Linux on the RS/6000 7043-140
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Distributions

These are my own recommendations based on personal experience and information received from others.

Debian

I have run Debian on my machine and it works very well. I had a few issues with the installer but that was some time ago and I believe these issues have been sorted out now.

SuSE Linux

Probably the best choice if you are looking for a commercially supported distribution. I don't believe that the 7043-140 is officially supported, however I know from personal experience that SuSE are very helpful when it comes to supporting the older RS/6000 machines.

NOTE: Please contact SuSE for an official statement on support for your machine.

The latest version of SuSE PPC that is available for download is 7.1. This can be installed and works reasonably well, but the installer is poor (IMO) and contains some bugs. If you want SuSE then I recommend you buy the boxed 7.3 version (that's what I did). The installer works a lot better and if you are lucky, it may install out of the box (sadly, it didn't for me). I have a walkthrough of installing SuSE 7.3ppc that may be of some use.

YellowDog Linux

This is a RedHat-based distribution for PowerPC. I successfully installed version 2.1 on my machine (because I happen to like RedHat). However, it was a struggle, and I would not recommend it unless you are an advanced user. I might have another go with 2.3 when it is available for download.

Red Hat Linux

Red Hat did release version 7.1 of their distribution for PowerPC but it is only for iSeries and pSeries, and there have been no updates since it's release. I'll admit I managed to install it on my machine, but I would suggest you contact Red Hat if you interested in it.

Tux on my 7043-140