OK, this is not really chipmusic-related, but I figured you guys would be able to give me a few tips from personal experience.
I've got a Lombard Powerbook (G3 333 mhz, 128 mb ram, 2GB HDD) I want to use solely as a typewriter.
I already have a more powerful clamshell iBook running Debian + fluxbox I've been using for that, but the battery is completely dead- which spawns a lot of clock-related errors upon booting- and the fan is getting increasingly noisy, and I now get more and more errors upon booting which makes me believe it's bound to die on me anytime soon.
The Lombard is already running Debian (Lenny), but without a GUI, because, well, 2GB HDD.
I could always swap it with the clamshell's (10GB), but cracking that beast open is a bitch, and I'd probably have to fix some stuff in Debian anyways.
Basically, I'd rather avoid messing with the hardware and want the simplest option possible - I only mean to use it as a typewriter anyways (I'm a writer, I have chronic tendinitis in both forearms and those keyboards are the ones that inflict the least pain BY FAR and it does make a difference between being able to type for only an hour or 3-4).
Here are the options I'm considering :
-Older version of Debian + fluxbox or blackbox
Pros+cons : my OS of choice, but installing it on a PPC always requires more work and I'm dealing with a French keyboard which always makes it a bitch in console mode (special characters like pipes and tildes aren't printed on it, you have accented characters instead) and harder to map properly. Also, not sure older versions are available on Debian servers (haven't checked).
-Mac OS 9
Seems like the instinctive choice, but would mean having to learn how to deal with it since I've never used it.
-Mac OS 10.1 or 10.2
Wondering if it'd be slower than 9.2.
Would probably be the easiest ones to use out-of-the-box for me since I've used 10.4.11 a bit.
And then...if I go for 10, should it be 10.1 or 10.2? Or even 10.3?! 10.4 won't run.
Thoughts/ideas/insults?