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..