At Spectre600's suggestion, I have installed the latest version of Ubuntu Mate on the dual Xeon system I had originally run Windows Vista Ultimate on (Vista is no longer receiving Microsoft support while this Linux LTS release will be supported for years).
Surprisingly, this is a really nice distro.
Stable, easier to use than Linux distros I have tried in the past, with a fantastic level of customizability.

It should be a nice alternative for the X5000 and our G5's (to MorphOS and OS4 when mainstream software is required).
Actually, it appears to be our BEST alternative (for an mainstream OS).

So..I'd like to post thanks to Spectre660 for his help.

Jim


[ Edited by Jim 04.05.2016 - 21:00 ]

Been using Ubuntu MATE for a while on amd64 and ppc and it runs really well on ppc if you have about 1 gig RAM and some G4 horsepower!

The only downside is that it seems to 'like' NVIDIA cards more than the AMD Radeons, whereas on MorphOS its the opposite. On my Apple G4, G5 machines (with the exeption of a PB 5,8) I have to add special boot parameters to get to the desktop.

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I hadn't heard from anyone else that the video card drivers for the Radeon HD cards were difficult to use ("have to add special boot parameters to get to the desktop").

I was thinking that I will try out Ubuntu Mate for PPC on my X1000, when I get time to set it up and play around with it again. I haven't set it up at the new house, so it hasn't been booted up since last year's Amiga30 and AmiWest 2015 events. Do you know if Ubuntu Mate for PPC supports certain Radeon HD video cards better than others, such as HD4xxx and HD5xxx, instead of HD6xxx & HD7xxx cards?

It sucks that Hyperion hasn't made faster progress toward completing AmigaOS4.2 with SMP (or their version of dual core support), and that it takes years for them to complete drivers and porting of AmigaOS4.x to the X5000 & Tabor boards, which seems to grind work on 4.2 to a halt (or what appears to be a halt, since they won't disclose what progress, if any, has been made toward finishing 4.2 for the X1000, or any other AmigaOne system. Sorry for wandering off topic, but my frustration with Hyperion flares up every time I think about my X1000.

[ Edited by amigadave 24.04.2016 - 12:55 ]

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My machines use Radeon 9650 (AGP) class hardware. That's 5 years before the Radeon HD series was released. On Linux the r300-driver is used. For Radeon HD cards r600 is used.

I don't know how well PCIe cards run. IMHO the should work more flawlessly since r600 still recieves regular updates.

You may ask specific questions at the Ubuntu MATE ppc thread:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2301608&page=22

Oh, I probably should have figured out what video card you are using by reading the thread more carefully.

Thanks for the advice, I will check the Ubuntu forums for further advice.

On Powerbook is Ubuntu a HORROR!

The best and fastest OS is MorphOS! YES!

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The closed driver has been depreciated in this version Dave (then again, it wasn't part of the PPC version anyway).
However, even using the open video driver I get frame rates that are almost identical to the same system with Win Vista.

And I had no problem with the driver.
It installed fine with the OS.

Right now the biggest issue I have is that I am not getting as high a resolution as I ought to.

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I think it is quite usable on a PowerBook! But yes, it is also a good standard of proof how much faster MorphOS is und how much better the out-of-the-box experience is on MorphOS.

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Until Ubuntu 12.02 works Ubuntu great on PowerBook (5.8). But Ubuntu 13.xx --> 16.06 (Beta) ist Ubuntu (Graphics) a blank horror.

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Ubuntu MATE 12 and 16 work on SAM460, x1000, x5000
Peg2 could be supported with some effort.

Yes, any Linux is great and this is Debian based.

Vanilla Debian + LXDE/XFCE is faaast but its good to have MATE finally on PPC

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Try Lubuntu or vanilla Debian

MorphOS is faster then MacOS X, but you will find
out its only Linux that brings you up to date.
Modern browsers of Choice (IceWeasel, Firefox, Midori ...),
modern audio, GIMP, InkScape, LibreOffice ...

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If you want something with the look of Ubuntu 12.04 you might try Ubuntu MATE 16.04 ppc or as vox suggested Lubuntu 16.04 ppc.

The graphics glitches and freezes are currently being worked on:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=95017
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71789

With the most recent r300-mesa patch OpenGL runs finally on my PowerMac G5! And with the correct boot parameters there are no more freezes.

Is Lubuntu fast enough for a Mac Mini G4?

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I've tried a 12.04 Ubuntu on my PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz laptop, but gave me a very unpolished experience. It was less nice to use, than on PC-s. Many things wasn't supported on PB. Finally I've removed from my computer, because I never used... It was much better to use MOS, even there are less programs.

For me works latest Debian Mate, on my MM and PB. Not so fast as MorphOS, but very usable (note: both machines with SSD drive).