MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 3,1, my second cMP

[DCBassman]

Saw it at a car boot/yard sale, and idly asked the price. Pristine, in original box, missing only peripherals and a hard drive.
£20! How could I pass that up?

Now, what to do with it...
Apart from attack it with a vacuum cleaner first, that is!

 

[DCBassman]

Specs:
8-core 2.8GHz dual Xeons
16GB RAM
Otherwise stock.
Have cleaned it and installed a 7200RPM 500GB boot drive, a 5900RPM 500GB Time Machine drive, and a 1TB 5900RPM drive as extra storage.
Just beginning the construction of an ElCap installer, and we're good to go.

 

[DCBassman]

And this post is written on the 'new' machine. Took a lot of fiddling to get a bootable installer onto a USB external drive, and then it wouldn't see the drive to boot from it. So took the SSD out of its case and hung it straight onto the SATA connector that was spare. That worked!

My only gripe so far is that this had no Airport card. Not that I'm complaining for a nearly-free machine, but I cannot get it to use a TP-Link Archer T2U ac dongle, even though the correct drivers are installed and the thing shows up under Network. It just says 'Not Connected' but doesn't show me how to connect. Hmmm...

 

[DCBassman]

OK, got that working now, so all set up! Very pleased with it.
What I must do soon is, despite a quick attack with the vacuum cleaner, strip it and clean it up properly, it desperately needs it...

 

[OS6-OSX]

"Strip it and clean it up properly"
If not done properly you will not be allowed in the 3,1 club! 😂

 

[DCBassman]

"Strip it and clean it up properly"
If not done properly you will not be allowed in the 3,1 club! 😂
View attachment 2212224

Very impressed! Mine certainly doesn't look like that...

 

[DCBassman]

And now patched up to Catalina!
I'm getting hooked on this damned Mac stuff...

 

[DCBassman]

Also, Catalina is on a fast SSD, so performance is vastly improved.

 

[DCBassman]

Back to El Capitan, albeit on the fast SSD. Catalina glitchy due to not having sufficient graphics power, I think. OK, High Sierra then. But I cannot get the patcher to work, or produce a bootable device that works on this machine.
I REALLY want this to run Linux Mint, but there appears to be no way to get it to see the USB installer, or a DVD either, come to that.

 

[OS6-OSX]

Use the Patcher by Dosdude1. Flawless!

 

[flat4]

or OCLP

 

[DCBassman]

Use the Patcher by Dosdude1. Flawless!

That's what I was using, giving it another try. But why no Linux? My iMac runs it flawlessly!

 

[DCBassman]

Right, after much wrangling (see 'won't boot linux live USB' somewhere nearby), I have it running Mint 21.1. Then, deciding that I'm less bothered about the boot screen than if I was running macOS, I whipped out the 2600XT and installed a GT1030. Much silence, and it works well. That adds up to a powerful Linux box. Happy!