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What To Do With an Old G5 Tower?

Posted by timothy on from the such-a-beautiful-exterior dept.

lunatic1969 writes "I've got an old G5 PowerPC tower that's sitting in a spare room not seeing much in the way of use. I'd like to stick a Linux distribution on it and maybe breathe some life back into it. I've got a few vague ideas — it might be a handy file server, streaming video for a security system, or simply just to have a spare box around. My question is therefore in two parts: First, are there any particularly creative projects or ideas anyone has for an old G5, and second and most important, which distribution currently offers the best support for this box?"

3 of 417 comments (clear)

  1. Old Games by painandgreed · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm keeping mine around to run games on, especially old classic games that have stopped working under newer versions of OS X or Intel chips. In addition to that, it might go to my photo studio as a browser and photo editing machine.

  2. Re:Audio Workstation/Recording Studio by jewishbaconzombies · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Bingo.

    I had the bottom of the line G5 for a time and had 2 other computers that had replaced it. Between Berkley and Emeryville, there were several studios and colleges for advanced audio. I think I got about 60-75% of what I paid for it. They didn't even haggle (and I priced a bit high for haggleability).

  3. Re:yellow dog linux still around? by beelsebob · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I couldn't agree more with this sentiment. The Powermac G5s all idle at around 150W, and most used about 600-700W under load. Left idle all year serving files it'll cost $150 a year just in electricity to run... All this for a slower machine than a MacMini, which doing the equivalent thing would use 10W.