At a very basic level; simply running Linux on the PPC architecture, including [Apple] Powermacs and so on.



(http://penguinppc.org/projects/hw/ List of Supported Hardware)



Has both a 32 and (http://penguinppc64.org/ 64bit) flavour, and is supported by most popular distributions - (http://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/ Debian), (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-ppc.xml?full=1 Gentoo), Mandrake, Red Hat, SuSE to name a few).



' nb couldn't find project page for Mandrake PPC, link below to ISOs



Reports are good for most wireless cards, as most i386 things can be tinkered with to work on PPC.





! Distros



* (http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2000/02/olh_ppc_machines.html Supported machines) for SuSE Linux - nb SuSE PPC doesn't seem to be available anymore



* (http://penguinppc.org/dev/kernel.shtml Latest Kernel Source)

* (http://penguinppc.org/ Penguin PPC)



* (http://www.yellowdoglinux.com YellowDog Linux) - a RedHat-like PPC port with a better(?) package manager, one of the most popular and better supported distros.  Preliminary support for G5s.  PPC only, no 68k version.  Available as a boxed set with manual or as ISOs.



* OpenBSD

** for (http://www.au.openbsd.org/macppc.html G3/G4)

** or (http://www.au.openbsd.org/mac68k.html 68k)



* NetBSD - the guts of OS X, runs on lots of hardware

** for (http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/macppc/ most PPC machines) inc G3s and G4s

** or (http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/mac68k/ 68k)



* Debian

** for (http://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/ PPC)

** or (http://www.debian.org/ports/m68k/ 68k)



* (http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3#others Mandrake) - PPC only



* (http://nubus-pmac.sourceforge.net/ Linux on Nubus Macs) - the first-gen pre-PCI Powermacs  6100, 7100, 8100 and compatibles, PowerBook 1400, 2300, 5300, Performa 5200, 6200, 6300.

Level of support varies ie 1400 has no Ethernet, PCMCIA



* Gentoo have (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-ppc.xml?full=1#book_part1_chap2 LiveCDs)



! Links



(http://groups.google.com/groups?q=linux/ppc+pcmcia&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&selm=linux-ppc.140D21516EC2D3119EE700902787664401439FE2%40hplex1.hpl.hp.com&rnum=6 Adding Wavelan/Airport/Cabletron/Enterasys PCMCIA support to Linux/PPC)



* (http://lowendmac.net/linux/index.shtml Mac Linux links)

* (http://www.eskimo.com/%7Epristine/unix.html Mac Unix) - list of distros and basic descriptions

* (http://web.espy.org/apple-flavored-unix/ Apple Flavoured Unix) - ditto

* Search for all known Linux distros on any platform (http://www.linux.org/dist/list.html here)