Hello Sean,
As far as I can tell, there is a G4 PowerPC version of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS 
available. Otherwise you could look at Debian.
Some quick links I stumbled across:
http://jpmens.net/2011/07/20/linux-on-a-mac-mini-g4/
http://wiki.ppckernel.org/w/Mac_Netboot
http://ppcluddite.blogspot.de/2012/03/installing-debian-linux-on-ppc-part-i.html
On 18/09/12 18:48, Sean Gibbins wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> I am trying to install Ubuntu Linux (or any other flavour of Linux - 
> I'm fairly agnostic in this regard) on a G4 Mac Mini.
>
> However, I am struggling to get past the first hurdle, which is to get 
> anything other than Mac OS X booting when I start it up!
You have to install a bootloader of some kind, just like on a normal PC. 
Since this is a different architecture, you cannot use grub (although 
grub seems to be supported on the current Intel Macs). I used to have an 
old beige "old-world" Mac that ran MacOS 9, so I had to use a loader 
called BootX to load the Linux kernel. The way on new-world Macs (G3 and 
newer PPC chips) can be used with "yaboot" or something like that.
-- 
Regards,
Jan Henkins
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