UnderPOWERed
============
I spent two nights in unsuccessful attempt to install a Linux on my IBM
IntelliStation POWER 185. It's somewhat special system: it's a budged
one so it uses the same PowerPC G5 CPU that the last Power Mac G5s use.
Non-budged ones have POWER CPUs (so the 285 use POWER5+ CPUs). The poor
G5 is actually a desktop version of the older POWER4 CPU.
The evil is probably hidden in this CPU - most Linux distros assume
that the G5 system must be an Apple one and use it as such. But the
IntelliStationis not an Apple so it does not work. I have found some
reports that Debian 6 should work but it doesn't work for me. I also
had some hopes that the latest Void Linux should run on my 185. But it
does not - it even refuses to load the GRUB from CD (the same CD works
well in my iMac G5). I might try some older Fedora but I don't think
that it will be much better (I also found reports that Ubuntu 8.x of
older may work so I might try it, too).
But at the moment I lost my motivation to test it. It's a shame - I do
have a reliable and fast enough desktop computer which can be used but
there is no usable operating system for it... Even if some old Linux
distro will work, it will be too insecure to connect the machine to the
Internet.
In other bad news, the screen on my Toshiba Sattelite 110CT laptop is
probably dead (it show no image, only a white light) and I no longer
have a monitor which can correctly handle its external VGA ouitput..