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Mandrake Linux 8.0 Final Released For PPC 178

Posted by timothy from the ibooks-look-ever-sweeter dept.
rstewart points to this press release, writing: "Mandrake has released version 8.0 final for the PPC architecture. Now Mac users have a choice of distributions between Mandrake and Yellow Dog. Now if only we could easily buy parts and build them cheap in our basements. " And PPC choices already include SuSE, LinuxPPC, Debian, NetBSD and more.
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Mandrake Linux 8.0 Final Released For PPC More

Mandrake Linux 8.0 Final Released For PPC

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  • Where is RedHat? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ^me^ ( 129402 )
    Seeing as Mandrake, LinuxPPC, YDL, and Black Lab are based on RedHat's packages and packaging system, where is RedHat in this area?
    • IIRC, Yellow Dog is based on Redhat's early work to port Linux to the PPC architecture. That's why it's based on rpm.
    • For the sorts of battles that RedHat is off to fight, the Intel space is plenty big enough, and getting bigger by the day.

      Regardless of whether or not RedHat is doing it, or YellowDog, or Mandrake, Linux itself is still being ported to yet another architecture.

      That's good news, no matter how you look at it.
    • Redhat specifically, "licensed" (*grin*) their products (rpm, up2date etc) to yellowdog for the purpose of handling the PPC linux area. Thats cool beans imho since you pretty much get red hat reliability for your Linux PPC needs (besides we wouldnt want to overwork the boys at RH as they climb the corporate ladder right? :). Im not sure but i dont believe mandrake works jointly with Redhat for either their linux intel/ linux ppc ports

      Later
      -The Hog

    • I'm sorry to say that but our distribution is no longer based on RedHat distribution (since a long time).
    • yellow dog is very closely based on RH... if i recall, to the point that if you look at some of the conf files, they're ripped right from RH
  • It's always nice to see distros that don't focus only on Intel processors.
    Portability is one of the major strength of free software.
    • But will this be of any use of a commercial company ? I doubt that there are so many Mac owners who want to switch to linux. At least not the right amout to get the costs for creating the distro back. O.k. they might do this for karma. And being Nietzsch I must point out that using distros is for the weak, you will never make a decent Übermensch when you don't use linux from scratch.

      • Re:Nice ! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by connorbd ( 151811 )
        Maybe, maybe not. But a quick glance through /. will tell you two things:

        -/.ers love PPC hardware and would love to see more of it
        -Not every Mac user is a six-colored-fire-breathing zealot. The ability to run something other than MacOS on Mac hardware is a selling point (a weak one, yes, but still a selling point).

        On top of that, the PowerPC chips in theory are better than the Intel chips -- less power usage, more orthogonal instruction set, and a few other niceties. The only problem with them is Motorola.

        /Brian
  • Does it run on a Titanium PowerBook G4? Supporting the hardware properly, that is.

    If it does, I definetly know what my dream machine is.

    Any owners out there wanting to mess up their machines?
    • Yes it will work - the G4 IS a PPC architecture. Co-workers have (I think) LinuxPPC running on their machines, everything from Titanium PowerBooks to dual processor towers.
    • I don't know about the Titanium G4 but it runs very nicely on a "Lombard Bronze" G3 Powerbook and also rather well a dual 533 G4...
    • Yes, it works. And it was partialy developed on Titinanium. And the computer on which I'm writing these lines is a Titanium (very nice computer :).

  • Not for newbies (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jchristopher ( 198929 ) on Monday August 27, 2001 @03:17PM (#2222506)
    As a newbie, let me just say that if you are just getting started with Linux, PowerPPC is not the place to go. You should stick with x86.

    There are just too many flaky things needed on various systems... whereas with RedHat 7.1 it was boot off the cd and you're done.

    I know someone will post about how the cds are bootable on Mac, too, and they are, but it just isn't the same. On the old world macs you have to make a fake system folder on a partition... it's a big old mess.

    Newbies have enough to worry about without throwing PPC specific issues into the mix - if you have experience, however, PPC is a nice platform.

    • That's odd. On my Old World Macs I did just insert the CD and boot. Simple really.

      I do agree that it may not be the easiest platform to start out on with Linux. It is much easier than Alpha or Sparc though; you've got to give it that. It's not terribly difficult to master. You just have to be Linux-competent enough to be able to compile your own software sometimes. You also have to understand that not everyone programs in a portable way. You also have to understand that PPC development is usually 2nd priority or lower for many developers. Not everyone understands this. Also not all hardware works in PPC Linux variants. That's a pain. Personally I have numerous PPC-based servers (pre-G3 Macs mainly) that run flawlessly with LinuxPPC. Then again I'm also not a newbie. :-) YDL and LPPC have made great strides towards making PPC Linux very user friendly, at least on default installations. They sure beat RedHat to the punch on that one.

      • It is much easier than Alpha or Sparc though; you've got to give it that.

        WTF? Figuring out SCSI chains and figuring out obscure SRM firmware commands were part of what made installing Linux FUN on alpha!

        Oooh how I long to install Milo again.

        On a more serious note, FreeBSD was a dream to install on the old Alpha Stations. Muuuuuuch easier than installing Linux.

        Incidentally, I've found OpenBSD easier to install on PPC than Linux on PPC. YMMV.


        -Peter

      • I didn't have as easy a time with NewWorld Macs. I was forced to use yaboot/Open Firmware instead of the simpler BootX.

        However, I hear that multibooting to other OSs on the PPCs is easier nowadays, although I have yet to try it out.
    • Sorry, you are totally wrong.

      Linux on PPC might be extremly complicated and mind confusing to install, but this is the reason why linux newbies should solely use linux on PPC. The steep learning curve will grow their brain and their linux powers making them Überadmins in no time.
      Everything that doesn't kill us, make us just stronger.
      And, in fact, you must agree that, unless there are some really rare and strange circumstances, linux doesn't kill you, even on a PPC.
      • I have to slightly disagree with you and go with the posters view. I was until recently a linux ppc newbie after having purchased an Ibook. One of the major PPC/linux issues i think is the fact that Linux PPC is significantly behind Linux intel support wise. What i mean by this is that driver support, platform specific support for mac hardware and software respectivley, isnt as close to the level it is for Intel linux. I for example spent at least 3 weeks wrestling with the installation process of LinuxPPC (the distro) after giving up and discovery yellow dog server (which i abandoned and eventually bought the shelf copy because of other miscellenous issues), then another couple trying to get version 4.1.0 of xfree to compile. Im comparing this to being able to install Redhat, slakware and other distros right out the box on an intel machine. Sure it isnt impossible but linux OS can be pretty complex itself and having installation problems is sure to frustrate and discourage certain people without your level of tech savvy. A complete linux newbie probably doesnt need to wrestle with something typically trivial as the installation process when there are a slew of other linux specifics to learn and master. Hell, linux intel installs on the majority of x86 machines out of the box (including the various laptops and proprietery servers) with no issues. Thats just because of its level of maturity. I have no doubt that Linux PPC with quickly achieve this level of interoperbility especially with the lower cost of mac hardware today. Meanwhile linux newcomers are better off spending their time mastering the linux os itself and then get a feel for using it under other architectures.
    • Because all the macs are all the same, installing and useing PPC linux's is way easier then x86's. You dont have to hunt down drivers for your mysterious lableless bargan bin PC hardware, you just install it and away you go. I personaly have installed every ppc linux dist and x86 dist i could get my hands on (on various hardware) and the mac hardware is far easier then the x86 stuff.
      • Dude you have:

        * new and old world roms the require different boot loader installations

        * Variating mac hardware without support for certain features (For example, later model ibooks (pre ib2) with no SOUND support, no touchpad tap support)

        * Lack of PPC specific binaries which means you have to compile most software from source and THEN deal with compiler specifics that were meant for intel the intel architecture.

        And i wont even mention the loss in performance for software packages that were optimized on intel platforms that you (usually) get because of hacks and tweaks you have to do to even get it to RUN on your mac platform. Now your saying a linux newbie should have deal with all that initially? I think not. Dont get me wrong, everyone's different and some people enjoy different levels of punishment but personally i can honestly say that if i were initially exposed to a PPC version of linux (years ago when such a thing was virtually non existant no less) i would have been extremely discourged with the linux OS. Im not knocking PPC linux at all but speaking strictly from my experience trying to get it to run on my own mac hardware (which i managed to do succesfully after much research and fiddling, and am quite pleased :).

    • Re:Not for newbies (Score:3, Interesting)

      by lizrd ( 69275 )
      Several people have made a point to strongly disagree with you here. I'm going to have to throw in my two cents in agreement. Not only is the installation more difficult on a PPC than it is on a x86 (given a newbie oriented distro anyway), but many features that Mac users might expect are going to be missing.

      Despite the fact that the most popular PPC distros are Red Hat based and use rpm there are very few .ppc.rpm files avaliable on freshmeat. People with more *nix experience may prefer to compile and install themselves, but newbies almost certianly don't. Add to that the fact that anything that avaliable for Linux in binary only form (Loki games, browser plugins etc.) isn't avaliable for PPC and you leave the former Mac user with the impression that Linux is a very limited operating system.

      • What newbies are going to be getting packages from freshmeat, though? There are plenty of systems, x86 and PPC, that are installed with a variety of packages off the installation disk, and left at that.

        Sure, there might be some problems with some hardware, but you find the same thing with x86 machines as well. I tried installing RHL 6.2 on a Dell PIII, and I still haven't figured out how to get X to start up in any mode larger than 320x256 or something ridiculous like that. Plug'n'Play, yeah right. Installing LinuxPPC on an APS Mac clone (equivalent of a Starmax machine), the only problem I had was that it wouldn't use the 2nd video monitor.

        I do think that the initial bootstrap solutions to the New World architecture machines weren't very good for machines that weren't going to be dual-booted; having to install a Mac partition in order to boot Linux isn't nice. However, Quik still works on New World machines, as far as I know, and is fairly easy to use (certainly no more difficult than configuring Lilo)

      • I have never installed Mandrake, but I can tell you that YellowDog is a snap to install. The only problem I have is with my Epson printer. I will wrestle that to the ground soon.
      • I would not say that compiling is at all harder than rpm's. When I started using Linux I had never really used a CL. When I decided to learn it I put it on a box and started. My friend told me about tar to unpack the archive and said look at the README and that;s it. I really haven't found anything that can't be taken care of by that, and most of the time a ./configure && make && make install is as easy as rpm -i.

    • Re:Not for newbies (re installation) (Score:4, Informative)

      by Laplace ( 143876 ) on Monday August 27, 2001 @04:20PM (#2222774)
      It's not for newbies any more than Linux on I86 wasn't for newbies a year ago? Here are the steps for installing SuSE Linux PPC on a mac:

      Reformat your hard drive. You need an hfs partition (not hfs+) to install the boot loader on. This is a good place to put OS9 if you want to run Mac on Linux.

      Install Linux. This includes setting up your swap, root, and other partitions.

      Install yaboot (a lilo like program) onto the hfs partition. Configure yaboot. No worse than lilo

      Set up the open firmware to boot lilo (not too hard), or set up the open firmware for dual boot. Dual booting is the hardest part, although there are some tools that automate the process. I dual boot so I can play with OS X. Mac on Linux meets all of my OS9 needs.

      The distributions keep getting better and better. GCC is a general purpose compiler, so it generates general purpose (real slower) code on almost every platform. I've been using some flavor of PPC Linux for almost 2 years now, and find the platform to be very mature.

    • But then again all new PPC Macs use the New World approach, and all other non-Apple PPC machines make use of OpenFirmware. There is also enough of a support community to get you through the hurdles.

      Newbies shouldn't have to worry about x86 specific issues either. You are likely to run into just as many problems with your x86 depending on the hardware in your computer.
    • Now, that's a statement I have a hard time understanding. If a newbie has a Mac, which is supported by a specific distro, how is that going to be harder to install? There's no real worry about a machines being toomuch different from its factory specs because it's a Mac - Apple controls the hardware from the top down, which means, if anything, it is easier to handle the install on a Mac than on an x86 box. For example, I've installed MkLinux DR 3 (1998), LinuxPPC 2000 & 2000 Q4 (2000, obviously), and Yellow Dog Linux 2.0 (2001) on my 6500. All installed with no problem. However, at my previous workplace we installed Mandrake 7.1 on a recent Dell OptiPlex and the damn thing choked on the odd variant Adaptec SCSI card we had to interface with the CD burner. It took us two weeks to finally get that working properly, and then the thing choked on a driver for something Dell installed.

      I've never had a problem with installing Linux on a Mac, and, in 1998, I was a newbie dropping himself into a pretty archaic Red Hat installer, and I still understood what I was doing (even got the hang of pdisk after a couple of tries). I think stating that Mac Linux distros aren't for newbies is not making an educated satement...

      • You're right, installation should be straightforward due to the consistency of the hardware.

        The bulk of the problems are after installation, though. Newbies usually aren't experienced compiling software. If it's not included, or available as an PPC .rpm, they're out of luck.

        Even if you can get the source, sometimes it doesn't work right due to PPC specific issues. It's hard enough learning to acquire, compile, and install software on x86, let alone on PPC when you might do everything "right" but something still doesn't work.

  • This signifies even more choice for the long stomped-upon Macintosh user. Apple makes a very good hardware platform for Linux, with its superior G4 processors.

    Linux already has more market share than MacOS, but what a great victory it will be when Linux has more market share among Apple users than MacOS does!
    • I'll be amused when enough people are using Linux on Mac hardware that they start to complain about not being able to buy a Mac without an OS.
      • The comparison to Windows licensing isn't very useful. Apple doesn't charge you separately for the OS that comes with the machine, unlike Windows licensing which is a separate purchase from a company separate from the manufacturer.

        However the point should be made that current Macs (and many old ones) can now boot straight into LInux without entering MacOS at all.
        • True, Apple doesn't charge you separately for the OS that comes with the machine, because Apple is selling you a "Unit". One working Apple machine.

          By the same token Gateway (or Dell, etc.) is selling you a Unit of one working MS machine. The price difference is what it (theoretically) costs them differently to bundle it with NT/9x/ME/W2k/etc.

          The only real difference is that if you want to build your own Intel machine you can buy the parts and assemble it yourself (because the industry commoditized) which also entails the OS, versus PowerPC machines which have much few choices, and include an OS bundled. Of course the higher prices you pay for a Mac can be justified by a stable PC, good support, compatability, etc....

          But you're right, Comparing Windows to Mac licensing isn't very useful (g-d help for saying this, but...) with Windows, you have a choice.

          ;)

          (lots of different flavors of MS-OS, build your own, buy a 'naked' PC and install BeOS/Linux/Solaris x86/etc)
          • "Of course the higher prices you pay for a Mac can be justified by a stable PC, good support, compatability, etc.... "

            Well, I guess this was just someone trolling, but oh well:

            I'm sorry, but a mac is no more stable than a PC. in fact, much less so. There are a few models on the Apple product line that are stable as hell, and then you have a few that are just plain shit.

            Then there is dell and gateway's managed platforms. which pretty much blow apple out of the water in stability, performance, and price.

            And now that you mention support, you can pretty much mark Apple off your top 3 when it comes to that. If you consider support to be > 1week turnaround times on repairs, $50 CC charges to schedule a WARRANTY repair with their tech support, etc, then i guess you can say Apple has it all. But they cant even touch the repair speed of dell and gateway. Not only that, but they break less often (its called testing, something apple doesnt do much of. want proof? Just take a look at apple's TiBook, which only goes up to 50 ft with airport card, and the origional iMac's lifespan, and the PB G3 wallstreet's lifespan)

            Now you go on to compatibility. welp, we all know you are an idiot now, so you might just want to stay quiet on this point.

    • just curious, but why would you rather run Linux on the Mac rather than OSX or a *BSD?

      it seems like such a waste. especially with their really really kewl GUI now...

      • Re:this is great! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by connorbd ( 151811 )
        Not everyone likes MacOS. Seems as though everyone (around here anyway ;-) ) likes Mac hardware, or the potential thereof. QED.

        What we need is to get Linus using a G4 (yeah, right) and bury the hatchet with Paul Mackerras, and then convince someone, anyone, to start shipping commodity PPC mobos (doesn't have to be, probably shouldn't be, in fact, Apple).

        /Brian
        • They do make ppc mobo's, they're just very expensive. I think "they" (lazy, yes) just sell plans for the PCB layout. You make PCB's then add the chips.

    • Re:this is great! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Phroggy ( 441 )
      Linux already has more market share than MacOS, but what a great victory it will be when Linux has more market share among Apple users than MacOS does!

      It won't happen. The Mac OS is the primary reason why I'm running PPC hardware to begin with. On top of that, why would you uninstall Mac OS X (with a FreeBSD-based userland) in favor of Linux?

      Linux may become more widely used than Mac OS/Mac OS X, but not on PPC hardware.
  • I finaly have a use for that Motoroloa StarMAX pc I hijacked a year ago. It may be slow, but at least I can still buy components for it. Good ol' Apple.

  • Yeah yeah, BSD is dead (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Seriously, if you really want a Unix-like OS on the G4, you already have OSX. BSD based and all that good stuff.

    Why would you want Linux on there, aside from the lack of good software and geek factor?

    • Re:Yeah yeah, BSD is dead (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I had to replace an OS X Server box with Yellow Dog because the AFP was completely instable under OS X Server. We spent about 300 bucks in Apple Care support before giving up. I installed Linux + Netatalk and haven't had a single complaint since.

      Note that this was over a year ago, so OS X Server was completely different than OS X today. OS X server back then was based on Rhapsody/NeXT, not Darwin/BSD. There wasn't even a pretty Aqua GUI back then.

      But today, I really can't see a viable reason to choose Linux over OS X on Apple hardware. All the GNU tools are being ported [gnu-darwin.org] and OS X actually has decent web browsers, printer support, multimedia, GUI admin tools, and loads of other goodies built in.
  • My iMac is blue, so I don't think Yellow Dog or Red Hat would work, what distribution is approved for blue iMacs?

  • Mandrake offers the most up to date PPC RPMs (Score:4, Informative)

    by Curious__George ( 167596 ) on Monday August 27, 2001 @03:26PM (#2222556)
    If you are a linux on PPC user, you owe it to yourself to try Mandrake. When I'm looking for RPMs to install, one of the things that normally bums me out is that the ppc.rpms are WAY behind the i386-i586 rpms (in versions available). Check out the RPMFINDER database [rpmfind.net] if you don't believe me. The most recent versions are almost ALWAYS available from the Mandrake/Cooker project. I think these guys deserve our support!

    (Linux is a great way to put older Mac Hardware to use!) Mandrake offer's great online installation instructions [linux-mandrake.com], too! Also, check out the Mandrake Linux PPC 8.0 FAQ [linux-mandrake.com] (it says "beta", but applies to the more recent releases, as well.)


    Curious George

    • Linux is a great way to put older Mac Hardware to use!

      Can I just say that it is also a great way to put *NEW* Mac Hardware to use. I installed LinuxPPC on my Titanium Powerbook G4 and it rocks. You wanna put Dell Notebook Linux users to shame. Show them how you can triple boot Mac OS 9, Mac OSX, and Linux on a Tibook (using yaboot). And how you can run Mac OS 9 in an X window using MacOnLinux and then bring up Virtual PC to run Windows. All that plus an awsome screen and formfactor makes for some jealous x86 users.

      Well I guess I'll shut up now and wait for the mod down from the anti-PPC people.

      • My office is getting me a G4 Powerbook (I opted to wait to see what improvements the September announcements bring), so I'll have to try that. Sounds extremely cool. Makes me think of a Swiss Army Knife.

        Hey! Wouldn't that be a cool idea for Apple and Victorinox [victorinox.com] to get together and offer a G4 Powerbook in the Swiss Army Red (replace the apple logo with the Swiss white cross?) Too cool. It would be a win/win for both companies!

        I am a marketing GENIUS! hee hee!

        Curious George

    • Hey, when I try to install over my old partition, the installation quits. I've looked, but I can't find anything on how to get around it.
    • Perhaps I should mention that debian treats ppc pretty much the same as i386, which means stable doesn't have up to date packages, but if you go testing or unstable you get pretty much the same packages as i386, all but the buggy codes that won't compile due to endianness issues or stuff like that. But even those packages are often ported over (with bugs fixed) eventually, since they can't get into testing if they won't compile on all supported platforms.

      I'm sure the mandrake install is easier than debian's, though...

  • I've used Linux on x86 for quite a long time, and it's great. I've also used Solaris and SPARCLinux on SPARC cpus for a while as well, and those both perform quite well. So my question is, do PPC's perform anywhere near the speed of SPARC processors? They are both RISC processors, so the general principles are the same. I've got a possible source for a PPC machine, and was planning on using it solely for PPC Linux. I just wanted to know what I should expect. Which processor is the slowest you'd want to use a GUI with, things like that. I just don't want to waste my time putting PPC Linux on a Mac that's the equivalent of a 286, since that wouldn't be usable to me.

    • Re:PPC Linux questions (Score:3, Informative)

      by Noer ( 85363 )
      Well, the very slowest PPC made (601 at 60MHz, circa 1994) was still far faster than a pentium 60.

      That machine won't run LinuxPPC though; a 100MHz 601 in a 7500 is probably the minimum.

      That's about like a pentium 120.

      What's the machine you're going to run it on? I think you'll be pleasantly surprised... a 300MHz G3 runs Linux quite fast... and that's basically an iMac. I'm not sure where it'd stack compared with a Sparc (which Sparc? Ultra-IIi 400MHz is one thing; an old Sparc Classic is quite another).
      • Nope, I've had linux on my 7200/75 off and on for years. I was working on compiling LFS for it, but I got sidetracked, and I burned YellowDog 2.0 yesterday, and will probably install it today. Of course, this is just to have a system from which I can compile LFS!
      • I've seen and used both Ultra-IIi 400Mhz, and my spiffy Sparc-Station 10, which I believe is a SuperSparc. The Ultra-IIi 400 was very fast and responsive. Made my PII at the time look like a snail when it came to heavy workloads. But, I guess that's to be expected when the architecture is designed for that. :)

    • I've run LinuxPPC R4 on my beige G3 (266 MHz, 64 MB RAM) before, and was extremely impressed. It was highly responsive, and seemed quite capable of saturating my 100 Mbit Ethernet connection when I was testing. I will admit that I eventually removed it because I missed the Mac OS interface too much, (and am about ready to move to OS X, so probably won't go back to Linux on my Mac), but I have only good things to say about Linux's PPC performance.

      They are both RISC processors, so the general principles are the same.

      This isn't your fault, it's the fault of marketing drones, but the PPC really isn't a RISC CPU. It does take some RISC concepts--for example, it has many registers (32x32bit integer and 32x64bit floating point registers on all PPC CPUs, and 32x128bit vector registers on the G4), all instructions are 32-bits in length, the chip was designed to enable things like OOO from the start, etc. However, the PowerPC actually has just about as many instructions as an Intel chip. In fact, IBM redefined RISC to mean "Reduced Instruction Set Cycles" when they decided they wanted to advertise the PPC as a RISC chip. (See http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/jbayko/cpu.html#Sec5Pa rt3 [sympatico.ca] for details.) (As an example, the G4's AltiVec unit adds 160 new instructions for SIMD ops. It's really hard to call the G4 a RISC chip anymore even if you do consider the G3 one.) So I wouldn't exactly group the SPARC, which last time I checked doesn't have a multiply instruction in its standard spec, with the G4, which has an instruction that means "add these eight integers to those eight and then multiply them all by this constant" as a standard opcode.)

    • I have a Motorola Starmax (604e 200MHz) running SuSE and a Sparcstation 5 170 MHz running Sparc linux. In CPU intensive applications (Gimp, Setiathome etc) the Starmax is about 3 times faster than the SS5. The SS5 is slightly newer than the Motorola, however, that particular model was the last sun4m ever made. sun4u machines were already being made when the SS5 170 was released.

      If you are used to running fast ultra's then a two or three year old mac will seem slow, if youre used to older ultras or sun4m's then a G3 or 604e will perform nicely in comparison in general desktop use.

      Mandrake linux will not run on any machine that is the "equivalent of a 286". The slowest PCI powermac (required for PPC linux) is nearly Pentium II class....So you shouldnt be dissapointed.
  • I mean, all the hard work is done by IBM in
    this [ibm.com] document.

    A free Open PowerPC Platform implementation using
    parts that companies like Asus, Abit, etc. are able to obtain in large quantities. What is holding them back?
    • Didn't that happen a few years ago, with apple liscensing out the info needed to create "clone macs". I think they then realized that it was not helping them and stopped doing that.

      The powerpc chip is nice, but I think apple enjoys the simplicity of having closed hardware, and then tying an OS to it, makes things much easier/better for them.

      Fixing an apple computer is fairly easy compared to a pc, and I believe that is one of the things that apple strives for, its a fairly low maintenance box.
      • He didn't mean boards to cloan the Mac, he ment PowerPC boards following the open IBM PowerPC reference platform (correct me if it's called different), which are 2 very different things.

        Apple uses proprietary firmware to make MacOS only bootable on Apple Systems, and I think the stopping of the clones was Steve Jobbs doing (They were cheaper than Apple's offerings, but up to par with Apple's machines).
        But somehow, I couln't imagine a clone manufacturer comming up with the beatifull cases that Apple came up with :-)
    • ->What is holding them back?

      The market is holding them back, because apart from us Linux/BSD users that dream of a PowerPC based system, no one else would buy it, because MacOS wouldn't run on it and the normal Joe has no user of a PowerPC system running some kind of free *nix.

      If they would be manufactured, they would only be manufactured in small quantities, making them expensive as hell.

  • choices for PPC users (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    OpenBSD has PPC support, too
    work is being done on a FreeBSD port
  • Why would someone fork that much cash for a G4 system and then slap Linux on it? I can understand if you've got MAC OS 9 on there, but if it comes with MAC OS X, it doesn't make any sense.. it's like "Well, we got all these PowerPC's and RS/6000's with a specially designed operating system call AIX for the hardware, but we're going to slap Linux on there so's we can be cool."
    • I would buy a G4 cube on e-bay and slap linux on it. An inexpensive, small, quiet box would be perfect for my one bedroom apartment. And yes, I prefer Linux to OS X. I run both on my G3 (given to me, so it cost nothing) right now, and spend 95% of my time in Linux.
    • damn straight - you pay more for a Mac coz u r paying for hardware AND software development. You just wastin money if you inshtall some other OS. Have you seen those little BriQ things that terrasoft are making? now you're cooking with Yellow Dog!

  • The most important question: Firewire? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum AT gmail DOT com> on Monday August 27, 2001 @04:12PM (#2222745) Homepage Journal
    Great that it's on PPC.

    The next question: how well does it support firewire?

    I mean, *REALLY* support it? Can I take my PB G4, get an external firewire drive, and boot straight from it into the Mandrake Linux kernel?

    Coz my internal hard drive on this PBG4 is getting mighty tight: it's already got MacOS 9.1, and a Mac OS X 10.1 partition on it...

    Firewire...
    • I don't think that is going to work. In the 2.4.9 kernel, inserting the ohci1394 module into the kernel has the effect of shutting down the machine. Apparently there is an adverse interaction between the 1349 code and the power management unit on the PowerBook. Therefore, you are not going to be able to use the FireWire port for anything significant until the 1394 drivers are cleaned up a bit. Give it a month, I'd guess, because there are very smart people actively hacking on this.

    • Well, you could stash your 9.1 stuff on the external FireWire drive.

      FireWire stuff seems to be overpriced anyway. Why not get one of those huge IBM notebook drives instead? Costs a bit more than an external drive, but presumably you got a laptop for portability anyway.

    • The next question: how well does it support firewire?

      We're using an external firewire drive here, using the latest stable CVS of the linux firewire drivers. The sbp2 module (which handles firewire drives), seems a little unstable under high load (it locked up twice - HARD - under high loads). By high I mean about 8 gzip processes running at the same time. Other than that the drive seems OK, if a little slow to respond.

      YMMV, of course. But unless you've got lots of free time, I might wait a little bit.

  • I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jallen02 ( 124384 ) on Monday August 27, 2001 @04:49PM (#2222925) Homepage Journal
    To myself mostly, and rather quietly usually, how Apple has created OS X and made it excite people so much more than Linux?

    I look at Apple and the company they are. They are not special. They took existing software anyone in the world could have downloaded and turned it into something that has geeks and Mac enthusiasts alike excited.

    What did they do with their operating system that is freely available that the Linux people have been trying so hard to do on the desktop and have yet to really come through like Apple has.

    Surely the combined bulk of Linux developers is not less than the employees of Apple is it?

    Apple has taken little open source pieces and parts and turned it into a truly interesting operating system that gets a "Cool factor" from most anyone I know that likes Macs.

    Why can't Linux excite people so? Does the money make that much of a difference? Apple steps up and gets the word out using its standard marketing channels and creates a bonafide hype that people buy into, contrast to your average Linux story. Whats the give?

    I know this will be seen as off-topic but I argue it is completely relevant to any PPC, or Linux distro. If only they could somehow capture what Apple has done with OS X. Anyway.. just my quiet musings.

    None of OS X is perfect, it has bugs, but people do have faith in OS X and they keep on using it for the most part.

    While OS X does not have the share of servers nor desktops and has not proven itself in either, it definitely has the mindshare of most everyone. WE all know about it and know its supposed to be the perfect blend of desktop ease of use and a # prompt to the underlying OS.

    Just my thinking, I still don't have a good answer.

    Jeremy
    • It's all about software. You can't run Microsoft Word or Photoshop under Linux. That's the problem. OS X supports all of the existing MacOS software, plus great Unix software like Apache. It's the best of both worlds.

    • I really think you are spreading your "people" net way to wide. OS X is not even on my radar, I really couldn't care less what Apple is doing, and I "support" a group of MacOS users. Now Linux on the other hand, is the One True OS. :)

      If anyone is getting excited, it's MacOS users who finely have a decent shot at a modern OS, without having to learn anything. Face it, most Mac people don't know what goes on in the box and don't want to know. "Just tell me where to click." :P

      I'm sure consultants are interested; Mac people usually have money to burn and suddenly some Unix skills apply to OS X. Easy Money!!

      Disclaimer: I was a Mac User in my college days. Thank Tux that is over!
      • But you know about it, maybeit does not excite you but if your a typical /. person. You know about the flashy graphics of OS X which in turns puts *nix machines on more peoples desktops. Even if they dont know about it, it is there always :)
      • Now Linux on the other hand, is the One True OS. :)

        Ye gods, man. Can't you see that you have lost the open mind that led you to Linux in the first place?

    • Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by krmt ( 91422 )
      I disagree with this. While OSX has plenty of people excited, and does have the cool factor, you talk to anyone using it and you'll find battlescars. No one is wholly pleased with the product (including me), and while it is good and exciting, the bugs do hurt. A lot.

      Linux also has problems, and they're very different than the ones in OSX. I can't do a single click program install in linux the way I can in OSX, but my floppy drive has no problems (a real OSX problem for my work.) This is to say that neither OS is perfect at all, and both could use improvement.

      But to say people aren't excited about linux and are excited by OSX is a load of garbage. When I show people Linux it definitely scores cool points with them. More so than OSX, which has been running really slow on our legacy iMacs.

      Despite the appearance of OSX and darwin, people keep using Linux, despite it's less simple and unified interface, because they have faith in it, same as you say about OSX users. More so than Apple, because many of us have been burned by Apple in the past and know that no one can screw us over in the Linux world.

      I would disagree that OSX has the mindshare of everyone, because most every consumer who looks at it says "Cool, but it's not a PC, I can't run it, I'm not going to run it." You should see the problems we have trying to get people to use one of the three iMacs with OSX rather than the one PC here. It may be pretty, and it may have some good stuff under the hood, but it's not in the mindshare of "most everyone" any more than Linux is.

      All in all, I think people are as excited about Linux as they are about OSX. While they may focus on doing different things well, if all you're judging on is "OSX looks cool" then you're not really measuring the level of excitement for linux. Just look at the posts on /. for the excitement over KDE 2.2, or the new kernel releases for example. This stuff is exciting, and the people who know about it are just as excited by linux developments as are Mac people by OSX developments.

      Apple has done a really good job on OSX, and I'm looking forward to it getting much better, but to say it's generating excitement where linux is not is absurd. Linux has developed so much in the past two years since I started using it, and it will develop even more in the coming years, and I guarantee as it lands on more and more machines you'll see the excitement build, hopefully in the mainstream as well.

    • Re:I wonder... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by searleb ( 168974 )
      Apple has a single look and feel. This stems from a single company putting together a single project, and forcing everyone who wants to program for that platform to conform to the project guidelines. The problem with Linux development (and also it's greatest asset) is that there is no unifying entity with a single vision. All sorts of Linux developers work on distinct projects, release them slowly, and all have different visions of what Linux should be.

      As a result, there is no big bang, no enormous release, and there will never be a relevation like MacOS 9.1 to OSX, nor Windows 3.1 to 95... As long as there is no managing Linux Headquarters saying to ALL of its developers "ok guys, you can't release your product for 1.5 more years, and make sure it follows our rules exactly- any deviation will force us to drop your app," Linux will never be able to market in the way Apple or Microsoft do. And truthfully, I never want to see Linux turn into this.

      Most importantly, Apple has a marketing team. It has enough resources to show back cover spreads of single products in Time, Newsweek, US N&WR, ... you name it, every week. There's no better way to stir the hearts of 20 somethings than advertising 30 second clips on MTV. My two cents.

    • Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ikekrull ( 59661 )
      Could it be because MacOS X, as a desktop OS, is at least 5 years ahead of Linux in terms of providing casual users the software and feature support they need to do their jobs?
      Personally, i use Mandrake 8.0RC1 on my iMac, since it only has 64MB of RAM and its 266MHz CPU won't drive OS X very well - however, the video acceleration in X is piss-poor, and the idea that this system would be installable (The Mandrake installer screwed up fairly badly when trying to partition my disk, and had to be repaired by using pdisk) by joe average is laughable.

      The idea that Mandrake 8.0RC1 (maybe they have a new ati driver for X in 8.0 final) provides acceptable desktop performance on a Rev. A iMac is also laughable.

      Linux is great for people like me who are prepared to invest the time and effort to make it work for them, but theres no way 95% of the current Mac user base would want, need, or get excited about Linux because MacOS X is quite obviously a superior solution.
    • it's more than just *nix on the desktop. It's putting a "real" front end on it, that will allow your mom to comforatbly use a *nix system.

      Ask anyone, the major fault with any *nix platform is the UI. it's scattered, the standards aren't followed, no installations are ever easy, way too much CLI (for consumers), it goes on and on.

      People like good solid UI. People even like Bad UI that pretends to be good UI [microsoft.com].
    • Just to be fair, it's not all open source bits... the kernel is, but Apple's put a LOT of work into the graphics layer (Quartz) and Carbon, which is really an amazing piece of work. Then there's all the NeXT stuff - the Cocoa frameworks, and all that.

      It's not as if OS X is JUST unix with a pretty window manager.

    • Steve Jobs (Score:3, Insightful)

      by acomj ( 20611 )
      I think a lot of the mind share has to do with mr jobs.

      Steve Jobs is a computer legend, no matter what you think of him personally he deserves a lot of credit for mainstreaming the gui/ mouse and pushing the computing envelope. ( a gui computer with 128k ram and no hard drive.... even today it seems somewhat amazing)

      So when steve talks, lots of people take notice. I think alot of the hype around OS-X has less to do with what it is than what people expect the "next" (no pun intended) thing in os's to be, and steve is selling this future.

      He's also captured the imagination of unix folks with open source underpinnings and the ability to run word and photoshop and grep / script at the same time. Its GCC based so expect a lot of that nice GNU software will run on OS-X in short order making it more powerful at little expense to apple.

      We'll see how it works out. Can't hurt to have more unix boxen out there though, especially in schools.
    • As far as I know, no one makes a more user friendly, more beautiful, or more elegant interface than Apple. Hence though Unix has always been there, and Unix is free, there still is so much appeal in Apple's version which is OS-X.

    • Most "Linux people" are not trying hard to do this, or at least they're not approaching it the same way that Apple did.

      It seems like a large portion of the Linux desktop development is not being spent on trying to make a good desktop. Instead, they are trying to make something that looks/works like Microsoft's Explorer. It's all Miguel's "infiltration" strategy (and even the KDE people are doing it) to make Linux/Unix appeal to Windows users, by having it look like Windows.

      I'm sure that's useful in a way and I don't mean to put it down, but it's a very different thing than what Apple did, which was: try to make a good GUI and desktop for Unix. That's one of the things exciting about MacOS X: it's an attempt to do something new and a little risky. (Although it's also colored by other considerations, such as needing compatability layers, etc.) There's not much of that type of work being done on Linux (although I've seen hints that Enlightenment might be sorta trying to go that way).

  • I have a PowerComputing PowerTower 166... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cr0sh ( 43134 ) on Monday August 27, 2001 @06:09PM (#2223159) Homepage
    From what I understand, there is something different between this box and others that won't allow me to install certain PPC distros. It currently has a SCSI 8gig HD and SCSI CD-ROM drive, plus 32 meg RAM. Currently it has OS/9 on it, and boots fine.

    I want to drop a distro on it, but I am not sure which one would work. I don't want to spend money or time getting a distro if it won't work for me. Can anyone give me pointers on what distro I should use with this box, as well as how I should go about getting/buying the distro (ie, if I have to burn an ISO, can I do it on my SuSE box at home easily enough)?

  • My take on Mandrake (Score:2, Informative)

    by pneuma_66 ( 1830 )
    I have been using linux on my Powerbook laptop for over a year. I have a website [cloud13.com] dedicated to getting Linux running on my particular laptop. I just recently nuked my old hacked LinuxPPC partition, and began to search for a replacement.

    I first tried the beta of mandrake, and what i found was that despite its faults, it could shape up to be the easiest distro to set up on ppc processors. One item i found in the install that no other distro's included was the option to set and choose what keys you wanted to use to emulate the second and third buttons (e.g. f12, f13). And once it was installed, even though there were som rough edges, you could see the hard work the mandrake team went through. The one thing i find strange about the distro, is that all Drak* utilities are written for GTK, rather than QT, it just seems out of place in this kde centered distro.

    now on to ydl 2.0. i was dissapointed in this release, because, i went through two installs (to see if i missed anything the first time round) and there was NO individual package selection. This is a big minus in my book. Plus after the system was up, even though this is subjective, it seemed much slower than my hand upgraded linuxppc distro. But, other than thos two faults, it is a good distro overall.

    ok, on to suse. This mega distro with four cd's worth of stuff is a really good all inclusive distro. It had so many packages, everything you could want. I think this is a great power user's distro, because there are so many esoteric packages, and you can customize it all you want. The only item which can be considered a drawback, but i dont think so, is that the suse way of doing things is slightly different than the other rpm based distros. Its all up to personal preference.

    Well, these are my short list of opinions on linux on PPC based machines, and if Mandrake fixed all the rough edges that were in their beta distro, it will IMHO be the best PPC distro out there.
  • Does anyone know if they include a kernel with apm? I would love to have that for my ibook.
  • Could someone enlighten me about when Mandrake 8.1 is to be released?

    Tia

  • Hold on (Score:3, Informative)

    by acomj ( 20611 ) on Monday August 27, 2001 @08:56PM (#2223689) Homepage
    Finaly something I know something about.

    I've installed linux on PCs and macs. The 2 macs I've installed on are "old world" machines a starmax motorola clone and a 7200.
    It was fairly easy and straightforward (the documentation could have been better though.....)
    I used linuxPPC The one thing that helps on the ppc side is that most hardware is fairly standard and autodetected.

    It works great.. I have a firewall/ip masq machine and a server...
  • What impetus do Mac users have to go Linux when Darwin BSD and MacOS X are so much better on a mac: better support, better optimized code, better applications and they fit the mac paradigms (single mouse, light administration and security, heavily wireless, heavily scsi and usb, form with function)? There are no applications for Linux that can't be compiled to a faster, better, prettier version on OSX or XFree86 on Darwin (if the "cost" of the $90 OSX upgrade is prohibitive; which, if you're a mac user, it isn't).

    In the PC world, there's no OS like OSX -- a mainstream OS which runs a massive amount of tested Nth generation commercial software, a great load of new software, a host of free software and all based on a Unix kernel with a swift, powerful UI and no need to get under the hood. For the hackers in the world not satiated by OSX's many, many superior offerings, there's GNU Darwin. What good is Linux to these chaps? Mac users may have a small allegiance to the Penguin thanks to the great work done in mk linux back when the macos was still for the most part a slow buggy piece of shit (os 7.6), but we've surpassed you -- we already have unix on a desktop!

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