Can you really take a nearly 25-year-old 800MHz G4 iMac and make it useful in 2025? In this video, I set out to turn mine into a Linux terminal to use as an interface for my home servers.

The process wasn’t simple, along the way I tested Debian 12 PPC, Adélie Linux (twice!), FreeBSD, and even macOS X Tiger before finally getting Adélie Linux to boot and run reliably.

If you’re into retro hardware, PowerPC Macs, or Linux tinkering, you’ll enjoy the journey (and the headaches) that came with breathing new life into this classic iMac.

Action Retro Video that helped setup partitions and boot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AArGaJGFVH4 Adélie Linux install guide https://git.adelielinux.org/adelie/docs/-/wikis/Quick-Start-Guides/Installation#manual-installation

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⏱️ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:20 Requirements for an OS 02:08 Debian 12 PPC 03:04 Adélie Linux Try 1 04:04 FreeBSD 04:58 OSX 10.4 06:10 Adélie Linux Try 2 08:13 It boots!....then melts 08:50 Finally all working!