Max Riffner

The Parlor

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My Little Ubuntu

About 6 months ago, my friend Ben gave me his old iBook laptop before he moved out of town so I could play with it. I wanted to try installing Ubuntu and see if I could get a few more years out of the little guy.

However, Ubuntu had something else in mind, like dropping PowerPC support. There are still fans of having Ubuntu on old Mac hardware though, so I was able to find a suitable installation. It worked well, I have to say. It wasn’t as fast as I had hoped for, but it worked.

This week I upgraded to the latest Ubuntu version, and it did not work so well. Like, at all. So with a heavy heart I grabbed an old copy of Panther and went back to OS X.

I like Ubuntu. It’s free. It’s is extremely usable. Unfortunately, I’m not just using old hardware, but the old PowerPC processors were never a good fit in the realms of computing standards. It’s like putting a lawn engine mower on a bicycle instead of just buying a new car. Or even a used car.

I’m planning on getting a new MacBook soon, and I’ll definitely be able to install Ubuntu on that with no problem.

In the meanwhile, I’m enjoying being back on OS X for what is in reality my very first laptop (I’ve always been a desktop guy).

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