I haven't tried it but the consensus seems to be Yellow Dog Linux is good for modern Macs. I haven't tried SUSE Linux for PowerPC, but my experience with it on the x86 platform was only semi-satisfactory. The SUSE installation on my PC had lots of problems autodetecting hardware (with no such problems on a subsequent installation of Red Hat, not available for PowerPC of course). I never could get the DHCP networking thing working on SUSE and had problems with sound too.
So without putting too much weight on this recommendation since I've never installed either one on a Mac, I'd look first at YDL and then consider the new version of SUSE. Also there's a pretty substantial Linux for Mac section on the MacNN forums.
why use linux at all? drop the hundred geenbacks on the world's most advanced operating system (OS X). after all, linux is just a rip off of unix. and os x is gui on top of unix. therefore, you should get os x. the power of crist compells you. OS X is great, and will only get better.
<strong>why use linux at all? drop the hundred geenbacks on the world's most advanced operating system (OS X). after all, linux is just a rip off of unix. and os x is gui on top of unix. therefore, you should get os x. the power of crist compells you. OS X is great, and will only get better.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But what if you don't have a machine capable of running OS X? I use G4's at work where I run OS X, but at home I still have a 7200 and a 6500 and I can't afford a new machine yet. So running Linux on my old mac makes sense...
Oh, god!! Please don't mention using OS X to Scott. You guys must be new around here I personally don't have any recs about Linux for Mac, but let us know what you find out. I've got a G3 that's in need of a more modern OS than the OS 8.1 that's on it currently. Thanks.
I recommend YDL. I just tried Mandrake 8 and it blew, and debian isn't very user friendly, LinuxPPC is DOA, and I've yet to try SuSE.
YDL has great little touches... like support for power management ('pmud') and sleep, turning off trackpad tapping on powerbooks, etc.
Also, being RPM based, there's shitloads of either .src.rpm's or .ppc.rpm's. Or you can compile from source.
Linux flies, FLIES on my PBG3 250 w/ the lacking Ati Rage pro 4MB vram accelerator. Also, X, the screen drawing/keyboard/mouse layer for GUIs, is at version 4.2 and is ROCK SOLID stable on my YDL 2.0 powerbook.
And of course, some awesome free software. Galeon/Mozilla for hella fast web browsing, junkbuster for blocking ads/banners, squid for caching Domain Names locally, AbiWord/Open Office for M$ word compatibility.
Some prefer the KDE desktop, but I recommend Gnome because a)KDE looks like windows (albeit better/customizable) which is repugnant for a Mac user like myself, b)Gnome is financially backed by big players like Sun, c)if you use gnome, you can update both gnome and Yellowdog software using ximian's 'red-carpet', keeping packages current/stable/secure. <a href="http://www.stimuli.ca/linux/red-carpet.png"; target="_blank">http://www.stimuli.ca/linux/red-carpet.png</a>; Life is so much easier, as it handles all dependant packages as well. If you go with Gnome, go to ximian's site and follow their simple instructions. I'd also use the Duke University mirror (built in) option instead of ximian (for both the ximian gnome installer and red-carpet) as I get 150-200 KB/ sec on cable. (Well, except today) <a href="http://www.stimuli.ca/linux/rcdl.png"; target="_blank">http://www.stimuli.ca/linux/rcdl.png</a>;
Feel free to email me at stimulusresponse at hotmail.com for any troubleshooting/tips.
oh, and,
[quote]why use linux at all? drop the hundred geenbacks on the world's most advanced operating system (OS X). after all, linux is just a rip off of unix. and os x is gui on top of unix. therefore, you should get os x. the power of crist compells you. OS X is great, and will only get better.<hr></blockquote>
is laughably innacurate.
1) (nitpick) Linux is a kernel (like Mach, etc)
2)*BSD is != AT&T Unix
3) The 'original' Unix was invented in 1967. Do you really want a 40 year old piece of software running your box? A lot can happen in 40 years!
I've tried using Gnome, and it ran a lot of deeply ugly windows which sat badly with my windowmaker installation - in my mind, a much cleaner and nicer looking GUI. Ok, ok, I know one's a window manager and another's a......something, but there must be a way to get them not to interfere with each other - and to get Gnome to take up less of my screen space.
<strong>if u just need linux and a OS9 mac, and have about 150-250 to spare hop on ebay and find and cheap 604-cpu-using comp and install linux on that. or just buy OSX if u can</strong><hr></blockquote>
I already own a computer. Plus OS X sucks ... on my iMac.
uhm, I am not going to argue over whether Linux is good or whether OS X sucks, cause Linux is good and OS X doesn't suck, but ...
Linux is not just a kernel and Linux is far from UNIX [that is as far as one *nix can be from another ... ie, not far].
BSD was created at Bell Labs but was then sent out to Berkley and a bunch of other places. The guys at Berkley redid so much of it that none of the original code stands.
Since then a lot has happened to it, but rather than pitch the whole history I will just toss out a few things.
BSD is one side of the UNIX tree, Solaris is the other, this is not to say that all UNIXes are related to these two, although most are somehow or another, but that you can divide them all up and say that they are "fairly similar" to one or the other.
Linux comes from the Solaris side of the tree, Free BSD obviously comes from the BSD side.
Do I want something that has been made stable, fast, reliable, and happy for 40 years ...
Yeah, I do.
40 years of revision and improvement sounds good to me. All the people who say "this works in 9 and not X, so X sucks" should think about that, 9 is 17 or so odd years old. OS X is a 2 year old distribution of UNIX merged with an entirely new 2-3 year old system with parts of NeXT Step and Open Step intermingle ... not exactly lots of revision time ... so yeah, the fact that UNIX rules is very nice, no matter if your UNIX is BSD or Linux ... as both are closer to each other than Win9x to NT ... OS 9 to OS X ... or any Macintosh to any Windows PC ...
I like both Linux and OS X. And for the PPC the best Linux OS I have seen is YDL. For the Mac the best overall OS I have seen is OS X. YDL will be MUCH faster than OS X for the obvious reasons already stated many ohter places. Less resource Intensive, Less overhead, less monolithinc windows manager. Made to run on less hardware. OS X is better because no matter how good Linux is, it still cannot be easily used by my mother, my father, my grandma, or most of my extended family. OS X on the other hand is so easy to install and so easy to setup that a 9 year old, can, and has done it. WITH NO PRIOR EXPERIENCE. They are both good, for different reasons. All you linux junkies, use it, it is good. For everyone else. OS X is good, it is getting better, and if you don't like it, use 9 until you can't anymore and are forced to go to X. By then you will find it to likely be quite polished, even by your standards.
With the MacOnLinux thing, can I run SPSS 10? Right now, SPSS will not run in classic mode and I really dislike OS 9. Also, how much HD space does YDL take? I've got a 2 gig partition for 9.2. Could annihilate 9.2 and install YDL and MacOnLinux instead? Does it run 9.2 better than classic runs on X? Thanks.
Yeah, it SHOULD run, though it may not. Pretty likely that it would. In my experience, everything runs except sound stuff. IE Macast crashes on start up, but I can edit images in PS.
I just installed Yellow Dog Linux on my iBook 500 last night, and I am very pleased with it. Sound works way better than in OS X - the volume goes higher and it sounds better. Airport works, ethernet works, everything else works :cool:
I would suggest YDL to anyone looking to put Linux on their Mac. I especially like the boot loader - yaboot. No more startup disk control panel/preferences pane!!! All you have to do to switch OS is restart, then when the OS menu appears, press the letter of the OS you want. It's so easy now!
Comments
So without putting too much weight on this recommendation since I've never installed either one on a Mac, I'd look first at YDL and then consider the new version of SUSE. Also there's a pretty substantial Linux for Mac section on the MacNN forums.
<strong>why use linux at all? drop the hundred geenbacks on the world's most advanced operating system (OS X). after all, linux is just a rip off of unix. and os x is gui on top of unix. therefore, you should get os x. the power of crist compells you. OS X is great, and will only get better.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But what if you don't have a machine capable of running OS X? I use G4's at work where I run OS X, but at home I still have a 7200 and a 6500 and I can't afford a new machine yet. So running Linux on my old mac makes sense...
OS X runs like shit on my iMac. Plus if I get the Linux distro I get all my fav' unix apps precompiled.
I'm very very sick of OS 9 though. But X is too slow.
<strong>What who huh what's that OS X Ahhhhh!!!!!
OS X runs like shit on my iMac. Plus if I get the Linux distro I get all my fav' unix apps precompiled.
I'm very very sick of OS 9 though. But X is too slow.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yello Dog Linux.
[ 02-15-2002: Message edited by: macsrock ]</p>
I recommend YDL. I just tried Mandrake 8 and it blew, and debian isn't very user friendly, LinuxPPC is DOA, and I've yet to try SuSE.
YDL has great little touches... like support for power management ('pmud') and sleep, turning off trackpad tapping on powerbooks, etc.
Also, being RPM based, there's shitloads of either .src.rpm's or .ppc.rpm's. Or you can compile from source.
Linux flies, FLIES on my PBG3 250 w/ the lacking Ati Rage pro 4MB vram accelerator. Also, X, the screen drawing/keyboard/mouse layer for GUIs, is at version 4.2 and is ROCK SOLID stable on my YDL 2.0 powerbook.
You can also dual-boot w/ OS9, and/or run Macos inside linux. <a href="http://www.maconlinux.org/sshots.html"; target="_blank">http://www.maconlinux.org/sshots.html</a>;
And of course, some awesome free software. Galeon/Mozilla for hella fast web browsing, junkbuster for blocking ads/banners, squid for caching Domain Names locally, AbiWord/Open Office for M$ word compatibility.
Some prefer the KDE desktop, but I recommend Gnome because a)KDE looks like windows (albeit better/customizable) which is repugnant for a Mac user like myself, b)Gnome is financially backed by big players like Sun, c)if you use gnome, you can update both gnome and Yellowdog software using ximian's 'red-carpet', keeping packages current/stable/secure. <a href="http://www.stimuli.ca/linux/red-carpet.png"; target="_blank">http://www.stimuli.ca/linux/red-carpet.png</a>; Life is so much easier, as it handles all dependant packages as well. If you go with Gnome, go to ximian's site and follow their simple instructions. I'd also use the Duke University mirror (built in) option instead of ximian (for both the ximian gnome installer and red-carpet) as I get 150-200 KB/ sec on cable. (Well, except today) <a href="http://www.stimuli.ca/linux/rcdl.png"; target="_blank">http://www.stimuli.ca/linux/rcdl.png</a>;
Feel free to email me at stimulusresponse at hotmail.com for any troubleshooting/tips.
oh, and,
[quote]why use linux at all? drop the hundred geenbacks on the world's most advanced operating system (OS X). after all, linux is just a rip off of unix. and os x is gui on top of unix. therefore, you should get os x. the power of crist compells you. OS X is great, and will only get better.<hr></blockquote>
is laughably innacurate.
1) (nitpick) Linux is a kernel (like Mach, etc)
2)*BSD is != AT&T Unix
3) The 'original' Unix was invented in 1967. Do you really want a 40 year old piece of software running your box? A lot can happen in 40 years!
[ 02-13-2002: Message edited by: stimuli ]</p>
Little help?
<strong>if u just need linux and a OS9 mac, and have about 150-250 to spare hop on ebay and find and cheap 604-cpu-using comp and install linux on that. or just buy OSX if u can</strong><hr></blockquote>
I already own a computer. Plus OS X sucks ... on my iMac.
Linux is not just a kernel and Linux is far from UNIX [that is as far as one *nix can be from another ... ie, not far].
BSD was created at Bell Labs but was then sent out to Berkley and a bunch of other places. The guys at Berkley redid so much of it that none of the original code stands.
Since then a lot has happened to it, but rather than pitch the whole history I will just toss out a few things.
BSD is one side of the UNIX tree, Solaris is the other, this is not to say that all UNIXes are related to these two, although most are somehow or another, but that you can divide them all up and say that they are "fairly similar" to one or the other.
Linux comes from the Solaris side of the tree, Free BSD obviously comes from the BSD side.
Do I want something that has been made stable, fast, reliable, and happy for 40 years ...
Yeah, I do.
40 years of revision and improvement sounds good to me. All the people who say "this works in 9 and not X, so X sucks" should think about that, 9 is 17 or so odd years old. OS X is a 2 year old distribution of UNIX merged with an entirely new 2-3 year old system with parts of NeXT Step and Open Step intermingle ... not exactly lots of revision time ... so yeah, the fact that UNIX rules is very nice, no matter if your UNIX is BSD or Linux ... as both are closer to each other than Win9x to NT ... OS 9 to OS X ... or any Macintosh to any Windows PC ...
Now I have to get a bigger drive.
Edit: doh!
<a href="http://www.spss.com/"; target="_blank">http://www.spss.com/</a>;
Yeah, it SHOULD run, though it may not. Pretty likely that it would. In my experience, everything runs except sound stuff. IE Macast crashes on start up, but I can edit images in PS.
Give it a shot, it's free.
[ 02-15-2002: Message edited by: stimuli ]</p>
I would suggest YDL to anyone looking to put Linux on their Mac. I especially like the boot loader - yaboot. No more startup disk control panel/preferences pane!!! All you have to do to switch OS is restart, then when the OS menu appears, press the letter of the OS you want. It's so easy now!