you want to install 5.0, and you run into problems, just ask me, and I can prob. help.). As for memory, I've got 320M installed, but when I first installed YDL, I only had 96M, and everything worked fine (although the default window manager, enlightenment, was pretty slow). Everything works fine, now. Unless you plan to use your computer for processor-intensive stuff like 3D gaming or flash design or movie editing, you should be fine with YDL 5.0.

As for 6.0: As far as I can see, Linux (and YellowDog specifically) is not the kind of operating system like Windows where, to upgrade to the new version, you have to blow up your motherboard and get a new vid card, just to support the GUI. Since both KDE and Gnome from version 5 work well with my old dinosaur, i think KDE and Gnome from v 6 will work fine for YOU...supposing that you're able to install version 6. Is it WORTH installing 6.0 instead of 5.0? I dunno. 6.0 has the same version of the GTK+ (which is a c++ framework for GUIs that is used by, among others, GIMP and Gnome) as v 5.0. It also has the same (or a close) version of KDE as v 6.0. So, I'm not too sure if it's "worthwile". Maybe somebody else will know, on that one.

As for Gnash: http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ states that Gnash supports many Flash 7 features, including streaming video, a la youTube. (it actually mentions youTube). So, it probably won't be a matter of compatibility, but speed. Some of the longer videos might slow down, I dunno. My old iMac seems to be fine, when it comes to running video, although I haven't been to youTube with it. (The iMac is more for development than surfing).

As for syncing an iPhone to Evolution using Linux...I found gtkpod (here's an article for the Ubuntu version -- there ARE rpms for Fedora-core available -- http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/04/2 ... th-ubuntu/ ). It works for extracting stuff FROM your iPod/iPhone/iTouch. i suppose, if you needed to pull your contacts from your iPhone, you could export them as XML, and I'm sure Evolution probably has some way of recognizing XML....but it all sounds like an involved process. If the iPhone thing is make-or-break for you, well...I would probably avoid it. Unless you're a real tinkerer, like me.

Lastly, don't be ashamed to be a consumeristic American. If you're trying to drive your 10-year-old iMac into the ground, like me, then you ain't really consumeristic.