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PPCLinux.Apple.Com

imac.usr writes "MacNN mentioned that Apple now has its own Web page describing Linux, the distributions available for PowerPC Macs, and links to them." But can you drag your hard drive to the trash to unmount it?

244 comments

  1. Suck! Suck! Suck! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    With the SW prequels coming out now, we really need a Spaceballs prequel. How about:

    Spaceballs Zero: The Birth of Yogurt!

    (And yes, I recall "Spaceballs II: The Search for More Money", but it needs to follow the prequel idea.)

  2. Re:Wheeeeee!!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Interestingly, in your enthusiasm over how great your old box is for trolling, you seem to have forgotten to post the troll.

    Might I suggest, "Macs are for people too stupid to use computers"? Cliche, I know, but it never fails.

  3. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    or just make "Eject" = "Put Away"= Unmount, because the days of multi-floppy systems are long over. Of couse, Apple has heard the complaints, and hasn't fixed it for 15 years.
    Try a recent Mac. Eject ejects and unmounts the disk in recent (8+ probably, 8.5+ definitely) versions of the OS.

  4. Re:BeOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Silly boy.

    Funny how people will parrot the most asinine statements from Be - for years.

    In no way in hell was Be supposed to 'replace' MacOS. How clueless can you be? Apple only was shopping for a new kernel - the BeOS while derivative of the MacOS, is(was) wildly primitive compared to MacOS. NeXT was the CLEAR choice.

    NeXt + WebObjects + MacOS UI + Mac legacy apps + QuickTime + PPC - masses of developers are wetting themselves just thinking about MacOS X.

  5. Re:Quality? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's not an Apple page dumshit.

  6. Re:Apple tried to put a noose around Be's neck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who the hell do you think your are fooling with this bullshit?

    No one gives a shit about Be. End of story.

    It was fun to -PLAY- with a fully native os on ppc. Thoses days are over.

    Be is now a minor player in the very large x86 world.

    > Enjoy MacOS 9
    Sure am, and soon will be enjoying OS X

    Enjoy your dying, irrelevant os. Look at the Amiga burnouts who post here for what you will look like in a few years.

  7. Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    "How do I delete a file?"

    Drag it into the trash can!

    "How do I eject the floppy (or unmount the drive)?"

    Drag it into the trash can!

    "But won't that...?"

    I get this all the time from the Mac newbies every year.

    To be fair in my bashing, I must thwack MS for their bad UI design:

    "How do I get to the logon screen on NT Workstation (or NT Server)?"

    Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete!

    "But won't that...?"

    1. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't WinNT have a message like "Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to log on" when it starts up? When I tried NT it did, but maybe someone added that themselves (it wasn't my machine). A secure attention key is a good idea though, it prevents someone from showing a fake logon dialog to collect passwords.

    2. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      A secure attention key is a good idea though, it prevents someone from showing a fake logon dialog to collect passwords.

      But NT was a whole new OS when MS wrote it, they could have picked anything as the "secure attention key"! It didn't have to be Ctrl-Alt-Delete! Baka! Baka! Baka!

    3. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmmm..... how about this for an idea? You put the disk into the drive. The machine checks the drive every few seconds for a disk. It detects the disk is present and puts an icon on the desktop to indicate it is ready to use. You remove the disk from the drive. The machine detects the drive is empty. It removes the icon from the desktop to indicate there is no disk to access. Shit... why didn't somebody think of this before? Oh wait.... the Amiga had this in 1985. Doh! Tell me again why it is so cool to unmount disks or to drop them into trash cans?

    4. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I never tell them to drag it to the Trash. I have them use the Put Away command (command-Y). It's much more intuitive.

    5. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a long time Mac user I have to say I agree. That's why I teach people to press command-Y in the finder to "put away" the volume. I believe command-E for "Eject..." works too.

    6. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think CTRL-ALT-DEL generates a special interrupt too - the only other key that does this is SysRq. If NT uses the BIOS to access the keyboard, this might be their reason. They could have used SysRq though, it was probably meant for stuff like this.

    7. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the control-alt-delete sequence is there because c2 security defines that you must have a unique interrupt key-sequence before being presented with a login prompt - this keeps trojan apps from looking like a login screen and stealing your username/password. nt has the ability to become c2 secure.

    8. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      the control-alt-delete sequence is there because c2 security defines that you must have a unique interrupt key-sequence before being presented with a login prompt - this keeps trojan apps from looking like a login screen and stealing your username/password. nt has the ability to become c2 secure.

      This still fails to explain why Ctrl-Alt-Delete was chosen as the "unique interrupt key-sequence". I maintail that any other sequence could have been chosen. Ctrl-Alt-Delete generates no special interrupts in the hardware beyone the usual interrupts that any keydown/keyup on the keyboard already does (on PC arch machines).

    9. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by IntlHarvester · · Score: 1

      But even "Put Away" is a disaster. What does it mean? When appiled to a file, it undoes a previous move operation, but when applied to a disk, it unmounts it.

      To further the confusion, MacOS also includes an "Eject" command, which ejects the disk, but does not unmount it. Which means the MacOS will eventually force you (with a blocking dialog box) to reinsert the disk. Of course at this point, the user is thinking "I already ejected that disk, why do I have to put it back in?!?"

      A good solution would be an Unmount icon on the desktop for drag operations, or just make "Eject" = "Put Away"= Unmount, because the days of multi-floppy systems are long over. Of couse, Apple has heard the complaints, and hasn't fixed it for 15 years.
      --

      --
      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
    10. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by IntlHarvester · · Score: 1

      }} they could have picked anything as the "secure attention key"!

      Ctrl+Alt+Delete is recognized by the hardware (which is why it works during the BIOS POST sequence). That supposedly makes it harder to trap the SAK and capture someone's password with a trojan.
      --

      --
      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
    11. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by IntlHarvester · · Score: 1

      I stand corrected then. (I actually use MacOS 9 now and then, but dragging to the trash is ingrained for me.)
      --

      --
      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
    12. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by Todd+Stewart · · Score: 1

      The Eject/Put Away issue is because of historical reasons.

      When the early Macs were used with only one floppy, one had to swap the os disk and whatever app disk one was using. Also one could do copies between an Ejected(dimmed on the desktop) disk and a mounted disk. Seems quite a fuss now, but harddrives were a little more expensive in those days.

      There is really no use for it in current Macs - but I assume there is a reason Apple hasn't taken it out.

      BTW, I don't think I've seen a good replacement for the PutAway with regards to removable media. I haven't checked on how OS X handles it.

    13. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by stevie-boy · · Score: 1

      And using the Start button to shut down a PC is great UI design :-) You hear of stories of incidents in open plan offices, where the techie is out of the office, and receives a call on his/her mobile for help. The user is told to "go to My Computer", and so walks to the other side of the office to the techie's PC... or "Can you see a folder on the desktop?" "No, there's just the keyboard and my phone" I suppose that one could as easily be a Mac problem too :(

    14. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by uid8472 · · Score: 1

      Since MacOS 7 (late 1991, before it was called MacOS) you could unmount volumes with Command-Y ("Put Away" from the File menu).

      Note back in the old days of the Mac, when most machines had a single floppy drive as storage, unmounting a volume was a fairly major thing, which one would probably not need or want a convenient shortcut for. In theory, at least. (-:

    15. Re:Drag into trash is *still* a bad UI design. by Baumi · · Score: 1

      Not sure about the Command-E, but the eject menu item in the specialmenu used to do a completely hideouzs thing by ejecting a disk but keaving a "ghost image" behind and later on promptin you to re.insert that disk. This was a legacy from the times when there was only one floppy drive and you needed some way to drag&drop-copy files.

      Luckily Apple removed this confusing feature with Mac OS 8 (?), but programs that use the old-style open/save boxes still offer this Eject button with all its unintended side effects. :(

      Baumi

  8. Re:LinuxPPC be acknowledged in other places by App by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I assure you the people within Apple who are officially "in charge" of Linux had nothing to do with that.

    That was an example of programmer initiative, not a management decision.

  9. Smell the penguins? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The smell of fresh penguins has to be the farthest thing from a pleasurable waking experience. (If they are going to crowd around my bed, they had damned better remember their cologne.)

  10. Re:Interesting oreder of Distro's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not conspiracy, just marketing over technology.

  11. Already under an OT so: Poll! umount or dismount! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    The opposite of mount should be:

    [ ] umount
    [ ] dismount
    [ ] kablammo!

  12. Message From The Troll Anti-Defamation League: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Due to the increasing misuse of the word "troll" these days, one real troll has decided to clear up the issue.

    Trolls don't care about being outdated.

    Only if they're intentionally outdated.

    Make sure to look for my other trolls:

    Those aren't trolls. Those are spam. There is a big difference. Trolls and spammers are not the same thing. In fact, spammers are the bane of a troll's existence. Why? Spammers make it hard for a carefully-constructed, ingenious, unimaginably-huge-flamewar spawning troll to get noticed.

    Trolls are original. The first time I saw this post it was funny. But now? You're posting the SAME DAMN THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN. WRITE SOME NEW GODDAMN MATERIAL ALREADY, OK?

    together with my comrades meept!, open-source man, natalie portman petrified man, hot grits man, don knotts man, hobbitton troll, and our new friends "sexual pervert fiction poster" and the raisin-smearer

    meept!: Not sure if he quite qualifies as a true troll in the classic sense, but funny as hell, and always original. I'll grant this one.

    opensourceman: Often posts very funny, long, unique, and totally original posts (though they aren't quite trolls). Also posts the occasional true troll or two. He's a troll.

    NPNAP man: See "opensourceman". N & P gets a little repetitive, but he also does some true trolls, and the occasional extended humor bit.

    Don Knotts: Spammer. Detracts from the trolls' impact.

    j.r.r. trollkien: Not a troll, but also not a spammer. Only posts original material (and only posts it once!).

    sexual pervert fiction poster: Spammer. Not funny, except in such an indirect method that I'm not sure it counts.

    raisin-smearer: hopefully will graduate to opensourceman-like status. But not truly trolling yet.

    Your fictitious story was the one good troll you've had -- very inventive, but, on the other hand, the number of replies made it very much a brute-force affair. But I'd say that that was worth it.

    got moderated up to "Score:5, Informative" by the idiotic karma-whore moderators.

    I'll certainly grant you idiotic. My trolls get moderated up more often than my real posts. But "karma-whore"? C'mon, get it right! The moderators and the karma whores' whores! Please!

    we will continue to make slashdot unreadable and surreal

    Surreal, yes. Unreadable, no. A troll does not repeatedly post the same thing in an effort to disrupt discussion. A troll posts messages to produce a response, a spammer posts messages to reduce the effectiveness of any and all posts -- negating a troll's hard work.

    So don't spam. Be original.

    Troll.

    And troll well.

  13. Re:Why is it here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not an Apple page dumbass

  14. Re:I guess I could use my mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So you are too stoopid to even use a Mac? Thanks for sharing!

  15. Second post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By Mush

  16. Re: Eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux, Duh!!!

  17. Re:Apple tried to put a noose around Be's neck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0



    You run Be?

    WHY???

    I've got some Amiga people I can introduce you to. You can sit around and annoy each other with how cool your dead os is(was). Then you can leave the rest of us in the real computer world alone.

    MacOS X here I come - BAAAABYYYYYYYYY!!!!

  18. Re:BeOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Heh. You're kidding right?

  19. Re:A Tale of Hot Manly Love and the Slash Source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Yeah, I know... the source was release not too long after I started posting this. Ya wonder if there's a connection?

    Rest assured, I will continue posting this for some time to come. Trolls don't care about being outdated. Make sure to look for my other trolls:

    • the chide molesta
    • frothy horse cum
    • links to that ass picture
    • links to the huge penis picture
    • "slashdot source release procedure"
    • "hey, FUCK YOU!"
    • and many more!
    together with my comrades meept!, open-source man, natalie portman petrified man, hot grits man, don knotts man, hobbitton troll, and our new friends "sexual pervert fiction poster" and the raisin-smearer (and all the rest), we will continue to make slashdot unreadable and surreal for all. join the trolling effort and mail me at chide_molesta@hotmail.com. i will be glad to share my advanced trolling tips and techniques... and send you screenshots of the time i posted a completely fictitous story, faked a bunch of replies, and got moderated up to "Score:5, Informative" by the idiotic karma-whore moderators.

    love,
    the chide molesta
    "sweet jesu have mercy on us all!"

  20. I bet you give great Helmet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    (nt)

  21. I guess I could use my mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    for something other than a table.

    1. Re:I guess I could use my mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      -1, Flamebait.

      Anyone care to do the honors?

  22. "apple linux" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Here's one of the original pages behind the "Linux PPC" movement; check it out:

    http://www.applelinux.com/

  23. Re:Stop being so critical, please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't agree that putting up a text page with a couple of links is embracing Linux. Also, I don't think many people see Apple differently from any of the other publicly traded corporations out there, for which priority one is money, and anything else is a distant second. Linux advocacy from Apple likely is based on a different motive than many of you hackers out there that code for free, and feel yourself to be part of the "Linux tribe". They are not thinking of you, only the stock price.

    LS

  24. Re:BeOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Derivative of MacOS??? Get your head out of your ass.

  25. Re:BeOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You have no clue about BeOS. Try to formulate ideas based on real facts rather than "Slashdot facts". Fact 1, BeOS has a journaling 64 bit file system that Linux can NOT match yet. There is a journaling file system available for Linux, but it does not compare yet. Fact 2, any moron knows that having a multithreaded environment is a HUGE advantage. Try to do some of the things that BeOS can do, and Linux will shit it's pants. Fact 3, one solid API. Nothing more needs to be said. -G

  26. Re:Make up your fsking minds! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe your mother might be able to offer you a sucker -- but only if you're good!

    Thanks for the advice, but most of us here enjoy sucking on your mother, damn whattawhore!

    Hey, FUCK YOU!

  27. Re:BeOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And people wonder why we can't help but to hate the mindless apple-drones. :D

  28. Re:BeOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry to burst your little bubble, but in all likelyhood Be was no more a serious consideration than NT as the new kernel.

    Other than threads everywhere, there is nothing worthwhile in the BeOS. Sorry if you think it rules.

    Do you really think Apple would throw away the publishing and content creation markets to get an os which its main selling point is "look how many movies I can play smoothly!." Bzzt, not going to pay the bills. Although it is fun talk about it on Slashdot.

    Any chance of anyone ever giving a shit about BeOS on the PPC was obliterated by Jobs' last demo of OS X.

  29. Re:Stop being so critical, please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Believe it or not, Linux is still the new kid in town

    "Yup. Only ten years under the belt."

    Hmm.. let's see...

    UNIX = 31 years
    Mac OS = 16 years
    NeXT = 14 years
    Windows NT = 10-ish years
    Windows 3+ = 10 years


    Off hand, I'd definitely call linux "new" =)

  30. Re:Apple tried to put a noose around Be's neck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Us Linux users laugh at your pathetic single user BeOS. Why don't you go flame Windows 98 users with your luser no security OS.

  31. Re:Why shuld Apple do more than this ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    PPCLinux could be a (small) problem for Apple because it deprives them of OS upgrade revenue from a certain percentage of users.

    But, on the otherhand, they can sell hardware to people who want Linux, and the hardware is more profitible than the OS upgrades.

  32. Re:shame on apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Again, not an Apple page dumbass.
    Shame on you for being a retard.

  33. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You forget, Apple doesn't make the G4 processor, Motorola does. I really wish Apple would let others make OSes for their boxes but you're more than welcome to set up your own Linux company that sells hardware solutions using the G4 from Motorola.

  34. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A couple of hackers in Apple worked with the OSF on MkLinux, and Apple dropped all work on it many years ago. Limited hardware support, slow kernel development, few users (those with NuBus machines are the majority)...

    It was an experiment, a sort of training-ground to breed Mach hackers. The fact that it was public at all is more a feature of the GPL than of Apple's dedication to Linux.

    Apple never even put together a CD with it.

  35. Re:HOLY WAR NOW! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I feel compelled to preface my remarks with the following: Mr. Tony Alamo has a long, post-structuralism-infested history of attempts to promote a culture of dependency and failure. Although not without overlap and simplification, I plan to identify three primary positions on his witticisms. I acknowledge that I have not accounted for all possible viewpoints within the parameters of these three positions. Nevertheless, his ideas are as troubling as his insistence that the most insufferable cheapskates you'll ever see are inherently good, sensitive, creative, and inoffensive. His expositions are contrary to international human rights and humanitarian standards. If there is one truth in this world, it's that we must draw the line somewhere. Contrary to what Mr. Alamo would have you believe, there's a contradiction between his simultaneous condemnation of mean-spirited amnesiacs and his imposition of pestiferous boosterism.

    When one examines the ramifications of letting him convict me without trial, jury, or reading one complete paragraph of this letter, one finds a preponderance of evidence leading to the conclusion that his maneuvers are amalgams of popular themes among satanic present-day robber barons, lascivious malcontents, and the worst sorts of hateful mob bosses there are. Let me put it this way: if I didn't think Mr. Alamo would propound ideas that are widely perceived as representing outright misoneism, I wouldn't say that his most recent press releases are irreverent, in bad taste, and inappropriate. He has been, still is, and always will remain more temperamental than wishy-washy popinjays. There is not a single word in that sentence that Mr. Alamo can take exception to.

    I am skeptical of efforts to produce an unctuous definition of "physicophilosophical". Mr. Alamo's cronies are the distasteful tendentious-types of the modern age. Am I the only one who makes that observation? Of course not. But perhaps I express it more directly, more candidly, and far less euphemistically than macabre blusterers. It's grumpy slimeballs like Mr. Alamo that go to great lengths to conceal his true aims and mislead the public. But that's not the end of the story. I'm willing to accept that he has had it easy all his life. I'm even willing to accept that I think that the portrayal of troglodytes in our culture is partially responsible for his comments. But his lackeys believe that individual worth is defined by race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin. Although it is perhaps impossible to change the perspective of those who have such beliefs, I wish nevertheless to shelter initially unpopular truths from suppression, enabling them to ultimately win out through competition in the marketplace of ideas.

    There's a lot of talk nowadays about his fatuous sound bites, but not much action. Even if one is opposed to truculent anti-intellectualism (and I am), then surely, I find Mr. Alamo's stances symptomatic of a dangerous but spreading mentality. Whatever else may be the case, it is certain that it is undeniable by anyone but the most intransigent conspiracy theorists you'll ever see that it must be stated quite categorically that one of these days, Mr. Alamo will turn his back on those who need him the most. Given the range and unpredictability of human behavior, it is quite possible that his attempts to force his moral code on the rest of us are much worse than mere irrationalism. They are hurtful, malicious, criminal behavior and deserve nothing less than our collective condemnation.

    Before I leave this issue, let me share an interesting finding from a recent poll: Four out of five people surveyed maintain that if Mr. Alamo wants to exploit the masses, let him wear the opprobrium of that decision. He wants to nourish crotchety socially-inept ideologies. Is this so he can obfuscate the issue so that one can't see what ought to be entirely obvious to all, or is it to deflect attention from his unwillingness to support policies that benefit the average citizen? You be the judge. In either case, his henchmen often reverse the normal process of interpretation. That is, they value the unsaid over the said, the obscure over the clear.

    Given Mr. Alamo's record of shady dealings, the truth is not meant to be warm and fuzzy. No matter how much talk and analysis occurs, I am troubled by Mr. Alamo's constant exaggerations and half-truths. Mr. Alamo isn't as smart as he thinks he is. I could substantiate what I'm saying about the most nefarious kleptomaniacs you'll ever see, but I don't feel that that's necessary, since we all know what they're like. You might not care that most of us insist that he is extremely unstable, but you'd better start caring if you don't want him to kill the goose bearing the golden egg.

    There is no such thing as evil in the abstract. It exists only in the evil deeds of evil persons such as Mr. Alamo. How can you trust contemptible disruptive proponents of ruffianism who actively conceal their true intentions? To say otherwise would be uppity. I, not being one of the many stubborn malicious flag burners of this world, hate having to keep reminding everybody of this, but to get even the simplest message into the consciousness of sophomoric saboteurs, it has to be repeated at least 50 times. Now, I don't want to insult your intelligence by telling you the following 50 times, but Mr. Alamo tries to make his accusations more palatable by wrapping them in rhetoric about the need to protect the interests of the disadvantaged and the downtrodden. He has a strategy. His strategy is to cause this country to flounder on the shoals of self-interest, corruption, and chaos. Wherever you encounter that strategy, you are dealing with Mr. Alamo.

    Whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to review the basic issues at the root of the debate. His mottos are parasitism cloaked in the rhetoric of incompetent narcissism. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that sensationalism is not merely an attack on our moral fiber. It is also a politically-motivated attack on knowledge. Mr. Alamo is hooked on designer victimology but fails to notice the real victims: the entire next generation. I have two words to say about his philippics: cruel poppycock. If he ever claims that cultural tradition has never contributed a single thing to the advancement of knowledge or understanding, we must answer only one thing: "No, the reverse is true." He says that he has achieved sainthood. The inference is that the average working-class person can't see through Mr. Alamo's chicanery. I'm happy to report that I can't follow that logic.

    Mr. Alamo's op-ed pieces occasionally differ in terms of how subhuman can they are, but generally share one fundamental tendency: They create a beachhead for organized denominationalism. Is Mr. Alamo so unscrupulous as to think that this can go on forever? You might object to my claim that learning the truth can be a painful experience, especially for him. But bear in mind that he uses anarchism as a hammer to forge the mumpish manipulators of the public mind who will trivialize certain events that are particularly special to us all by next weekend. He may be sincere, but he is also sincerely pea-brained. Oddly enough, I indubitably wouldn't want to force us to bow down low before paltry viperine common blood-stained criminals. I would, on the other hand, love to resolve a number of lingering problems. But, hey, I'm already doing that with this letter. In the immediate years ahead, Mr. Alamo's poison will infect us, sicken us, and destroy us. That's clear. But I will let Mr. Alamo's record speak for itself.

    But there I go again, claiming that all Mr. Alamo wants is to utilize legal, above-ground organizing in combination with illegal, underground testy tactics to boss others around. It must be pointed out over and over again to his assistants and, in a broader sense, to hostile clods that he invents problems in order to provide himself with an excuse for making a fuss. Contrary to the impression that the worst types of petulant misfits there are offer "new," "innovative," and "advanced" ideas, there is little new in their pleas. A final word: I suspect that my activities regarding offensive improvident wastrels, while far from complete, will suggest the kind of politics and policies that are needed to restore good sense to this important debate.

  36. No, it's "Suck my balls." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Suck on them, asshole. Suck on them until you have my pubic hairs stuck between your teeth. Suck on them until you have creamy ball-cheese dripping down your chin. Then, suck on them some more. You homosexual bastard.

    If you are of the bitchier sex, suck on them, you heterosexual bastard. But I'm guessing that you're a male, albeit one with very small genetalia, because of your natural ugliness and stupidity. Women, while stupid, are less ugly as a whole.

    Speaking of holes, did you like it when your daddy greased up his cock with lard, spread your five-year-old ass cheeks, and widened your butthole by a few inches?

    I thought so. Even with the pain and the bleeding, you loved it. You dirty little boy.

  37. Re:shame on apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is just some guy(s) who like(s) Linux on ppcs who work(s) at Apple.

  38. Re:4th post? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your so cool

  39. Re:Stop being so critical, please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Huh? It was an obvious joke, and I can't possibly see how you could misinterpret it. Unless you're so attuned to percieved slights against god's own platform that any statement that isn't 100% for it is clearly symptomatic of a conspiricy to hold your favorite platform down.

    Its amiga persecution complex all over again.

  40. Re:Stop being so critical, please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Windows 3+ is younger than NT in your estimation? There went your credibility.

  41. Re:I'm confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    but I will not touch hardware that even has a faint aroma of being closed and Apple's computers STINK of it.

    Hahahaha, yea ATA-33/66, PC-100 RAM, PCI slots, Tulip chipset Ethernet, SVGA video, IEEE 1394, USB, and fucking OpenFirmware are all closed proprietary Apple inventions. Go home you fucking idiot. Current Macs don't even have a closed ROM on the board anymore dude...

  42. c'mon moderators... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    moderate this down! I DARE you!

  43. c'mon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    moderate this down... I dare you to!

  44. Re:Why shuld Apple do more than this ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You make it sound like PowerPC Linux is a problem for Apple. But it really isn't. People are free to choose what OS they run on their PowerMacs, it really doesn't make a big difference to Apple if customers are loyal to Apple due to their OS or another PowerMac OS.

    Many of the Apple employees may choose to work with PowerPC Linux and other non-Mac OS projects in their freetime (or even during work if their boss is okay with it). Look at Darwin, which essentially is more of a pet project of Apple's core OS developers (similar to MkLinux), then something that is important to the core of Apple.

    While I am not exactly sure, I don't think Apple (or any company) has any employees that don't have an offical position to work on directly related to the company (excluding possibly RedHat and VaLinux).

  45. The Romans knew how to handle Christians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They fed 'em to the lions. This idiot shows why they did it.

  46. Re:A Tale of Hot Manly Love and the Slash Source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Ya know... Even though I've read this a dozen times, this still cracks me up. However, it's a bit outdated, as you cang et the source. And find and exploit bugs. And watch your posts get moderated down to -5 for doing so.

    Because Open Source is better for security. I read it on Slashdot.

    PS - CmdrTaco is an ugly woman.

  47. Re:BeOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    any moron who has been listening to Be's marketing department has pretty warped ideas about when and where multithreading should be used. I'll give you a hint, the answer is not "everywhere." And even on poor backwards Linux you can use threads whenever you want. I've run Be on a 4 CPU PPRO, and during normal usage, 99% of the threads forced by the OS (a thread per window? that's ridiculous) were blocked. The threads that actually parallelized were explicitly written to seperate a long running task, just as one would do on Linux or NT.

    Be's scheduler advantages have been pretty much destroyed thanks to mingo's patches (soon to be in 2.4). And if sub 1ms audio processing (Be claims 3ms) isn't good enough for you, you can always port whatever soundcard driver you're using to RT/Linux and have your latency limited by the PCI burst size.

    Perhaps using flamage such as "every moron knows..." before making a fool of yourself is not the best way to advocate your OS of choice.

  48. Re:BeOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And yet you just made a hypocrite of yourself by starting your post the same exact way...

  49. Re:Stop being so critical, please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    James,

    Apple will port Quicktime to Linux just as soon as its financially feasible. Since it would bring absolutely no revenue to them, there's little incentive for them to spend the money doing the port. They feel (whether deservedly or not) that Linux is much more a server oriented tool than a desktop tool, and they've ported their streaming server to it, because they know they can increase their revenue by having Linux servers run their streaming server. When the Linux desktop becomes usable for normal people, and is embraced by normal people, they'll port Quicktime and sell a $30 Linux version of Quicktime Player Pro. Until that time, it doesn't make any sense for them to do so.

    -D

  50. Re:Stop being so critical, please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thank you! There are a lot of us at Apple that do love Linux. I must admit that our Linux page (ppclinux.apple.com) is a little on the week side for now but hey, give us a break it's only the beginning ;-)

  51. this is old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This page has been around for years.

  52. In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In other news, Apple stock soars 50% on news that there is a Linux link on Apple's website...

  53. FreeBSD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good to know that Apple's supporting UNIX, but their new OS is based on BSD.

  54. Re:Show your support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    May as well be goat sex.

  55. half-assed page by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm surprised apple (king of the beauty contest) would use such a low-res image of tux and have so many typos in the page. weird...

    1. Re:half-assed page by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You may want to take a look at the MkLinux page... The image of tux on the page you're referring to is simply an enlarged version of the tux on the much older MkLinux page. It's just an old piece of clip-art...

      I've read a number of comments regarding the formatting and appearance of the page.. I can only guess that those individuals doing the whining are viewing this page on a Windows box, or they're using the Mozilla M13 with the resolution set to 96dpi rather than 72dpi (enlarging the fonts and otherwise wrecking the page formatting).. Take a look at the HTML on any Apple Page, they're all pretty simple, and this one is no different.. For what it's worth, this page looks fine on my mac.

  56. MacOS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No mention that MacOS X is built on top of FreeBSD - "A Unix/Linux-like system"? What is the point of this page if not to cash in on the recent high profile success of Linux?

    Their penguin image looks fuzzy around the edge... :)

    1. Re:MacOS X by k00ld00d · · Score: 1

      MacOS X isn't built ontop of FreeBSD. It's built from a Mach kernel. It has roots in the NeXT OS.
      <p>MacOSX is build on top of the Mach Mikrokernel. Mach only provides the VERY BASICS of the kernel services. everything like networking, filesystems etc. is stolen from FBSD, just like most of the basic libraries....

    2. Re:MacOS X by gig · · Score: 1

      > No mention that MacOS X is built on top of
      > FreeBSD - "A Unix/Linux-like system"?
      > What is the point of this page if not to
      > cash in on the recent high profile success
      > of Linux?

      The comparison is to explain to non-technical people that the guts of Mac OS X are like Unix and Linux ... duh. How would you explain it to them? By explaining the networking and security model?

    3. Re:MacOS X by justharv · · Score: 1

      It is *not* stolen from FreeBSD, it's derrived from NeXT/OS. Sheesh. Just because it's BSD in nature doesn't mean it was stolen from FreeBSD.

    4. Re:MacOS X by justharv · · Score: 1

      MacOS X isn't built ontop of FreeBSD. It's built from a Mach kernel. It has roots in the NeXT OS.

  57. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Erm... LinuxPPC works like a charm _without_ any needing any special specs from Apple... If they can do it, why can't Be? Too 'hackerish', that's why. Lame. BeOS is sweet but Gassee is a dickhead.

  58. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I use Darwin as a backup server/ftp server/telnet server and a second Darwin box as a router. It is by far the best *nix for the PPC architechure that I have ever used.

    Yes, thanks Apple!

  59. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hell, Apple can't please anybody. Anything they do is considered 'marketing' and laughed at or dismissed. If Apple came out with their own Linux distribution, you'd still complain.

    Oh wait, they DID. Go figure.

  60. This is why Christianity should be criminalized by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You people are dangerous. You're completely dangerous. You're all out of your fucking minds. I sincerely hope that this is a troll. What is wrong with you? Is your shared delusion so strong that it forces you to shed any last vestiges of common sense that you might have? Get help, soon. You are all ticking time bombs.

    --
    Oh Lord, please save me from your followers

  61. NO KIDDING! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NO KIDDING!

  62. Re:I'm confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Setting licensing aside, I like being able to see the source code for the software that I use. Back in the 80's there weren't too many options for individual x86 programmers to see much source code. We did however have complete hardware specs that could never be taken away from us. Oh sure, there were some things hidden from us here and there but overall our systems were pretty much open.
    When it comes to Apple you should forget about the state of the SOFTWARE and remember the state of the HARDWARE. Apple has shown a willingness to yank specs from their hardware in the past and they can and probably will do it again in the future.
    I will tolerate, to an extent, proprietary software but I will not touch hardware that even has a faint aroma of being closed and Apple's computers STINK of it.
    A previous poster mentioned that Apple is giving him specs. That's great! Will he get them for Sawtooth? Or the next board after that? Will he get them in a timely fashion? Is he signing NDAs? Can he do anything he wants with them? Can we see them? How often will they change? Will he be notified when they change? Could we build clones with these specs?

    The 7400 is an excellent processor and I hope to see it in an open system some day. With IBM's release of an open system layout, it just may be that the company that got the ball rolling on the first open x86 system will do it again with an open 7400 system.

  63. Re:Interesting oreder of Distro's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Must be a Vast Apple Conspiracy!

    *sigh*

  64. me too! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, I like PCP. What? PPC? Oops. My bad.

  65. fp? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First Penis.

  66. Wheeeeee!!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hi, I'm trolling on a SGI 4D/50!!!! This rules! I just knocked the cobwebs off the beast and fixed it's power supply in time to get this troll in!

    Old machines don't die, they become trollin' boxen!!!

    1. Re:Wheeeeee!!!!! by timster · · Score: 1

      He forgot the troll, and amazingly enough, gets flamed for NOT trolling.
      I think that was rather ingenious.

      --
      I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
  67. Re:Stop being so critical, please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The courtesey of Linux users to any windows/mac user will not win them over. They much experience and make the decision themselves. They have to see the light that is Linux. For if you know nothing of Linux, you should feel lower and inferior. Apple is not moving towards a friendly relationship. It sees competition in Linux. Apple can see the writing on the wall. Their move is nothing more than a ploy to blind us.

  68. Re:Omission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that's because it's http://www.mklinux.apple.com/

  69. It's "Spaceballs" not "Space Balls"! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The latter suggests concepts I'd rather not think about.

  70. MS has warped your mind. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    I think CTRL-ALT-DEL generates a special interrupt too

    This is untrue. Any keystroke generates an interrupt on a PC architecture machine (interrupt zero). C-A-D generates nothing extra.

  71. My 2 cents... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    I've been using linux since the early/mid 90s, and lately, I've seen an increase in troubling things which threaten to splinter (but not destroy by any means) Linux and the Linux community.

    The commercialization by itself isn't bad. The Wall Street reaction LinuxOne type situations do threaten to create a have/have nots situation and the associated ``el33tness'' that Linux has (had?) avoided. This Macintosh Linux page seems interesting in it's intent, as many other posters have pointed out.

    Another troubling point is the Linux Penguin mascot. I can only speak for myself, but I am neither a) homozexual b) overweight c) smelly, or d) doped out, 4 qualities the panguin obviously possesses. Associating an Open Source, community operating system with a mascot, unless it's a cool mascot like the BSD daemon, can only serve to alienate people who aren't represented by the mascot.

    Thanks for your -1 moderation point.

  72. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apple doesn't make or Design the processors that they use. Motorola and IBM design them. So they are to blame for not opening up design specs and so forth for the G3/G4 chips. Do note however, IBM did open up a Motherboard Design, of which companies are planning to release a Linux based computer on, utilizing multiple G3/G4 processors. The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld ~

  73. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ---
    Apple seems to do little these days except utilize what they see fit.
    ---

    Yeah, it's kind of funny how that works. Even worse, they try to remain profitable, come out with products that sell, and so on. What bastards!

  74. 4th post? by Enzo_Falzon · · Score: 0

    Close but not fast enough...

    1. Re:4th post? by FreeBSDrew · · Score: 1

      I'm impressed that your subject is "4th post?", and you actually got fourth post. Most of the first posters come in between 10 and 30, and even those with other numbers, like eighth, never seem to guess correctly.

      So congratulations, you must be very proud.

      --

      ***
  75. first post by pfy · · Score: 0

    I want a g4

    --
    del c:\micros~1\*.*
  76. sorry man. by Potatoswatter · · Score: 0

    You replied to an AC.

    Where is my mind?
    mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0

    --

    Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
    1. Re:sorry man. by Potatoswatter · · Score: 1

      OK, now it's REALLY pissing me off what gets moderated as offtopic. C'mon, moderate this one down, I dare you!

      Where is my mind?
      mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0

      --

      Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
  77. Re:Why use a Mac anyway? by Mononoke · · Score: 0

    You forgot your 'sarcasm' tags.
    --

    --
    NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
  78. LiNuXPPC on the iBook =) by LinuxFreak12 · · Score: 0

    LiNuXPPC on the iBook =)

  79. random interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    let's go ask netcraft.com about this site.

    ppclinux.apple.com
    ppclinux.apple.com is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) (PPC/Linux) on Linux

    i'm not sure if this means anything or not, but it's an interesting detail.. at any rate, this i think is even more interesting:

    www.apple.com is running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on Solaris

    (before anyone starts bitching out apple for not using their own products, keep in mind that you'd have to be an idiot to host a site with traffic as heavy as www.apple.com's on an OS with no memory protection such as OS9. And as for OSX, well, you'd have to be an idiot to host a site with traffic as heavy as www.apple.com's on an operating system that's still beta.)
    piqued, i did a bit more exporation:

    publicsource.apple.com is running Apache/1.3.4 (Unix) on MacOSX
    ftp.apple.com is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) on AIX
    itools.mac.com is running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on BSD/OS
    www.info.apple.com (this is their tech support kinda page..) is running WebSTAR/3.0.2 ID/65940 on MacOS

    so apple really has a nice little diverse group of machines running here. i'm proud of them.

    OK, you can go back to mercilessly attacking apple now for their spelling. I'd check with Queso to see if it gets the same results but i don't have access to a box with it installed at the moment.
    I'm posting as AC because i moderated already in this discussion. Yes, i am pure evil. Who needs karma anyway?

  80. Re:Lighten Up Haaz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This page was obviously not put together by a design committee.

    This page was obviously put together to be a pure functional page.

    Don't assume a YellowDog/Apple conspiracy just because they are listed first.

    My guess is, this page will get redesigned if it gets enough hits and the person who made gets embarassed enough by its minimalism. Perhaps then they will do sophisticated design elements such as alphabetical lists.

  81. Re:Hmmmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    PPCLinux.Apple.com isn't an Offical Apple page per se, but more of a pet project of an Apple employee (Keyvn Shortell to be exact) who did this on his free time at Apple.

    So don't be too critical of this, it's not really meant to be Apple's "Offical" Linux page, it's more of just a quick page whipped up in 5 minutes in a text editor (note the unorginal quote and the blocky rough penguin).

  82. There are some other distributions available. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Notably SuSE just released a beta of their 6.3 distribution for PPC. It's for Apple and IBM machines. They also have a release version for Alpha.
    I posted this a week ago and haven't seen it on the page.
    OpenBSD also runs quite nicely on older 68K Macs.

  83. About those Aqua-like GTK/WM themes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This is bit off topic...

    I am sure Apple spent a huge amount on money on designing their new Aqua GUI, how do they feel about the many GTK/WM themes that are already availlable for Linux users NOW when the real thing isn't out yet?

    (No offend to any theme authors!)

    1. Re:About those Aqua-like GTK/WM themes by Uberminky · · Score: 1

      Have you seen Aqua? If you ask me, Enlightenment can't hold a candle to it...

      --

      The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.

  84. Re:Think Different by pb · · Score: 1

    Linux: it isn't just for hackers anymore.
    Just boot it.
    The choice of a GNU generation.
    Obey your penguin.
    Think different. No, really!

    Nine out of ten sysadmins *never* agree... but they all think linux is pretty cool anyhow.

    And, my favorite:

    You would have to eat seventeen bowls of Windows to get the same features found in one bowl of Linux!
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

    --
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
  85. Foolish Quicktime demands by Stu+Charlton · · Score: 1

    I wish people would quit feigning ignorance.

    There already are Quicktime players for Linux.
    Apple has not made one yet because it would still be as limited as the existing players.

    The reason for this is that the CODECS must be recompiled for Linux. Talk to Sorensen, et al.

    Anyone that has ever used XAnim knows this, and it's not Apple's responsibility to get these codec vendors' asses in gear [who use multiple file formats including AVI]. It is OUR responsibility, as Linux users, to do so.

    Furthermore, QuickTime is a HUGE API set, larger than the Linux kernel itself. This would have to see significant return on investment - i.e. content creators and multimedia programmers would have to be _flocking_ to Linux in droves for this to be cost effective.

    Most people just want to play .mov files. Which implies that the best solution is to get a pretty player & more codec vendors on the bandwagon - not pestering Apple for something that isn't in their best interest.

    --
    -Stu
  86. First they... by i,+Mac · · Score: 1

    First Apple helped develop MkLinux, and you were too young to remember. Then Apple started using industry-standard parts (PCI, AGP, SDRAM, USB, etc) and you chided them still for their proprietary black boxes. Then Apple decided to use a time-tested kernel for their new OS, and you poo-poohed it. Then Apple came out with an industrial-strength server OS, and you laughed and went back to your Linux boxen.

    And then Apple _open-sourced_ code and you said "They don't care, they just want our blood, sweat and tears". And then Apple worked with the OSF to try and get their license improved, and still you hated them.

    Now Apple stands on the cusp of releasing a UNIX-compatible OS with the kernel and underlying layer open-sourced and fully runnable as an OS in itself, has "brought itself back from the dead" and posted over 2 years of profitable quarters when the rest of the computer hardware industry has been posting losses. Their machines use well-made, low-power chips that have existed for years before low-power became possible on x86 with the Crusoe. They have not only cracked the consumer market but have continued to expand their market by winning converts from the PC and the computer market as a whole by gaining a leading number of first time buyers.

    And still you troll. Still you viciously attack Apple. But most of you don't know a first thing about the OS, except when you used it for 10 minutes at a local school or what you heard from your friends.

    Most of you think it's kewl to mention egomaniac and Steve Jobs in one sentence, even though you don't know what you're really talking about.

    Some of you have valid grudges against Apple. I have some gripes against them. No company is perfect, obviously. Those of you who have used a Mac for any length of time greater than an hour begin to show some understanding of Apple and its OS and the workings of the beast.

    But the rest of you are sounding like a broken record and will continue to sound like a broken record. Worse yet, most of you are acting like hypocrites - embracing Sun and IBM's open-source efforts even though those company's efforts are probably designed to "cash in" on the benefits of open source as well. What's the difference?

    The difference is most of you grew up being PC people and were taught to hate Apple and the Mac and think they were inferior. People told you things like preemptive multitasking and protected memory made Windows more stable. They rarely told you that most of the code in Windows has neither. You were taught to be computer bigots and to sneer at the pansy Mac users. You equate using a Mac with being one of _those_ artsy-fartsy types.

    Unlike most of you, I work daily on Macs, Windows AND Linux. I have a lot of experience with all three. I like parts of all three (for example, the pervasive copy/paste in Windows context menus), I love the stability of Linux (and Mac OS X DP2 ;) and I appreciate the ease of use of a Macintosh. For design I use a Mac at home and Windows at work and Perl and PHP and PGSQL and MySQL on UNIX for web programming. So _unlike most of you_ I have heavy experience with all three platforms.

    I don't care that you know how to spell Macintrash or Crapple or any of those other 3l337 sayings you can come up with. Get a life and stop hating the Mac because its kewl.

    You can't have a closed mind and truly believe in open source.

  87. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Hollis · · Score: 1

    > the various Linux PPC projects doesn't seem to have too much troubles running on the latest Macs.

    It was a looong time before the G3's were supported. The only reason G4's, iBooks, and iMac DV's work at all right now are through the incredible hacking efforts of Ben Herrenschmidt, who received a donated iBook and G4 from LinuxPPC Inc. Where was Apple there?

    I'm sure Be Inc had more profitable things to do with their time than hack interrupt controllers in MacsBug.

  88. Re:Posix certified? by mikpos · · Score: 1
    I believe most GNU utilities are POSIX correct when POSIXLY_CORRECT or whatever is set. Also, on boot-up, the kernel displays:

    POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX

    which leads me to believe that it's had some testing.

    BTW what's with Slashdot not parsing HTML tags lately? It's pissing me right off.

  89. Never type in haste. by Forge · · Score: 1

    Never type in haste.

    [...]
    Apple is left with 4 choices;

    2. Ignore PPCLinux and hope it goes away. Thus pissing off it's customers who will just go get Alpha or heaven forbid iNTEL.

    to elaborate. If you are running Linux on a Mac you are doing something that could be done on an X86 PC. In fact you are doing less since a lot of proprietary software only runs on X86 Linux.

    3. Start investing resources in PPC Linux. It doesn't really have a reason to do that since without a "no brain required" OS ( like MacOS ) all they are selling is reliable hardware and guess what. Some PCs are almost as reliable at a fraction of the cost. ( Penguin Computing comes to mind ).

    A Mac is not that much different from a PC. At least not from a hardware standpoint. Even the performance of the CPUs isn't impressive enough to make a big difference ( 30% increase in speed for 50% increase in cost ).

    4. Put of a site look like a customer loving corporation.
    4. Put up a site and look like a customer loving corporation. This is what they have done. Don't hate them for it.

    --
    --= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
  90. Re:shame on apple by pudge · · Score: 1

    You think you're so smart, you call "Unix" as the incorrect "UNIX". And "Unix" is not a copyrighted name. Names cannot BE copyrighted. They can be registered marks or service marks or trademarks. And you never criticized Slashdot for not using the trademark symbol after names like Apple and Microsoft.

    In other words, please to be having clueski in the future.

  91. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by lambda · · Score: 1

    Gasp! It isn't their G4 processor. It's a Motorola PPC 7400. The only debate is over other things that Apple made themselves, which are pretty easy to figure out. Be is just bitter that their plan to be purchased by Apple went sour. It's funny how BeOS evangelists never mention this, isn't it?

    (I don't think Apple is hindering the development of Linux on the PPC, and as someone pointed out, they put a lot of work into MkLinux.)

  92. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by myconid · · Score: 1

    I never claimed to be the PPC Guru.. Just from my recent observence, Apple seems to do little these days except utilize what they see fit. Why would it be so hard for them to release the specs for the G3/G4 and allow other operating systems they dont make to use their hardware? I mean come on.. Its decent hardware...

    --

    SB.
  93. Quality? by myconid · · Score: 1

    I also want to point out something someone below me brought up.. Whats with the throw it up, its good enough look... That must be the crappiest quality image on apple.com..

    The text at the bottom, the disclaimer there, wraps horribly, the page lacks the advanced meta tags, RSAC, and html 4.0 complience that www.apple.com has. Did they just get some intern to do this?

    They could have atleast gone through and checked it for english errors and inconsitancies.. they refer to it as "Linux", but then once near the bottom call it linux (no capital L)..

    This is just my opinion.. feel free to flame me, others have.

    --

    SB.
    1. Re:Quality? by holloway · · Score: 1

      Shitty HTML is accepted on slashdot far more than shitty programming.

      That's kinda shitty.

    2. Re:Quality? by ahaning · · Score: 1

      "Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world. Linux is an independent POSIX implementation and includes true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand loading, proper memory manegment, TCP/IP networking, and other features consistent with Unix-type systems. Developed under the GNU General Public License, the source code for Linux is freely available to everyone." - linux.org

      "Linux is a free Unix-like operating system orinally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of many developers from around the world. Linux is POSIX certified implementation and includes true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand loading, modern memory management, TCP/IP networking, and other features consistent with Unix systems. Published under the GNU General Public License, the source code for the Linux operating systems freely available to everyone." - ppclinux.apple.com

      Where's the acknowledgement to linux.org?

      --
      Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
  94. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by myconid · · Score: 1

    There have been MANY times Apple has done stupid things.... They are moving toward a more standard design, and allowing more options on their systems. The new G4's are real nice machines.. PCI bus.. all the goodies.. No more substandard apple onboard video.. (not that ATI is the best.. but its a step forward).. The case is easy to work on.. (My 8100 has a little problem where you have to tear it half apart to add ram.. Its real fun..) I really wish Apple would look forward. MacOS is not the best thing since sliced, packaged cheese.. Allow legal competition (as apposed to reverse engineering..)


    --

    SB.
  95. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by AArthur · · Score: 1
    A couple of hackers in Apple worked with the OSF on MkLinux, and Apple dropped all work on it many years ago. Limited hardware support, slow kerneldevelopment, few users (those with NuBus machines are the majority)..."

    It sounds like you have fallen under the common misconseption that Apple doesn't care about the MkLinux project and that it was more of an Mach experiment then anything. While MkLinux is an interesting experiment with Mach running a kernel on top of it (such as Linux) on the PowerPC, you will see that MkLinux has had much of a life past Apple.

    Apple from the start intended to make MkLinux not it's pet project, but just to get it started and introduced to outside developers who would take it from there. They offically announced it in Febuary 96, and started giving out CD-ROMs at the Apple WWDC '96, the big Apple Developer conference. From the start they didn't want to be the company controlling and running MkLinux, from the start they outsourced MkLinux.

    The MkLinux team is working hard at their next version of the MkLinux 1.0, the first non-developer release of MkLinux. The MkLinux project may have lagged a bit behind the rest of the Linux world do a lack of developers, it is quickly catching up with support for newer G3 machines (as well as some really old Nubus Macs), built-in MkLinux support is being added to BootX, an experimental/rough port of Linux 2.2 runs on Mach now, and many more exciting things. MkLinux currently has at least an dozen developers, and by some estimates thousands of users. It's not Linux by any amount (by interest of developers/users), but it's far from a dead project.

    Don't jump to say MkLinux dead, just because Apple isn't pushing the development along. For more info on MkLinux, please take a look at MkLinux.org

  96. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Ashen · · Score: 1

    I've mentioned it lots of times.

  97. Re:BeOS by Ashen · · Score: 1

    Could it be a slashdot poster with a conspiracy theory? :o Any ways, Be has said before if they wanted to reverse engineer some of the hardware they could fully support the G3 and G4. But it would take too long when they would be better off working on the intel version where they will have a larger userbase. Maybe they won't have the best hardware, but having great hardware is worthless if hardly anyone uses your operating system. That's basically the entire reason why they are releasing a free version of R5- to gain a larger userbase. Besides, it's common knowledge that Be was aiming to get bought by Apple to replace the MacOS. No need to say it as if it's some big secret that Be is trying to hide. :P

  98. Re:A possible reason by Smurf · · Score: 1
    Look at the apple.com, for instance. Eye candy? Perhaps. Look again. Notice any _text_? It's nearly 100% images. Even what should've been sheer plaintext. Ugh. The average Apple user is very unlikely to notice. Apple realizes the Linux crowd is generally more perceptive to such things; it just might be that someone in there consciously made _that_ page much more lynx-friendly than the average apple.com site.

    Uhm, no..... At least the apple.com homepage, when viewed in lynx allows you to select exactly the same links (and the search dialog) that appear in the graphic version. So do most Apple pages. Not iTools, but anyway you probably wouldn't want to use iTools with lynx...

    By the way, I was unable to preview the html tags of this post when using the Extrans (html tags to text) option. Could someone fix this, please?

  99. Re:Hmmmm... spelling? by Smurf · · Score: 1

    I think they refer to the following error:

    BootX is a Linux booter for MacOS which allows you to boot linux from withing MacOS

    It should be within . I suppose it's only a typo, although we should let them know. Unfortunately, there is no e-mail address to write to...

  100. Designing != 'Porting' by prok · · Score: 1

    Just because Apple won't hand hold them through desiging their OS, the Be engineers are a bit peeved.

    Talk about total flamebait. Ok, so I'm biting. Shame on me. I'd just like to say that Be was whining about Apple being totally uninterested in helping them run on newer mac hardware. Hey, they can do whatever the hell they want to. As for Be needing help designing thier OS, give me a fucking break. No one could make it that far without knowing anything about OS design.

  101. Re:This page isn't new by savvy · · Score: 1

    Not updated? If you read the page the first item past the fluff at the top is dated Feb 2000. Thats seems pretty current to me. The links the the hernels that boot iBooks seems new, as they are now being hosted on Apple's servers. Not to flame, but you should read a little before you try and suck up some karma for a comment thats, well, completely wrong. They don't have the Aqua style nav bar, but they do have new content!

  102. Re:Interesting oreder of Distro's by savvy · · Score: 1

    Has SuSE for PPC gotten out of beta releases yet? I know they were taking names for beta Cd's a while back, and I signed up to give it a try and see how it was different from LPPC but I'm still waiting for the Cd, which leads me to believe that its still in beta. Its a bit more understandable if they didn't list it because its still in beta, but maybe whoever put the page together didn't know about SuSE PPC yet?

  103. Soon we're going to need commercial apps... by Joe+Groff · · Score: 1

    ... for Linux on PowerPC. As Linux becomes more popular, regular folks are going to buy machines that say "Linux preinstalled". They will probably note this, but not bother to remember whether their computer is of Intel, PowerPC, etc. architecture. When they want, say, the latest version of WordPerfect (which they heard runs on Linux), they'll be pretty puzzled when their G4 machine refuses to run Intel-only binaries.

    We need to wake up software companies to the fact that Linux is not Intel-only! We all moan about how inferior the x86 architecture is to PowerPC and other modern architectures, but if we don't do anything about it, Linux will be tied to the Intel platform, just like Windows is now.

    --

    -Joe

  104. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by IntlHarvester · · Score: 1

    I take it from your statement that Linux on 68K Macs isn't going well. Too bad, because the Quadra 950 is a far better machine than most 486s -- Fast SCSI, supports at least 128MB RAM(maybe more), 24-bit video, etc. (I used to run A/UX on one of these, and it was a rock solid file server.)


    --

    --
    Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  105. Re:BeOS by IntlHarvester · · Score: 1

    When the "Copeland" efforts failed, Be was in negotiations with Apple to be purchased.

    Maybe they didn't start the company with the business plan of being purchased by Apple (although, with Gasse there, that's doubtful), but when Apple came to them, they were willing to talk.

    I agree that Apple got a better deal with NeXT, although they probably could have a product to market quicker with Be.

    (PS -- Gasse is responsible for some of the worst decisions that Apple ever made, such as the look-and-feel lawsuits, refusing to license clones, and the insistence that Macs would use proprietary networking. It's a good thing that they didn't bring him back.)
    --

    --
    Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  106. Re:A/UX by IntlHarvester · · Score: 1

    Well, I mentioned it

    Anyone else notice that Slashdot has a JimJag? Is this the same JimJag that kept A/UX alive for so many years? (If so, Thanks! You certainly made my life easier.)

    As an editorial, A/UX was the greatest thing Apple came out with until OSX Server. If they would have run with that ball, they would have had their 'modern' OS ten years ago.

    --

    --
    Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  107. Re:Apple and Linux by JamesKPolk · · Score: 1

    Ever tried to play a Quicktime movie made with the Sorenson codec? Or any of the other new codecs, which xanim doesn't have?

    If Apple truly embraced linux, they'd be throwing some code our way.. in the same sense that IBM is porting JFS to linux.

  108. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by ihxo · · Score: 1

    .... what do u expect?? Do you want them to port all their programs to Linux and market linux, and change their OS to linux or open source all their stuff and file for chapter 14?? Apple is a Company.. not a charity.

    I think as a company, apple is already quite generous, and they did port linux to k68 processors.

    If you think their Darwin project is totally profitable FOR apple then just continue to think so. their Darwin projects also include Quicktime Streaming server and some other stuff which you can port to linux or other platforms.

    Look at Corel who are actually making profit out of linux, I don't see they are really giving much to the linux community too.

  109. Re:Apple tried to put a noose around Be's neck by ihxo · · Score: 1

    >Actully, BeOS makes use of many GNU tools.
    ?? so .. what .. Many people make use of GNU Tools to develope pograms ...

    >Actully, Apple used to give Be all the
    >pecifications they needed, long before they
    >had planned on buying them. The only reason Apple
    >stopped suppling information
    >was due to the fact that Be was a superior OS to
    >their newly purchased NextStep,
    >and Apple decided to choke the BeOS by cutting off
    >the info....
    1) So does that mean that BeOS is a competiton of MacOS ??
    2) By what I see so far, I don't see BeOS is in anyway superior to Mac OS X. especially it's GUI which was 70% copied from windows. (and windows copied from Nextstep) So ... actually who is superior ?? ..
    3) if their software is really so GREAT, why don't they continue with their Be Box ?? ... maybe Apple already Drop dead by now if they make their own hardware.
    5) if their OS is really so GREAT .. why they still can't "even" fight off windows 95/98 in the x86 world now ??
    4) this news is about Linux, so I don't see any point why we are arguing about BeOS here ^_^"

    >[and if you don't know the
    >person the quote is from, don't argue about BeOS]
    President and Founder of Be, Inc. (^_^ so ....)
    Well, he is obviously not a famous person, but wouldn't hurt to know who he is. (I think)

  110. Re: Eh? by lucidvein · · Score: 1

    And what would BSD happen to be based on?

    --

    "I have a cunning plan..."

  111. MkLinux Development by lucidvein · · Score: 1

    I've been running MkLinux for almost two years and the project is moving quite well if I do say so myself. Like you said the first release is around the corner.

    So much has been worked into the system in the last year it's amazing! MkLinux supports far more PPC machines than any other PPC distro.

    For an estimate on the amount of MkLinux users check out the MkLinux Counter Project.

    --

    "I have a cunning plan..."

  112. Re:Omission by lucidvein · · Score: 1

    Or how about even pointing to their own previous (mach) linux project mklinux.apple.com. Or the active and more up to date mklinux.org.

    I'm sure there are several other links they could add as well. But for now I'm pleased that they seem to be starting an informative page about PPC Linux. I'll keep checking back for updates.

    Nice to see Ben getting some credit too. BootX is a terrific utility for switching over to LinuxPPC. No dinking around in Open Firmware, even my Dad can figure it out how to boot Linux now.

    --

    "I have a cunning plan..."

  113. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1

    Apple has been even more proprietary than anybody else.

    More proprietary than Microsoft? I don't THINK so. What does Microsoft have to compare with Darwin?

    but they have released no specs on their G4 processor.

    Nonsense. Apple doesn't even MAKE a G4 processor. That's a Motorola product, from which the specs are quite easy to get.

    Heaven forbid that somebody steal their designs or _GASP!_ run a different OS succesfully on their beloved chip.

    Whine all you want, but the web page says otherwise. Apple has been supporting OS's other than the standard for several years now; the first was AU/X, then there was mklinux, and now various free linux distros.

    Think of all the money Apple would use if people who want the fastest system were not burdned with the kludgy OS9.

    I don't know what you are trying to say here, but the fact of the matter is that there are several OS's other than Mac OS 9 that run on a Mac. These include OS X server and various linux flavors. Maybe you don't want to believe it, but thems the facts.

  114. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1

    through the incredible hacking efforts of Ben Herrenschmidt, who received a donated iBook and G4 from LinuxPPC Inc. Where was Apple there?

    Maybe you should ask Ben. His site is now hosted by Apple, so they seem to be endorsing his efforts.

    http://ppclinux.apple.com/~benh/

  115. Re:Hmmmm... by DougLandry · · Score: 1
    Apple has a bunch of pages that are 'pet projects' of certain guys at Apple. There are tons of derelict pages just like this one that haven't been updated in a while, haven't been brought up to the latest design of Apple's site (note that this design is the 2nd to last one, having been made obsolete only a month ago), or have pretty nasty spelling errors.


    Doug

  116. Re:Apple and Linux by rullskidor · · Score: 1

    You can play some quicktime movies and even run a streaming server on linux right now without the official quicktime. xanim and 'quicktime for linux' have been around for a long time now, try them

    Apple probably focus on linux as a server and not as a threat to OS X Client. Since MkLinux isn't that cool anymore, or perhaps never was ;) these links are the least they can do.

    --
    De lyckliga slavarna är frihetens bittraste fiender, legalisera!!!
  117. Re:Why shuld Apple do more than this ? by rullskidor · · Score: 1

    The two first alternatives are strange, LinuxPPC has sprung ut off apples MkLinux(in the beginning, they used mklinux packages and just replaced the kernel) so why should apple try to stop or ignore something they started in the first place?

    --
    De lyckliga slavarna är frihetens bittraste fiender, legalisera!!!
  118. Re:no subject by znu · · Score: 1

    Yes!

    http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?hostppclinux.appl e.com

    "ppclinux.apple.com is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) (PPC/Linux) on Linux"

    --

    --
    This space unintentionally left unblank.
  119. Re:A possible reason by timster · · Score: 1

    The errors:
    "Linux is POSIX certified implementation" : should be "a POSIX certified implementation" and should say what it's an implementation of
    "the source code for the Linux operating systems freely available to everyone": should obviously be "system is freely"
    That's two major errors, in one paragraph. Though I don't see an actual _spelling_ error, these are at least as bad.

    --
    I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
  120. Graphics by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1
    I find it interesting and surprising that ppclinux.apple.com has the "standard" linux penguin graphic on it for several reasons.

    One, everyone knows that Macs specialize in graphical applications. The quality of that image should be better than that.

    Two, they're a very large, prestigous company. The site looks very amature and slopped together. The penguin GIF is very poor quality, as stated before, and even the color is more lossy than is acceptable with GIFs. On even a cursory glance, one could tell that not much attention was paid to the site's HTML.

    I also find it unprofessional that the link buttons are not the same as one ones on apple.com, which makes the site look somewhat like it is not an official part of Apple's site. (It's apparently sponsored by apple, but there's not a single link from their main site.) Not to label apple as bad - I actually now like Apple quite a bit, due to their spec releases, OS/X, and various other things. I just find that there is hardly any effort put forth in such a simple thing as a web site.

    Then again, look at opensource.creative.com...

    -------
    CAIMLAS

    --
    ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    1. Re:Graphics by gig · · Score: 1

      Apple's site is pretty big ... if you go to their developer pages, you won't find the new tab bar either. What your saying is like saying that Hotmail should have the same layout as microsoft.com ... some of apple.com is a consumer-oriented product, and some of it is not. The more consumer-oriented, the better looking. This is just a page about Linux, put up by one or two folks who like Linux.

  121. Re:BeOS by Afterimage · · Score: 1
    A while back I saw the question asked, if Be was still in love with the Mac, why they didn't reverse engineer the work done for LinuxPPC, which does run on the same G3 hardware Be claims they can't figure out.

    The answer, it seems is that Be doesn't want to be forced into GPLing significant portions of BeOS in the name of Mac compatibility.

    So, sure, Be can flame on Apple all they like, but there are/were other alternatives Be did not publically examine or pursue. As such, I think part of the no G3 BeOs is to spite Apple and not give away the store (proprietary source). Just be clear that Apple's not neccessarily being the playground bully in this case.

    --
    --Humpty Dumpty was pushed!
  122. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Oniros · · Score: 1

    Er... Mklinux was the first Linux implementation on Mac HW (on a Mach kernel)
    Darwin is BSD at top of Mach.

    What else do you need to get the drivers/specs of the HW?

    Be is just whining... the various Linux PPC projects doesn't seem to have too much troubles running on the latest Macs. My guess about be is that they got so much financial and engineering support from Intel that they switched side. I don't blame them. But they didn't whine in the past, and didn't have the specs either, yet BeOS runned on Mac HW.

    JUst my $.02

    Janus

  123. Re:My Perspective by mhatle · · Score: 1

    If you are serious about not caring about that CHRP machine, I suggest you loan/donate it to a Linux PPC developer.

    If the kernel works correctly and its only a matter of installation, take a look at http://www.crashing.org and contact the developers.

    If we have a box, we can make sure it works. :)

    --Mark

  124. Re:Hmmmm... by Shadowmist · · Score: 1

    Snack Cake wonders if this is a real Apple page.

    Apple is only bothering with the Aqua style front end on the main consumer pages that draw the bulk of webtourist traffic.

    The PPC page does conform to the style for Apple's TIL pages, it's what's used when you go to software updates. Which is fine by me as it keeps the page rapidly downloadable. It's thanks to the PPC page that I found out that there is a fourth derivation of Linux for PPC, Turbo Linux from Pacific Tech, as well as links to BootX.

    For my viewpoint, I'll simply take it as it is. Something of use mainly to Apple users curious about linux. The page in a way, might be taken as an Apple "seal of approval" for Linux and just might bring a few more Apple users into the fold.

  125. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by lamz · · Score: 1

    Error: Expecting ")" after: "(in terms of getting all..."

    Mike van Lammeren

    --

    Mike van Lammeren
    It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.

  126. Re:Why shuld Apple do more than this ? by lamz · · Score: 1

    "Isn't it surprizing how badly I spell ?"

    Actually, it's the grammar I find most surprising.

    "4. Put of a site look like a customer loving corporation."

    Mike van Lammeren

    --

    Mike van Lammeren
    It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.

  127. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Battra · · Score: 1

    Well, I don't think anyone will be building systems based on CHRP, but IBM has updated that design and released it as the PowerPC Open Architecture (POP). Based on the rumors I have been hearing, you will start to see cheap boxen coming up based on this design.

    Also, Woz never actually left Apple. If you look at his web site (http://www.woz.org) he says that he has always remained on the Apple payroll. At his insistance, he is (and always plans to be) the lowest paid engineer at Apple.

  128. Curiouser and Curiouser.... by Lagos · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one who has noticed that the page has apparently gone missing? This coupled with the aforementioned shoddy workmanship of the HTML and imagery, along with a lack of mention elsewhere on the apple's site, suggests to me that this page was just an idea which apple was toying with, rather than an actual offical page of support.

    You know, the Apple/Alternative OS relationship is an interesting one. Apple sells some great hardware, but seems to have concerns that it can only stay in business if it maintains a large base of consumers to purchase its products. To tell you the truth, I can't entirely disagree with that. My G3 has really never needed any new Apple Software because I could always get something free for Linux.

    Apple has a warm relationship with YDL. This is obvious by YDL's many mention in various Apple articles. It has a nice one with Linux/PPC, largely I think because it likes the developement of hardware support that the Linux/PPC effort is doing. And they seem to have a cool one with BeOS.

    I think it is obvious that ppclinux.apple.com was not an official site and I don't think it'll be back.

    The long and short of the situation is that Apple doesn't want to lose its population of desktop users. It cannot survive just selling hardware. The reason it supports YDL is because it's mainly a server system rather than a desktop system. And I think this will stop as OS X becomes more popular. The reasons it helps Linux/PPC developers is because it likes the developement, but I doubt it'll ever advertise Linux/PPC on its site as an alternative OS. And Apple will never like BeOS because it's too close to its own Operating System: A mainly client OS, with a focus on multimedia capabilities.

    This is all really a pity. BeOS is superior to MacOS in many ways. It's the only closed source Operating System I have ever used which matched up to and occasionally even surpassed Linux and BSD. I have no doubt that the creators of BeOS are smart enough to support the G3, but I understand their fear of what Apple might do if they tried. I think Apple will continue to support Linux developers because it knows that there are a lot of people who will find macs more attractive with better Linux support. But I think that sometime soon Apple's going to lose a lot of customers because Linux/PPC is more attractive and better than their own Operating System.

    And I don't really know what to think about that.

    --
    Lagos - White Rabbit of Linux

  129. Re:Stop being so critical, please by matthead · · Score: 1
    Apple has come out fully embracing Linux

    When? Did I miss their press releases, saying theyll be shipping Linux on G4s now? This does not constitute "fully embracing Linux." This constitutes an acknowledgement of Linux, and accepting it's presence, as opposed to Microsoft, who all but refuses to acknowledge the presence of another operating system, and who has shown no accepting of it's presence ("How to uninstall Linux," MindCraft bechmarks, and the "Linux Myths" page all jump to mind). Yes, it's better, but by no means "fully embracing" Linux.

    Sentence like "But can you drag your hard drive to the trash to unmount it?" just isn't going to win any friend, you know?

    I think that was an attempt at humor.

    Believe it or not, Linux is still the new kid in town

    Yup. Only ten years under the belt.

    Snobbery doesn't win any friend. Please remember that.

    True enough. Sometimes we need a reminder.

    --

    -Matthead
  130. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by lizrd · · Score: 1
    MkLinux only runs on 1st-generation Power Macintoshes with the NuBus architecture

    That's almost right just a little bit backwards. Newer machines can run MKLinux (I think everything up to the blue G-3's), but nobody with a newer machine would want to run MKLinux since there are better distro's that don't happen to run on the NuBus systems.

    --
    I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
  131. Very little, but a start by Oddball · · Score: 1

    The page has next to no content - indeed just links to some distros, and some utils that they are hosting. Kinda funny, really.

    However, this does mean that Apple isn't ignoring Linux. Sure, they're not pushing behind it with all their heft (they have heft anymore?), but they're not turning their head, either. This may develop into a usefull page sometime in the future. I'd say just watch it for a bit, see where they go with it, before making any calls on what exactly it means.

    --
    "A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." - Doug Linder
  132. Re:LinuxPPC be acknowledged in other places by App by gig · · Score: 1

    > I doubt Jobs knows about such things, but they
    > sure are nice to see.

    Steve doesn't use a Mac. He's been using NeXTStep/OpenStep/Mac OS X for over 10 years. Give the guy a break.

  133. Re:Why shuld Apple do more than this ? by gig · · Score: 1

    > Look at Darwin, which essentially is
    > more of a pet project of Apple's core OS
    > developers (similar to MkLinux), then
    > something that is important to the core
    > of Apple.

    Darwin is Mac OS X without the GUI. It's very important to Apple; hardly a pet project. By this time next year it will be on every machine they sell.

  134. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by VJoseph · · Score: 1

    With all the talk about MkLinux here, I just thought that it may be helpful to give a link to Apple's MkLinux page for those who want to know more. This one has been around for some time now.

    http://www.mklinux.apple.com/

  135. Not whininess, legal fright! by Potatoswatter · · Score: 1

    If you look at Be's explanation of the no-G3-support matter (on their website, sorry no link), you'll see that they were dead afraid of reverse-engineering what Apple wouldn't tell them. I can't imagine it would be too hard for them to figure out - they were just afraid of a big angry Apple.
    Apple chose to support Linux, whether just to keep up or because the DTS people there wanted it so bad :v) , and Be was purposefully scared off.

    Where is my mind?
    mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0

    --

    Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
  136. MkLinux Info by MrEfficient · · Score: 1
    I thought it was very strange that MkLinux was not included in the list of distros, especially since Apple was instrumental in creating it. MkLinux is alive an well, I'm using it right now. I see a few posts claiming that MkLinux is defunct. That's hardly true.

    Admittedly it is behind other distros for the ppc and x86 machines but it is being worked on and is coming along nicely I think. The current version is DR3. Release 1 should be out within a few months. It is a very needed port in my opinion since its the only one which will work on a nubus powermac.

    Check out www.mklinux.org.

    --
    Check out AbiWord.
  137. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by slashdot-terminal · · Score: 1

    Well just to break your little statement I have been able to use 486 systems in the past for compiling snapshots of egcs and development versions of the kernl (2.1.x) on my 486 (damn I stopped mainly because of the fact that e2compr has not really had support for 2.3.x past 2.3.6 or so).

    --
    Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
  138. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by otuz · · Score: 1

    I have a Q900 (same as 950 except that the 950 runs at 33Mhz). It has 2 independent SCSI buses, supports 256MB RAM (16x30pin SIMM * 16MB), 5 NuBUS slots + 1 PDS slot, 10M Ethernet, sound-board with RCA input jacks, 2M built-in video (actually 1/2/4/8/32 bit / didn't support 24/16bit at all), serial ports capable of 230kbps, etc, etc..

    It still has features you simply can't beat even with new PeeCees, like true plug and play. Try to install 5 additional videocards by just plugging in and boot (6 videocards total) with any current machine. No drivers/tweaking required. I think that wouldn't even be possible with a PC as you'd run out of irq's and dma's.

    This was a real kickass 3l33t machine in '91 when I got mine ;)

    ps. don't bitch about upgradeability on this one as you could install (real plug'n play) an PPC/x86 board into the PDS-slot. I don't know if any of these upgrades are manufactured anymore tho.

  139. Re:LinuxPPC be acknowledged in other places by App by gardenhose · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but it doesn't work.. at least LinuxPPC (the company) recommends against using it, saying something about how it's not compatible. Idono, I had my share of bad mac partioning experiences, I stayed the heck away and just used pdisk.

  140. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by mr · · Score: 1

    MkLinux was a pre-Jobs as iCEO project.

    Like the Netwon. Or OpenDoc (the official documentaion format for COBRA)

    Or how Mac OS X was going to run on X86 op-code machines, and all macs made in 1997.

    Things change at Apple. The present Apple is run by a man who felt burned by Apple ][ clones, and sees advantages to closed hardware/software.

    --
    If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
  141. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by lunatik17 · · Score: 1
    (I don't think Apple is hindering the development of Linux on the PPC, and as someone pointed out, they put a lot of work into MkLinux.)

    Curious, then, that they did not mention MKLinux at all in the list of Linux distro's for PPC. Hmm...

    --

    Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?

  142. Re:Stop being so critical, please by lunatik17 · · Score: 1

    I simply don't understand arguments that cite prior examples of M$ back-stabbing other companies when referring to Linux. It's a simple fact that M$'s unethical business practices have no measureable effect on Linux, because it isn't out to make money. Preventing other companies from making money is how M$ smothered the likes of Netscape, Novell and Borland in favour of their own products, yet these tactics are useless against a free operating system. They can spread as much FUD as they please, it obviously isn't working! In order to beat Linux, they will have to compete with quality, and the very thought of that brings an evil grin to my face :)

    --

    Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?

  143. Make up your fsking minds! by Andrew+Dvorak · · Score: 1

    Ok, why must you all play this game? "We like apple, we don't like apple, we like apple, we don't like apple."

    Apple may not be all open but they produce quality products!

    Nobody's doing anything but bitching Apple out.

    I'd argue a point but I'm tired

    So take your childish complaints elsewhere. Maybe your mother might be able to offer you a sucker -- but only if you're good!

    And to those who shall moderate this post: If you must, mark it down. I don't care. Slashdot is getting to my nerves, anyways!

  144. Re:Interesting oreder of Distro's by WeeMadArthur · · Score: 1

    Ok, your post was a little silly. First, the order of the distros doesn't mean anything. So YDL is first, so what? Uh oh they didn't mention SuSE. Steve Jobs must not like suse. Otherwise why wouldnt they be on the page? Second, listing bootx last does not imply anything. Notice that Apple is now hosting Ben Herrenschmidt's (author of bootx and yaboot) site. If they don't want people to install linux on ppc over macos, why are they hosting the site? Your point is silly.

    Next, what makes you think YDL is the most commercial distro and LinuxPPC the most functional. I'd wager that LinuxPPC sells more CD's than Yellow Dog, not because it is better but because it is more well known. When you get down to it, YDL and LinuxPPC are exactly the same after install. I have run both and actually found YDL to work better immediately after installation. I don't want to discredit either group tho. Both are putting lots of work into linux on ppc and both should be commended for their efforts. The more the merrier.

    Andrew Sharp

  145. Re:Apple and Linux by acarlisle · · Score: 1

    More to the point, why aren't YOU working on a QuickTime Player for Linux/PPC?

    Maybe I should rephrase - There are QT players (namely xanim) for Linux/PPC, but there are elements af the format that are proprietary. There is not, nor will there ever be, a QT player for Linux/PPC that plays the QT movies commonly found on the internet until Apple allows Sorenson to license the Sorenson Video codec.

    -AC

  146. Omission by acarlisle · · Score: 1

    I found it odd that they included www.linuxppc.com, the LinuxPPC company website, but not www.linuxppc.org, the ``official home of the Linux/PPC project.'' I found the latter much more useful when installing LinuxPPC, especially when dealing with all of the Open Firmware setup.

    -AC

    1. Re:Omission by MrHat · · Score: 1

      I'm beginning to think that the new site (http://linuxppc.apple.com) is a replacement for their old mklinux project page. Mklinux.apple.com currently has no DNS records (according to squid).

      The Apple mklinux page was quickly being abandoned anyway - when I was attempting to ressurrect an old NuBus Mac, the really useful page was mklinux.org. It's nice to see them finally move toward the "official" kernel port, even if it doesn't support NuBus ;-)...

    2. Re:Omission by MrHat · · Score: 1

      That it is. I stand corrected.

  147. Why is it here? by acarlisle · · Score: 1

    This isn't any form of support, nor does it contain any useful information; this is a mere acknowledgement of the existence of Linux on the PPC archetecture. (If they were serious about support, they'd release a Quicktime Player for Linux/PPC. As is, that's just about the only reason I still keep around my MacOS partition.)

    I'm curious as to why this page is up. What's the point of having the page if it doesn't help anyone?

    -AC

  148. Apple tried to put a noose around Be's neck by Xenex · · Score: 1

    *And your point? BeOS is their competition and even more proprietary than Apple.

    In what way? Actully, BeOS makes use of many GNU tools.

    *Be would have laughed their asses off if Apple asked for help porting MacOS onto Be hardware.

    Actully, Apple used to give Be all the specifications they needed, long before they had planned on buying them. The only reason Apple stopped suppling information was due to the fact that Be was a superior OS to their newly purchased NextStep, and Apple decided to choke the BeOS by cutting off the info....

    Be jumped ship :)

    Apple not buying Be was, and still is a good thing. A fair portion of Be's employees are "Apple refugees" and most didn't want to go back into it. The halt of G3/4 information was done to kill an OS that Apple cound not complete with.

    Since the move to Intel, BeOS has enjoyed a superior platform (the x86 may be a little bit slower processor wise, but system wide x86 is faster, but that another story/argument) and full support from Intel.

    So, people percive Be as having lost Apple. That is wrong. Apple have lost Be, and their poor hardware is the worst for it. Enjoy MacOS 9 :)

    PS: I'd ignore the sig, doesn't apply to this comment :) [and if you don't know the person the quote is from, don't argue about BeOS]

    1. Re:Apple tried to put a noose around Be's neck by Xenex · · Score: 1

      >It was fun to -PLAY- with a fully native os on ppc. Thoses days are over.

      Umm, actully, BeOS was first created on the AT&T Hobbit, not the PPC...

      >> Enjoy MacOS 9
      >Sure am, and soon will be enjoying OS X

      Finally getting pre-emptive multitasking? As for OS X, enjoy your nice blue backgrounds with colourful icons (looks sort-of similer to Win2k is a weird sort of way, OS X does... :)

    2. Re:Apple tried to put a noose around Be's neck by Xenex · · Score: 1

      BeOS has the foundation to become a multi-user OS. The file system fully supports it, however Be have not seen it as a priority in a Media OS...

      Expect it soon.

      Next time, be informed. Read the BeOS Bible, it will be an enlightening experence for you...

    3. Re:Apple tried to put a noose around Be's neck by Listen+Up · · Score: 1

      Okay, let's pretend that you have actually used and studied the BeOS. Be was developed by ex-Apple employees. That's true.
      >2) By what I see so far, I don't see BeOS is in anyway superior to Mac OS X. especially it's GUI which was 70% copied from windows. So ... actually who is superior ?? ..
      Actually, BeOS is %100 superior in EVERY SINGLE WAY to Mac OS(Anything) except *maybe* in terms of GUI, which will change drastically once 5.0 is released. Be is written completely in C++, has EVERY buzzword on the planet including all of the favorites like preemptive and pervasive multitasking, true OO design all the way to the kernel, fully journaled FS, ability to address an INFINITE number of processors with performance increasing linearly per extra processor, etc. etc... BeOS is a very beatiful thing. It simply lacks great networking in release 4.5, but the networking has been moved into the kernel for 5.0 so that is now a mute point. I laugh at your post, honestly. Apple was scared shitless when they found out that BeOS was more powerful and advanced than anything they'd ever seen before. It simply didn't run Mac apps and therefore they didn't want it. In the BeOS bible all the information you would ever need is in there.
      And why doesn't Be take over the i386 world from Microsoft. What kind of a stupid question in this? It has taken almost a decade and a lot of work and effort from millions of programmers to even get Linux on the map against Microsoft. And I still can't walk into a Best Buy and purchase a computer with Linux pre-installed. So how do you think a small computer like Be is going to kill Microsoft? Yeah, BeOS could annihilate Linux in a heartbeat technologically and programming-wise, but why? And why fight Microsoft? Either case is not a win-win situation for Be.
      And the post was about Linux originally, I agree. But, Apple is not anybody's friend and being nice to the Linux crowd feels too much to me like the Be incident. Personally, I think that Apple is bitter at Be, not the other way around. It only made sense to go to Intel. Intel was very, very happy to have another OS run on its hardware. And did anybody hear realize that it is illegal to reverse engineer patented or otherwise items? Why would Be do something like that?

  149. Re:LinuxPPC be acknowledged in other places by App by Hartwell · · Score: 1

    Actually, it took a minimal of tweaking (I just had to change the sizes) to get it to work correctly for me, it already had all of the partitions I needed.

    --

    -Hartwell

  150. Re:SysRq by Benley · · Score: 1

    Why in the hell is the SysRq key even on the keyboard anymore? In the 19 years I have had a PC, I have only seen ONE application that could do anything with SysRq, and that was DesqView 2.4. (anyone remember DesqView? It was COOL!!!) Even then, it didn't work correctly. I seem to remember SysRq doing something in Xenix also... can anybody confirm/deny that?

  151. I'm confused by lemuru · · Score: 1

    I'm confused. Apple creates and then freely distributes a flavor of Linux, MKLinux (admittedly, MKLinux is now defunct). They show off the source code to parts of their latest operating system. Now they host a website that discusses and links to other Linux distributions that work under the powerpc and, for some of them, the 68k chip. What do they get in return?

    A few snide comments about being able to unmount the disk by dragging it to the trash, and otherwise ridiculed and attacked.

    What do you want them to do? Part the seas? Spontaneously abandon closed source software, GPL the code for the Mac OS, and then jettison it all in favor of developing for Linux?

    It seems like whenever a company takes a couple of steps to open source their software or work with linux, people attack them for "cashing in," rather than praising them for beginning what could become a long walk down the road of Open Source. I mean, what were you hoping for? A sudden, blind leap? That isn't going to happen. These things occur slow, halting steps; be patient, and be understanding.

  152. Interesting oreder of Distro's by fosh · · Score: 1

    I find it extremely interesting that YDL, by far the most commercal distro of Linux on a PPC is first in the list, with LinuxPPC, the most functional, following second. I wonder how this order was decided upon. Further, I find it interesting that BootX, the tool that allows linux to run on most PPC's, is listed last. Hmmmm, I wonder whose website this really is.

    I just really hope that apple begins to recognize such truly fabulous distros as LinuxPPC, the first distro of linux have an X based install, and the first distro to boot directly into X after the first install. Anyway,

    Just my $0.02,

    1. Re:Interesting oreder of Distro's by Darchmare · · Score: 2

      No, just information. Marketting would have come up with a better looking page. Admit it.

      1. If Apple was so worried about Linux, they'd pretend it doesn't exist. As it is, they've embracing the inevitable, to their potential advantage. Why is this wrong? This is the way a company is supposed to work. If it doesn't hurt anyone, big deal.

      2. Apple gains from people buying Macs to run LinuxPPC - the only loss is in OS upgrades and maybe market for 3rd party Mac software. Apple would surely prefer that you bought a Mac for Linux than no Mac at all.



      - Jeff A. Campbell
      - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

      --

      - Jeff
  153. Re:Linux PPC on the iBook =) by WickedDyno · · Score: 1

    How much does it support? I would guess USB, ethernet, maybe Modem; what about sound? What graphics modes does it run in? Are there 802.11 implementations for Linux? Would they work with AirPort?

  154. Re:Maybe they do.. silly, isn't it? by afs · · Score: 1

    You are using this to simply exploit Apple. You do very little from what I see to advocate other operating systems. You rely on the common rallying call of opensource to bolster your crippled argument.. how convenient.. You have given little to Apple.. but pumped up your ego by zealously rallying against them.

    Thanks man!

  155. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by mapinguari · · Score: 1
    Be would have laughed their asses off if Apple asked for help porting MacOS onto Be hardware.

    Well, maybe, but only because of the numbers involved. There were only ever 1800 BeBoxen sold!

    Also, technical specifications for the BeBox are available at Be's website. The BeBox, IIRC, is essentially a PReP box with some fancy I/O ports added on. I have no idea how much reverse engineering and custom patching was necessary (if any) but MacOS runs just fine on a BeBox using SheepShaver and a ROM file borrowed from a PCI Mac.

  156. Re:Hmmmm... spelling? by knowfear · · Score: 1

    I was wondering if someone else would point out apple's little spelling error there. you think we should let them know??

  157. But Linux won't fail.. by Andrew+Cady · · Score: 1

    ..even if nobody else uses it. Who cares? Why do Linux users need everyone else to use it too?? If people like it they'll use it, and if they don't they won't. But either way it makes no difference to me. What difference does it make to you?

    Linux is getting about as much support as it needs to get. I'm more afraid of it getting *too* popular, and dominated by the shrink-wrap proprietary junk that Windows has for software. Any support Linux gets by virtue of mass popularity is going to be that kind, and that kind is worthless to me. So let 'em buy NT. They really won't know the difference anyway.

    1. Re:But Linux won't fail.. by chrischow · · Score: 1
      > Why do Linux users need everyone else to use it too??

      its insecurity mixed with the zeal of religious conversion

  158. Think Different by paulbd · · Score: 1

    Am I the only person who breaks into a wide, satisfying internal grin at seeing the Apple "Think Different" logo atop Tux's image ? When can we expect the full page ad with our herring-stuffed friend ?

  159. Of pots and kettles.. by plaidhat · · Score: 1
    If this isn't the pot calling the kettle black..

    Yes, dragging a volume into the trash to eject it was a horrible UI decision. However, with all the UI problems which exist in the *nix interface, self-righteously criticizing one bad UI decision from another community hardly takes care of the multitude of bad UI decisions within our own. Have you ever tried configuring Sendmail or INN by hand? It's hellish, let me tell you. And while it's nice that there are more options and flags on *nix programs than you can shake a stick at, having so many options can also hinder a person's ability to figure out on their own how to use that program. There's a reason why a lot of people hate vi, and it's not because it doesn't to its job well. It does. I use it, I like it. But trying to learn it without a book (or at least a man page) is brutally difficult.

    As far as I'm concerned, bad UI design is more rampant in *nix than in any other flavor of OS that I've used. I'm not trying to absolve others of their poor choices - and everyone has made poor choices at times - just point out that we have little ground on which to criticize others when we have so many problems ourselves.

  160. Re:Stop being so critical, please by pisdtal · · Score: 1

    I dont understand people that fell that they are "Geekier than thou" .. htis was a common problem in the Amiga world. And now it seems to be rearing its ugly head in the Linux world. I myself am a TOTAL newbie to linux, so I hope that I will the ability to ask even the dumb -obvious questions that all newbies run into when they are first learning a new OS. However, when a newbie, and dont tell me you cant tell who they are, not only has the initiative to try to learn a new os and then finds the balls enough to go out to the Linux community and ASK a freggin question, why is that the majority of people seem to respond with things like 'just get Win98' or something of that nature. I got that alot in the Amiga scene, I dunno if its the same here at slashdot. I hope not, because Ive ben visisting quietly for quite some time, just feeling it out. BUt I digress, I understand the frustration of people asking mundane id-10-t Qs but at the same time we dont want to run people off from this community, do we? All Im saying is when a stupid question is asked, there is no need for EVERYONE to roast em, right? OK OK OK its just been so long since I have had a message community that I have posted to in a LONG LONG LONG time. Ill get off my soap box,. I look forward to 'conversing' with all ya'll . Cant wait to get my G4 and dump some form of linux on it.... any suggestions for a good one to start learning with? -- Remember amatures built noahs ark, profesionals built the titanic....

    --
    We admit all this to insure disbelief
  161. A possible reason by zyqqh · · Score: 1

    Look at the apple.com, for instance. Eye candy? Perhaps. Look again. Notice any _text_? It's nearly 100% images. Even what should've been sheer plaintext. Ugh. The average Apple user is very unlikely to notice. Apple realizes the Linux crowd is generally more perceptive to such things; it just might be that someone in there consciously made _that_ page much more lynx-friendly than the average apple.com site.

    Then again, the spelling error (couldn't find it btw), and inaccurate info are another issue...

    --
    // zyqqh
  162. Re:Stop being so critical, please by radar+bunny · · Score: 1

    I think this applies to a lot of post aimed at linux here on slashdot. There's a kind of Elitist attitude where a lot of people want linux to be only what they "think" Linux should be. Remember, one of the biggest seeling points of Linux is it's adapatability.

    ::::sigh::::

    So is the new slogan, "Total World Dominiation (execept for Mac's)"

    --
    "I mean, All you can definately say about a fellow who thinks he's a poached egg, is; He's in the minority." James Burke
  163. A/UX by Psycotix · · Score: 1

    All of these posts and not one mention of A/UX?

    --
    The following post brought to you by the letters V, I, and M
  164. What's Wrong w/ Mklinux? by TalkingNad · · Score: 1

    I think what you mean is that there are faster distros. Mklinux is cool because it is microkerneled. You could, say, run Mklinux and a MacOS API server the same time, with a Mac-friendly window system on a virtual console, and run Linux and Mac apps simultaneously. Imagine: Download the Mozilla source, compile it w/ gcc, and use it to find cheat codes for Marathon while you play Marathon! Not that useful, but really cool.

  165. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Jebediah21 · · Score: 1

    I agree fully with you. Apple has been even more proprietary than anybody else. I might believe Apple was true to Linux page, but they have released no specs on their G4 processor. Heaven forbid that somebody steal their designs or _GASP!_ run a different OS succesfully on their beloved chip. Think of all the money Apple would use if people who want the fastest system were not burdned with the kludgy OS9.

    --

    Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
  166. Amen brother by raul+duke · · Score: 1

    I think that it is really cool that somebody is willing to look at this thing in a positive light. I like linux and I like the Mac hardware! I also to use the MacOS too. I think that Apple could be way worse about this. I give thanks to guys like you who can transcend all of the Mac stereotypes. Put people like us down all you want, what you don't see is that we have one hell of a platform here. Brad

  167. shame on apple by FreeBSDrew · · Score: 1
    I'm going to have to agree with everyone that this page is hardly consistent with the rest of Apple's site. There are no flashy graphics, and the writing style and HTML are very unprofessional. Missing punctuation and an inconsistent style with absolutley no visual flashy-ness -- very unlike them.

    Also, notice the lack of any copyright symbols after the mentions of "UNIX". Shame on Apple, a major corporation, forgetting that "UNIX" is still a copyrighted name. They're really asking for trouble with that.

    This looks like it was thrown together in ten minutes by a PHB whose knowledge of Linux goes only as far as what he read in a LWE brochure he found on a techie's desk.

    Heh, look at the source. We find this comment in the header:

    I thought Apple stopped giving credit to individual programmers, right? Well, we found our PHB, in any case.

    --

    ***
    1. Re:shame on apple by FreeBSDrew · · Score: 1
      Shit, I forgot to escape out the comment sequence in the comment itself!! ;-) Here we go:

      <!--- Page Maintained by Kevyn Shortell-->

      Should've previewed. Oh well.

      --

      ***
    2. Re:shame on apple by FreeBSDrew · · Score: 1

      Again, not an Apple page dumbass.

      Then what's it doing on Apple's domain? It's ppclinux.APPLE.COM. So it's going to be associated with them no matter what.

      Shame on you for being a retard

      Indeed.

      --

      ***
    3. Re:shame on apple by mhatle · · Score: 2

      Kevyn is more than "just some guy at Apple who likes Linux". Kevyn is the DTS person at Apple responsible with helping certain Linux/PPC Developers get information on machines and to get Apple (hardware) engineers to do a better job preparing specs for external use.

      This is an honest to god position that Apple setup to help certain Linux developers. Steve Jobs himself was the one who approved the position. (FYI the certain Linux developers are a group of people identified by Apple as being in the core development stream. They only have one DTS person working on it so he doesn't have the resources to answer 1000 questions a day. But by picking 10 or so main kernel developers they have the resources to help.)

      --Mark

  168. Linux and POSIX by Sri+Lumpa · · Score: 1
    On the webpage Apple states:
    Linux is POSIX certified implementation and includes...

    I have heard that a company was selling a POSIX certified version of Linux but thought this was only this version that was certified.

    Have anyone more informations about the POSIX certification of the Linux kernel in general, or a site talking about it?

    --
    "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
  169. Re:My Perspective by xplatform · · Score: 1

    Please tell me if this post does not belong here. (I am new to slashdot and I am a newbie in the Linux world, having dealt mostly with DOS and MAC). My first experience with booting my own Linux box was PPCLINUX on a PowerMac6500/250 (its on the hardware compatibility list). First, the Xwindows installer program did not work. So I went back and used the red hat like installer which seemed to work fine. It ran like a charm for a couple of days and then things got ugly. My system kept locking up while I was using the xwindows interface. I finally just reformatted the hard drive and loaded Mac OS 8.6 and the computer just sits there looking pretty. I only use it to scan pictures and edit them with photoshop. I really wish PPClinux had worked. Do you have any experience with system crashes while runnin PPClinux.

  170. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by mdenton · · Score: 1

    2 reasons for that: MkLinux only runs on 1st-generation Power Macintoshes with the NuBus architecture (eg only on a limited number of older Macs), and info on MkLinux is hosted separately on http://www.mklinux.apple.com

  171. Why shuld Apple do more than this ? by Forge · · Score: 2

    Apple makes some cool hardware and an OS.

    Some people don't like that OS for the job at hand.

    PPCLinux exists.

    Apple is left with 3 choices;

    1. Try to stop PPCLinux ( fat chance from a technical and legal standpoint ).

    2. Ignore PPCLinux and hope it goes away. Thus pissing off it's customers who will just go get Alpha or heaven forbid iNTEL.

    3. Start investing resources in PPC Linux. It doesn't really have a reason to do that since without a "no brain required" OS ( like MacOS ) all they are selling is reliable hardware and guess what. Some PCs are almost as reliable at a fraction of the cost. ( Penguin Computing comes to mind ).

    4. Put of a site look like a customer loving corporation.

    --
    --= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
    1. Re:Why shuld Apple do more than this ? by Darchmare · · Score: 2

      And count. He says '3 reasons', but lists 4. :>

      - Jeff A. Campbell
      - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

      --

      - Jeff
    2. Re:Why shuld Apple do more than this ? by friedo · · Score: 2
      Well, there are three types of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.

      ^_^

  172. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by substrate · · Score: 2

    Apple is using this to simply exploit linux. They do very little from what I see to help other operating systems.
    </quote>
    Apple funded or at least provided a good chunk of funding to produce a Linux variant on the Mac called MkLinux. They did this before any of the other companies even thought of jumping on the bandwagon. The project kind of died because the monolithic LinuxPPC port was better for a variety of reasons.

    <quote>
    BeOS does not support the macintosh G4's (G3's also..) because Apple wont help them &/or
    release specs to help them.
    </quote>
    And your point? BeOS is their competition and even more proprietary than Apple. Be would have laughed their asses off if Apple asked for help porting MacOS onto Be hardware. Intel doesn't help TransMeta build fast processers either. That's called business. Now since a bunch of developers could figure out how to get Linux booting on modern Apple machines that means Be is just whining. Sorry, no sympathy. They don't want to support Apple and are using this as a convenient scape goat.
    <quote>
    They opensource parts of their OS X that they want to use in their
    operating system.. how convenient..
    </quote>
    I'm not even sure what you're whining about here. It would be better to Open Source none of it?

    Apple isn't perfect, but they've put in an honest effort on some things and have been improving.

  173. Why no alphabetical listing of distros? by haaz · · Score: 2

    Notice that the listing of ports is not in alphabetical order, as it reasonably should be. Rather, TSS is listed first for some reason. LinuxPPC second, and then goes on to Debian which should be listed first if striving for alphabetical order. SuSE's forthcoming version isn't even listed.

    It's no secret that Terra Soft gets preferential treatment by Apple, and it's reflected on this page. This is most unfortunate politics played out on what looks to be an official Apple web site.

    Most sincerely,

    --
    -- haaz.
  174. Re:Not just the kernel, correct. by Guy+Harris · · Score: 2
    Especially conspicuous are its specs for utility progs and shells.

    ...and API routines not typically implemented in the kernel.

  175. Maybe they do.. buuuut... by myconid · · Score: 2

    Apple is using this to simply exploit linux. They do very little from what I see to help other operating systems. BeOS does not support the macintosh G4's (G3's also..) because Apple wont help them &/or release specs to help them. They opensource parts of their OS X that they want to use in their operating system.. how convenient.. They have given little to the linux community... but filled their plate with the benefits of the free world.

    Thanks apple!

    --

    SB.
    1. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Kaufmann · · Score: 2

      You conveniently leave out the fact that, for a long time, a team from Apple developed and maintained the first Linux distribution for the Mac, the Mach-based MkLinux.

      The world isn't black-and-white like you make it out to be. Tough luck.

      --
      To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
    2. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Kaufmann · · Score: 2

      I agree, of course; Apple _is_ very stupid about this kind of thing. I hope that, as more non-Apple PPC systems start to come out, using IBM's CHRP reference designs or whatever, Apple will finally realise that it's no longer viable to remain a proprietary company in an open world. (And then Woz will come back and we'll all be happy again. Amen.)

      --
      To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
    3. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by alfredo · · Score: 2

      I have run several distros of Linux on this Ol Mac. I am about ready to give yellowDog a try soon. I believe that Apple did give yellowDog some assitance. I appreciated the help they gave to MkLinux. they had to pull their developers back in the fold for OSX, just as they had to decimate the HyperCard project for QuickTime. I don't think they have anything against Linux. I feel they need the good will of the Nix's.

      One thing we should be looking at in the Linux community, is how they have made OSX a one partition UNIX. this would make Linux so much easier for the general user. They use a dynamic swapfile which does away with the need for a separate swap partition. It may not be the fastest way to do it, but speed means nothing if we can't get the general user to try our favorite OS.

      As much as some of you purist dislike the proprietary nature of Apple, they may have found the holy grail, a user friendly UNIX. Take a good look, you are seeing the future of UNIX.

      If you don't like they having anything proprietary, encourage them to open up, show them through your good works the benefits of openess. They are more open to us than Microsoft. Flames have no place in this movement. We are still too small potatoes to be making enemies.

      --
      photosMy Photostream
    4. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by rm+-rf+/etc/* · · Score: 2


      Think of all the money Apple would use if people who want the fastest system were not burdned with the kludgy OS9.

      I'm going to assume that you haven't used OS9. I have to assume something, and it's either that, or assume you are an idiot, so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt.

      I have Linux installed on my powerbook. I don't use it much. Part of this is because for some reason booting into Linux makes my powerbook forget it has an extra 128 meg memeory chip for about a week. But more so, MacOS is great. People who don't use macs whine about the lack of pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory, etc. Yeah, I want those things, but even without them, I prefer MacOS over linux for my desktop. Sure, it's not good for development or serving, but that's what I have a Linux Server for...

    5. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by rm+-rf+/etc/* · · Score: 2


      Linux on Mac runs quite well. The problem is open source programmers. It seems any more that to programmers, writing unix apps means writing and testing only on x86 linux. I have problems building some stuff on linux ppc, but of course I have problems building some stuff on Sparc solaris...

      Anyways, hardware support for mac linux is fine. It's actually a lot easier because you have much more homogenus hardware. PC's can have any of 100's of different video cards, but on the mac it's a much more limited affair. Plus since newer macs use a lot of the same hardware as PC's (PCI bus and disks, AGP video, PC100 ram, etc) a lot of the hardware support already exists in linux.

    6. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by keil · · Score: 2

      Having developed extensively on LinuxPPC and mkLinux, BeOS, MacOS as well as you-name-it unix for x86 and Solaris/sparc I can tell you MacOS is the same speed or marginally quicker running computationally large programs than Linux or BeOS. Really.

      Windows may be an awful kludge on x86 but it isn't so for MacOS.

      mkLinux has been around for a long time. Apple couldn't even support its own systems though. It flopped kinda. But this was back before free software was cool. I think their BSD focus for that slot is a better idea though.

      The G4 processor isn't theirs anyway, it's the Motorola 7400 which you can get all the specs you want on. Since the switch to the PCI bus (in 1995?) their systems have used OpenFirmware which supposedly (it was buggy as far as compatibility) was to make it possible for other OS's, such as for a while hints of Solaris and Windows NT as well as the free unixen. This has been covered in other recent discussions though.

      A fairly unpublicized website mentioning how to get Linux running on your mac is not a marketing toy. Compare IBM which makes servers that run on the same processor. NetBSD also runs on Power Macs, as well as their Darwin OS. They aren't selling more computers because they run Linux. Their MacOS X Server even competes with these possibilities (sort of).

    7. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by slashdot-terminal · · Score: 2

      What I am mostly concerned about is if maybe in the future I can get rid of my 486 in favor of a good mac that perhaps could run linux. I am wondering if perhaps if they could create cheaper macs to allow for a larger adoption. I am sure they would increase their user base by a great deal.
      I don't know what the support level for linux on the mac (in terms of getting all the hardware and everything up to it's full operating capacity and all. However it is a good thing and one should never look a gift horse in the mouth as the saying. This would mean that at least some better support can be had because then customers can see that at least Apple mentions linux officially and mention it to them that "hey my hardware xyz dosn't work with PPClinux why not?"

      --
      Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
    8. Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... by Darchmare · · Score: 3

      Were the LinuxPPC people going to pay Apple for the time?

      Apple may not actively help, but that doesn't mean they're stopping anyone. Apple has more important things to spend its time and money on. Engineer time isn't free, after all.

      - Jeff A. Campbell
      - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

      --

      - Jeff
  176. Re:Stop being so critical, please by JamesKPolk · · Score: 2

    I'll believe that Apple's embracing Linux, when a FULL Quicktime port is released for Linux.

    Note that I didn't say an open source port...

  177. The purpose is... by rm+-rf+/etc/* · · Score: 2


    to sell hardware... Apple's income comes from hardware. MacOS is a way to sell hardware. But they'll be happy to sell you hardware to run linux if you want.

  178. LinuxPPC be acknowledged in other places by Apple. by A+moron · · Score: 2

    It appears that Apple has also been nice and aknowledged LinuxPPC by offering the user a pre-set partitioning scheme in the "drive utility". The utility is used for partitioning your drive. As of v1.8.1 there is an option for LinuxPPC which gives makes all the partitions for you (swap, etc, etc) Their size changes with proportion to your HD size.

    I doubt Jobs knows about such things, but they sure are nice to see.

  179. not what I would have expected from apple by dlc · · Score: 2

    very interesting, although not what i would have expected from Apple (although they are "thinking different" with this one). My main problem with the page is that there's almost nothing on it. You would think that they would put more work into it! Here's a short list of what I'd like to see on this page:

    • technical information about OpenFirmware
    • technical information about the hfs2 file system. there was a lot of hype about it when MacOS 8.5 (?) was released with the new filesystem type--if it's so superior, post some info so the linux geeks can port it.
    • An exmplanation of why they couldn't think of their own catchy name rather than (almost) steal LinuxPPC's name.

    ben's linux page is a good start--but there needs to be more pages like this one. I'd also like to hear if there is anything soecial that needed to be done to build the kernel he has posted.

    darren

    --
    (darren)
  180. http://www.mklinux.apple.com/ by davetufts · · Score: 2

    http://www.mklinux.apple.com/ has been around for 2 or 3 years. But LinuxPPC definately has more momentum right now than MKLinux, so I guess it's cool that Apple is supporting

  181. Re:Apple and Linux by gig · · Score: 2

    > But you can't choose Linux and still, say,
    > play Quicktime movies. If Apple is so into
    > letting someone choose his/her OS, then are
    > they working on a Quicktime Player for Linux/
    > PPC?

    More to the point, why aren't YOU working on a QuickTime Player for Linux/PPC?

  182. BeOS by hwj · · Score: 2

    Gee, you don't think that the reason that Be "couldn't" support Gossamer-based-G3 or newer Power Macs had anything to do with the fact that they were passed over as Apple's choice for their modern operating system in favor of NeXT? Hmm.

    I think it's great that Apple will host a page with links to various Linux/PowerPC distributions. Certainly, their OS focus right now is Mac OS X, and granted, the Linux buzzword is attractive these days, but in general I think we can file this page under "more cool stuff you can do with your Mac". Apple, after all, lives and dies by its hardware sales.

  183. The Origin/Purpose of This Site by Potatoswatter · · Score: 2

    [I'm sorry about these HTML tags here, but Slashdot's Extrans posting mode seems to be broken]:
    <I>This page looks very unproffesional.</I>

    That's because it wasn't put up by a pro. Apple has a huge number of sites/pages on the Apple.com domain that are maintained by people inside Apple who want the content to be there. Many of their dev pages aren't candy-coated.

    I think the main point of this page was to show support of Linux by hosting Ben Herrenschmidt's kernel page off Apple.com. (Ben ported and maintains the kernels for Apple's latest machines.)
    Aside from the kernels page, this site has a total lack of content. Everyone's noted the spelling errors, and even the lack of decent links. I'd think Apple would try harder to get actual info on doing installations to the public.

    Where is my mind?
    mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0

    --

    Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
  184. Still waiting for Quicktime for linux by blakestah · · Score: 2


    Well, how about that port of Quicktime for linux ?

    What exactly are my options for viewing movies created with their server software using patented Sorensen codecs ?

    Apple seems perfectly willing to support ppclinux when they feel there is no possible way it can dent their OS. And when they are about ready to take BSD and release it as their next Mac operating system.

    Maybe then they will allow lowly linux users to view their video - but I doubt it.

  185. Re:Apple and Linux by acarlisle · · Score: 2

    Linux is important for Apple. They know they are selling machines to have people run Linux on. Why is this a big deal? Well it given people a choice. Now you can CHOOSE your operating system (Linux) and then choose which platform you want. A lot of people are picking the newer Macs as their Linux platform.

    But you can't choose Linux and still, say, play Quicktime movies. If Apple is so into letting someone choose his/her OS, then are they working on a Quicktime Player for Linux/PPC?

  186. My Perspective by plaidhat · · Score: 2
    I've been using Linux on PowerPC-based systems (not all of them Macintoshes) since somewhere around 1995 or 1996. At first, I had to use MkLinux, as none of the other forms of PPC-based Linux supported NuBus systems like the 8100 (PPC 601@80 MHz). MkLinux got its start, as I understand it, because a couple of guys at Apple wanted to play around with Linux on their systems and managed to get themselves assigned to working on that as a project.

    At the time, Apple was trying to get itself in gear working on their Copeland project. Copeland originally was supposed to be Mac OS 8, and was supposed to include preemptive multitasking and protected memory, and all those fun little buzzwords. No one especially cared what these couple of guys were doing when everyone was so focused on getting Copeland out the door. As we all know, Copeland got killed. No skin off my back; Copeland was such a bastardized, hacked OS that no one in their right mind would have used it, much less developed for it.

    In the meantime, the guys working on MkLinux had decided to base it on the Mach microkernel, figuring that this would make it easy to port it to other systems. They got DR1 and DR2 out the door, and they even worked half-way decently. The installer warned you about five times that you were doing something that could wreck your file system, and they didn't give you any options in terms of what was installed, but damn if it didn't boot up with a linux kernel and run KDE when you typed 'startx'.

    After Copeland was killed off, Apple started up the Rhapsody project - the all-new, action-packed, feature-filled, buzzword-compliant OS based on NeXT's technology. NeXT was based on the Mach microkernel. Guess who found themselves reassigned *real* fast once Apple realized they had been playing around with Mach for a couple of years. To my knowledge, Apple has never officially dropped MkLinux.. they just don't have anyone working on it right now. The MkLinux web site is still up at http://www.mklinux.apple.com, and you can still download DR3 from there.

    The next sort of PPC-based Linux I have experience with is LinuxPPC. I "inherited" (since no one else wanted it) an IBM PowerPersonal 6015. Very few people have ever heard of this beast. It's one of the original CHRP designs, also known as "Sandalfoot". I spent about $50 getting parts so I could get it to run, and decided to throw LinuxPPC on it since I could get it for free. (My other options were AIX and Windows NT, neither of which I had, and neither of which I could get my hands on quickly) Sadly, this system only ran for a little bit. The power supply isn't especially good. If I felt it were worth it, I'd get a new power supply to put in. It's not though, because there's no way I can install LinuxPPC anymore - the CHRP/PPCP installer program won't fit onto a floppy disk, and CHRP systems are not a support priority for the LinuxPPC guys since their are so few of them (CHRP systems, not LinuxPPC guys).

    My next experience with running an Apple-related alternative OS came when I received a copy of the Rhapsody for Intel CD. I tell you, it's unholy starting up an x86 box and seeing a giant Apple logo appearing on your screen. It just felt Wrong.

    Anyway, I'm going to stop rambling now. My own personal perspective on the web site mentioned in the article ( http://ppclinux.apple.com) is that it is not official in any capacity. It looks like something that an Apple employee just threw together so s/he could say "Hey, my little web page has links to useful info about running Linux on PPC machines!".

    P.S. I don't mean to discredit the LinuxPPC guys above. They've done a lot of hard work and LinuxPPC runs very well on the Apple hardware on which I've tried it. It just didn't work so well for me on the obscure, non-Apple hardware.

  187. Not just the kernel, correct. by zyqqh · · Score: 2

    While I am not up to date on Linux's actual POSIX compliance (although it's definitely not 100% POSIXLY_CORRECT), I can confirm that you're definitely right in that POSIX covers more than just the kernel. Especially conspicuous are its specs for utility progs and shells.

    For more information, you can order the POSIX standards from IEEE (yes, they charge for this; they suck) by calling 1-800-678-IEEE (+1-732-981-1393 international), or get the bible of posix.

    --
    // zyqqh
  188. This is, like, 3 years old. by hatless · · Score: 3

    Folks, Apple's had LinuxPPC and mkLinux websites up for a few years now. Long before the return of Steve Jobs, they had a small team of engineers primarily focused on the mkLinux project using the Mach kernel.

    Whether there's anyone still left at Apple working on this is another question, since after acquiring NeXT, Apple's OS strategy became a Mach + *BSD one. Note that by working with the Mach kernel all along, it can be assumed that work done on the key focus of the Mac Linux porting efforts--device drivers--would be largely applicable to mkLinux, OS X and Darwin.

    Good grief, 200 posts to this item and only one AC who noted that this is old? Wow.

  189. Hmmmm... by Snack+Cake · · Score: 3

    I sort of wonder if this is a real apple page. Look at the real apple homepage. Look at the OS X aqua interface. Look at an iMac. All of them are pure eye candy. This page is boring and unprofesional. It had a spelling error(so do my possts, but they aren't supposed to be profesional), and it appeared to be a bit inaccurate.

    1. Re:Hmmmm... by cybercuzco · · Score: 3
      Look at the OS X aqua interface. Look at an iMac. All of them are pure eye candy.

      Thats the point, you have eye candy to entice the masses to purcase your product. the average american wants style, they dont care how long your box will run without a restart, if its longer than a day, thats good enough, since most consumers shut their boxen down at night. apples strategy is: eye candy to lure them in, then spring at them with power and ease of use underneath. sure it would still work as well, look at linux, it works great, but is it easy to use? is it beautiful to look at? were working on it, but apple is light years ahead.

      --

  190. Posix certified? by inburito · · Score: 3

    Has linux really been officially posix certified as this webpage claims? I thought it just follows the posix guidelines as closely as possibly.. And doesn't this certification affect more than just the kernel? Not that I know much about the details of posix but just started wondering..

  191. Re:Stop being so critical, please by cybercuzco · · Score: 3
    The courtesey of Linux users to any windows/mac user will not win them over. They much experience and make the decision themselves. They have to see the light that is Linux. For if you know nothing of Linux, you should feel lower and inferior. Apple is not moving towards a friendly relationship. It sees competition in Linux. Apple can see the writing on the wall. Their move is nothing more than a ploy to blind us.

    You know what? thats exactly what apple zealots said when microsoft started making windows. "Apple has better quality, if people just buy macs, theyll see the light, and soon everyone will run them" Granted, apple has improve significantly the last couple of years, but not as a result of quality of product, but as a sole result of marketing. Candy coated computers are good PR, they make you want to buy them ( if youre average Joe six-pack) If linux users get into the same mindset of "our quality will win them over" then linux will fail. Microsoft and others will spread so much FUD youll think that world war three will result from runing linux on your box. lets embrace apple, since theyre helping us as a community market the goodness of linux, and counteract some of the fud thats out there

    --

  192. This page isn't new by Dominic_Mazzoni · · Score: 3

    Note that this page has the old navigation bar at the bottom instead of the new Aqua one at the top. So this page has probably been around for a while and certainly hasn't been updated since Apple redesigned their site.

  193. Linux PPC on the iBook =) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5
    Hi all, A few words on Apple's LinuxPPC page...the kernel hack made available by benh is required for use in BootX using an iBook. I just got my brand spankin new iBook G3/300 , 160mb RAM yesterday night and have been working on getting Linux up and running.

    If you have an iBook and attempt to grab the Bootx and install files from linuxppc.com , the kernel provided will not work (hang on boot). Just grab the kernel from the Apple page, uncompress it using MacGzip and throw it into the Linux Kernels folder in your system folder. All will be well, the boot will be successful.

    Just a note for everyone out there, the iBook is one excellent laptop and thanks to hard working kernel hackers like benh , I can now take advantage of the superior architecture in the iBook with the power of Linux.

    Thanks for the hardware Apple!
    Thanks for the kernel hack Ben!

    If anyone else wants to try to get Linux up and running on their iBook and is having any trouble, I'd be happy to try and help. Just mail me at dan@genuinemedia.com

  194. Stop being so critical, please by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5



    I don't get it, I just don't get it !

    At last, Apple has come out fully embracing Linux, and they even have a PPCLinux.Apple.Com to prove it, the people who champion Linux (and all other opensource projects) suddenly turn their noses.

    Why?

    Why do you have to be critical to Apple just when they embrace Linux?

    Sentence like "But can you drag your hard drive to the trash to unmount it?" just isn't going to win any friend, you know?

    A friendly reminder to all Linux Advocates:

    Believe it or not, Linux is still the new kid in town, and those of us who want to see Linux to be the dominant player in the world OS scene must remember that the number thing we must do as Ambassadors of Linux is to be friendly to all, and only by our friendliness and our helpful attitude that the world will be finally brought into our fold.

    Snobbery doesn't win any friend. Please remember that.

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  195. Apple and Linux by mhatle · · Score: 5

    Before too many people whine and bitch about Apple let me set some things straight.

    First off without Apple, MkLinux wouldn't exist for the PPC and a lot more effort would have been needed for Power Macs (of ANY type) to support a monolithic kernel.

    Apple engineers AND marketing are both interested in working with Linux on PPC developers. We ARE getting hardware, specs, and assistance on making things work.

    Apple wants all "new" machines to be supported at or soon after their release. How can we do this? By Apple giving us specs and such. Look at the iBook for a good example.

    Now what about those people bitching about BeOS. Everything to support BeOS on the new machine is available to Be. Just because Apple won't hand hold them through desiging their OS, the Be engineers are a bit peeved. Apple isn't hand holding any of the Linux on PPC programmers either, but for some reason we're not whiners like the Be people.

    Linux is important for Apple. They know they are selling machines to have people run Linux on. Why is this a big deal? Well it given people a choice. Now you can CHOOSE your operating system (Linux) and then choose which platform you want. A lot of people are picking the newer Macs as their Linux platform.

    FYI I know what I'm talking about, Apple loaned me hardware to help with the Firewire linux port... So before you bitch about Apple, understand they are changing, they are supporting "Alternative" OSes, and more importantly they are helping out the independent Linux developers.

    Check out www.crashing.org for a good picture of last years Apple Think Different bus.. :) (Also for information on the Linux/PPC Developer's Reference Release 1.1)

    --Mark Hatle