[nJm]

I've got an old PowerMac 7200 that I'm starting to play around with. Currently it has OS9 on it however I've got a few old games that I really want to play on it, however they won't run and I've been told they work fine in OS 7. I'm also interested in mucking around with Linux so my question is, is it possible to have OS 7.5, 9.1 and something like Yellow Dog installed on an old mac like this?

I'm quite a newbie to the older OSs (used up to System 7 on an LC, then used PCs until OSX came out)

[alari]

I have ran linux on old-world macs (beige macs), you need bootx to boot linux on them, and it's gonna be quite slow, you cant run a desktio environment like kde or gnome, beacuse they are awfully slow on old machines like the oldworld macs are, for learning linux, youre better of with a more powerful machine, i dont thin it's worth the hustle, for a simple server or router, they are fine.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by nJm

I've got an old PowerMac 7200 that I'm starting to play around with. Currently it has OS9 on it however I've got a few old games that I really want to play on it, however they won't run and I've been told they work fine in OS 7. I'm also interested in mucking around with Linux so my question is, is it possible to have OS 7.5, 9.1 and something like Yellow Dog installed on an old mac like this?

I'm quite a newbie to the older OSs (used up to System 7 on an LC, then used PCs until OSX came out)

Yes. Put each operating system on a separate partition on the drive.

I have a 7600 with a 300 MHz G3 processor in it. It's running 7.5.5 on one partition, 8.1 on another, and 9.1 on another. Then use the Startup Disk control panel to switch among them.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by alari

I have ran linux on old-world macs (beige macs), you need bootx to boot linux on them, and it's gonna be quite slow, you cant run a desktio environment like kde or gnome, beacuse they are awfully slow on old machines like the oldworld macs are, for learning linux, youre better of with a more powerful machine, i dont thin it's worth the hustle, for a simple server or router, they are fine.

I ran Yellow Dog on my 7600, and it worked fine, even before the G3 card, and KDE/Gnome worked just fine. YMMV, though.

[alari]

Well, it depends on how demandful you are, you can run kde and gnome on them but it felt too slow for me, usually when i use linux or bsd, i use openbox as a window manager, or i dont use X at all, because i used to use linux for a desktop for 5 years and it kinda sucked, i switched to macos and use linux or bsd only as a server or router etc.

[tooki]

I wouldn't bother with Linux, but putting Mac OS 9 and System 7 on separate partitions is absolutely OK, and will work fine.

tooki

[nJm]

I've got a System 7.5.3 Disk Tools boot disk, do I use the utils on here to partition the drive? I'm guessing there's no way I can keep the current OS9 installation if I partition? Any programs like Partition Magic for classic mac?

[CharlesS]

One nice thing about the classic OS is that it actually supported having multiple System Folders on the same partition. So you could have one System Folder for 9 and one for 7, without having to repartition at all. Just rename one of them, or move it to a different folder. The catch is that you need to use a program that can bless the other System Folder so you can change which folder you'll boot from. The Startup Disk control panel that comes with 9 is able to do this, but the one that comes with 7 only lets you choose the disk/partition to boot from, so you'd need to find a piece of third-party software. I know such software used to exist, but the Info-Mac archive's search feature seems to be down right now, so I can't really get you a direct link...

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

One nice thing about the classic OS is that it actually supported having multiple System Folders on the same partition. So you could have one System Folder for 9 and one for 7, without having to repartition at all. Just rename one of them, or move it to a different folder. The catch is that you need to use a program that can bless the other System Folder so you can change which folder you'll boot from. The Startup Disk control panel that comes with 9 is able to do this, but the one that comes with 7 only lets you choose the disk/partition to boot from, so you'd need to find a piece of third-party software. I know such software used to exist, but the Info-Mac archive's search feature seems to be down right now, so I can't really get you a direct link...

Technically you can do this, yes. But I've seen software that can really screw things up in this fashion. If you're going to run multiple old classic operating systems, the best way to keep things separate is to use separate partitions.

[osxrules]

Maybe try Ubuntu for the Linux side:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/

You can get a LiveCD so that you can just burn the system to disc and boot from it. That way you will see how fast or slow it runs and if it's worth using and you don't need to install it.

If you have a faster machine, with OS X, I'd use an emulator for playing old games and take a hammer to the 7200:

http://www.pure-mac.com/emu.html

I play hundreds of old SNES games on my Mac Mini: Donkey Kong, Mario, Out Of This World, Mega Man X, Lemmings, Worms (as in predecessor to Worms 3D), Killer Instinct, Bomberman, Flashback, Bust-A-Move, Earthworm Jim, Frogger, Cool Spot, Looney Toons, Micro Machines, Shanghai, The Simpsons, Sonic (yes, they made a SNES version but you get Sega emulators anyway), Street Fighter, Star Wars, Tetris, Top Gear, Zelda, Yogi Bear and more all at lighting fast speed.

I even got Gran Tourismo 2 running under the recently ported PCSX emulator. Connectix Virtual Game Station was the best though. I even got Metal Gear Solid to work perfectly with that. It's such a shame they didn't make an OS X version.