External firewire HDD to dual-boot Linux with OS X on a G4..

[crossposted]

Hi group,

I'm considering a LaCie Firewire 800 250GB D2 drive to hang onto my
PowerBook G4 17" purely to accommodate Mandrake Linux 10, with a
view to dual-booting alongside my existing OS X 10.3.3 internal drive.
Can anybody here please tell me whether this is a viable scenario?

I already have advice from elsewhere that this is possible in theory,
but before I buy new hardware it would be nice to know whether someone
has personal experience of successfully doing such a thing with this
drive. Does anybody have an alternative recommendation to achieve this?
Advocacy aside, this is simply as an exercise for my own satisfaction;
nothing to do with whether or not Linux is better than OS X. TIA

--
Steve Hall +++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR +++