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Can You Install Linux on Mac HFS+ Filesystems?

Posted by Cliff on from the loadlin-for-Macs? dept.

Stu asks: "I've been thinking about giving my faithful old PowerMac 7600/120 a little boost, and also thought it would be nice to give Linux a go, especially to try out the GIMP as an alternative to Photoshop. I've noticed over the past year or so quite a lot of distibutions have popped up which install in an MSDOS partition and can be launched from within Win95/98 or MSDOS, like WinLinux and many others. I'm shying away from repartitioning my HD and installing LinuxPPC as of now, but I'd like to kinda dip my toes in the water before I take the full plunge, so my question is: Does anything similar to WinLinux and those other distros exist for the PowerPC platform, i.e. can install in an HFS+ partition alongside MacOS?"

3 of 10 comments (clear)

  1. Get another hard drive? by Xenophon+Fenderson, · · Score: 2

    What's stopping you from buying another SCSI hard drive for your Mac? One-, two-, and four-gigabyte SCSI disks are very cheap these days and more than large enough to host a useful Unix installation.

    This is what I did on my Alpha for a long time (NT and Linux on separate disks), and what I do on my Integraph workstation today (W2K and FreeBSD).

    If you want a 1-GB drive, I think I have a spare I can send you for the low, low price of $20 plus s/h. You should be able to find them on your own for cheaper than that.


    Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
    --
    I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
  2. HFS by _outcat_ · · Score: 2

    In my experience, it's only been HFS. I haven't even been able to pin down the behavior of *that*--my iMac DV, 400mHz, which was pure HFS (MacOS 9--it shipped hfs+ but I razed it down and made it HFS to obey my evil schemes) choked quite badly on some Debian PPC that I and my boyfriend tried to install.

    I'm not sure. I'd really like to hear that HFS+ is okay for what you're trying to do. It'd make Linux feasible on my laptop and a few other Macs I have sitting around--they're HFS+, and I have apps on them that I no longer have the media for, and AFAIK there's nothing similar to Partition Magic for Macintosh--I'd have to reformat and install in HFS to install anything.

    Anyone know of any Partition Magic -- FIPS type things for MacOS? I'd love it.

    Also, I read something I vaguely remember on /. before about the ability to make an exact replica of a disk image of a Macintosh over a network, very very easily. Anyone have any pointers?

    --
    Angry IT woman in big clompy boots. And talking lint!.
    1. Re:HFS by Smitty825 · · Score: 3

      Also, I read something I vaguely remember on /. before about the ability to make an exact replica of a disk image of a Macintosh over a network, very very easily. Anyone have any pointers?

      A good way to do this would be to use the chooser to mount the remote hard drive you want to save the disk image to, then use the program Disk Copy that ships on all MacOS's since like 7.5 or something like that. Just follow the simple instructions, and make sure to save it to the network drive, and you're all set!

      --

      Doh!