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Yellow Dog Linux 2.0 Released
lyberth writes: "Finally after almost too much waiting Yellowdog Linux has released the newest linux distro for the wild and wonderful ppc platform. An awsome new installer, support for most of the new mac hardware, and the first distro to include Xfree 4 for the ppc, as standard makes this pretty sexy distro. The press release can be found here."
Quoth the GPL:
Note that this doesn't mean you _do_ anything for them, just that you give them permissions to it under the terms of the GPL.
The only people you need to actively provide source to are the ones you've given binaries to. You may want to have a look at the GPL FAQ: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl-faq.html
It does in fact comply with the GPL as other people pointed out.
However, nothing is stopping someone from buying YDL 2.0, and making/distributing the ISOs themselves.
There is a monolithic kernel for nubus Power Mac's being developed; I know that people have gotten Debian working with it, don't know about other distro's but it's worth a shot. Look here.
Debian PPC is nice. Testing and unstable both work fine.
boot cd:\\yaboot
At the yaboot prompt I type:
debian video=ofonly
Has worked for me so far.
I was just about to install OS X on my iMac. I really wanted to run YDL 2.0, but it's been such a long wait. No doubt the resulting product is fantastic, but it got to be a little much.
I'll install promptly!
-Waldo
The GPL is not internet-aware.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
In this case, all it'll take is for one person to buy it and upload the sources in order to effectively make it downloadable - which is what the GPL ensures. But Yellow Dog doesn't have to do that themselves if they don't want to.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
And I believe that this is the reason that the designers of the GPL intended that proprietary software not be legally distributed combined with GPL software. IANAL, so I don't know whether to do so is actually to violate the GPL. It violates my interpretation of it. And, yes, that means that I believe that SuSE is in violation. I don't have a big wad of cash and a stable of lawyers to do anything about it, however.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Mac OSX is BSD-based. I stopped using Unix twenty years ago because of the attitude of the people at Berkeley - it was obvious that they were not interested in improving Unix, in fact the basis of their activities was the assumption that Unix was the apotheosis of computer operating system design.
Unix has simply horrible access control - the ridiculous and unnecessary concept of the root superuser, for example, or the neolithic rwxrwxrwx file attribute system.
Linux represents not just a free unix, but a unix-derived OS that is evolving toward something vastly better. Look at what Timpanogas is doing to try to bring real file access controls (and please, don't even bring up the various pathetic and incompatible implementations of POSIX ACLs that currently exist) or what Reiser is doing to co-evolve the file and name spaces.
I use linux primarily because it is free and NOT UNIX. Just like a human is not an australopithecus. Interestingly enough, though, the advent of linux seems to have shaken the BSD world up to the point that Unix has started evolving again, too... or maybe that's just synchronicity. Apes aren't australopithecines either.
Yeah, I'm not an anthropologist, my spelling is probably wrong.
--Charlie
Either use OS X (a better unix for PPC than anything else by a mile)
Try out OpenBSD 2.9, and then tell us what the best unix for PPC is.
We've been running -current for months on our development database server, a G4 cube. You couldn't pay me to install OSX on that machine.
I'm genuinely curious as to why you're running a server on Mac HW when the Intel HW is generally cheaper and more adaptable
It was free.
I don't believe the source even has to accompany the binaries - just that you have to make it available upon request at minimal media cost to anyone who buys your product.
It seemed the original poster may have actually been talking about the product itself, not the source, being available for download, and of course there's no such requirement. Just because your source is GPL'd doesn't mean you have to give your product away!
Personally I really like LinuxPPC. I have numerous installations in a number of locations and I don't tend to have many or really any problems that I can't fix myself. I used to admin a mirror server that mirrored a large number of Linux distros and other open-source items (apache, proftpd, mrtg, LDP, etc...) and it was hosted on a box running LinuxPPC 99. It ran quite well for a machine that had as little RAM as it had and suffered as much pounding as it did. I'm still impressed by it. I use it here at work as a personal server and a place to host our network statistics and other information. It's been rock solid since I put up that machine when I started work here 10 months ago. I use it at home as well and haven't had any trouble there. Isn't Tivo also based on LinuxPPC?
Sure you occasionally run into problems with something not compiling. That's not really a LinuxPPC problem but more of a coder problem not writing source to be as portable as possible across common hardware platforms. That happens. Ask an Alpha user. :)
There have been some problems with LPPC in the past like sound support, support for new machines, etc... but the tend to get fixed quickly. Support for new hardware doesn't happen over night after all. Maybe if Apple divulged a little info to the LPPC group a few days or weeks before dropping a new machine on the market, support would come sooner.
I can't honestly say that Linux on PPC-based architectures would be as far as they are today without the support of LinuxPPC Inc. MkLinux never would have gotten it here. YellowDog wasn't even on the scene yet. I don't believe Debian had been ported to PPC yet either. In the Fall of '97, you had either MkLinux DR2.1 or LinuxPPC to choose from. Someone has to buy the newly released pieces of hardware and donate them to developers for progress to be made on supporting those new machines. LinuxPPC usually does this act. All PPC Linux distros greatly benefit from this, not just LinuxPPC. YellowDog does too. So will Mandrake. So will the rest.
Personally I've had really good luck with LinuxPPC and will continue to use and support their efforts. I'd be interested to hear about the problems you encountered though. I'll probably purchase a copy of YellowDog 2.0 just for the hell of it and give it a whirl. Good luck with whichever distro you use.
--
It is perfectly kosher to sell GPLed software. The YDL people are obligated to provide source to anyone who buys one of their binary cds. There is nothing in the GPL that says one has to provide source to just anybody. However, as long as the cd does not contain any commercial or other non-redistributable software then anyone who legally obtains one of those cd's CAN make it availiable at no cost.
The last point is a major big deal. If a YDL cd contains something like BRU then an iso of that cd CANNOT be freely distributed. Anyone wishing to distribute a YDL iso would have to 'sanitize' it of non-redistributable software first. If I'm not mistaken then these considerations apply to the full version of SUSE because of some commercial packages.
In short, as long as they are providing SRPMS to their customers for the GPL/LGPL stuff then they are breaking no license.
so if we were to napster the binaries around who would be responsible to fork the source?
How we know is more important than what we know.
You can go to a casino and say "please bar me from entry for a week" and they've got to do it, it's the law. Slashdot needs a "please ban me from posting for a week" button. The closest you can get is a 24 hour ban by being modded down 5 times in 24 hours, thus the point of the above post, and what do I get? Score:4, Funny.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Forget the new hardware- I still have a use for it. If I had a "spare" G4 that I wasn't using for photoshop or video editing, I'd be, like, happy. Or something. My 8500, 9500, iMac and powerbook are all running MacOS and they're staying there for awhile. But... I have an anceint, rancid 7100 that's just waiting to rust sitting under my TV.
If you have an x100 system, you have TWO whole options for an OS- MacOS (7.something - 9) and MKLinux. There's no Be, no *BSD, nothing else. If you've never used Linux before, MKL is easily the WORST place to start- it boots to a command line and has to be bootstrapped off of MacOS (meaning you can't boot into it natively) - this is DR3 I'm referring to, not whatever the current build is.
Yellow Dog Linux needs a big shiny merit badge for "most useless web site"- Debian, the BSDs, MKLinux, et al all have easy-to find sections that will tell me what hardware the distro runs on. YDL has no mention of anything, and a search by model numbers gets squat for hits. Going by the web site, it runs on flower power iMacs and powerbook G4s- the only model screen shots they display. Odds are if you have one of these, you're running MacOS- anyone who sets out to buy hardware that will end up as a linux box, from my experience, invariably goes intel. It's cheaper.
Linux, from everything I've heard and seen, runs quite well on older hardware- yet there's no mention of said hardware on the YDL page. Anywhere. MKLinux is ass (from a Mac user's perspective), LinuxPPC took a huge shit when I tried to drop it on my 8500, and the Debian installer is going nowhere unless you already know how to partition and format a disk from the command line, 'cuz from firsthand experience, there is NO help for the damned formatting utility.
I'm a Mac user. I like the idea of unix/linux and want to play around on hardware that's not mission critical- I've unsuccessfully grappled with three different distros and have been resoundly shocked by the horrendous quality of the format/install process. If the OSS community is trying to bring new users to Linux, well.... you guys are doing an amazingly piss poor job of it.
I'll stick with OS X for right now- I can run Apache and photoshop on the same machine without rebooting. AND the default install boots right into a pretty, albeit marginally useable UI. Linux, so far, can't compete in that respect.
Hey, I hate to be the first to whine about this, but:
When will YDL 2.0 be available for download?
Monday, June 25th. Why the wait? YDL 2.0 was over a year in development. An expensive undertaking by any standards, we were determined to produce the finest PowerPC Linux distribution available with one of the easiest installers for any platform. And now we ask for your support. Please purchase YDL 2.0 from our resellers or our online Store when it becomes available on the 29th of May.
Does anyone know where the portion of the GPL that reads that if you modify the source code, that you must release the source code to the public after you've sold it for a while is?
I'm having trouble finding it. Not that I have a problem with them making money, or charging for the media, I'm just hoping that our lurking GPL experts can clarify this one for me.
NOTE: I am NOT accusing them of a GPL violation. I'm asking a question. Please don't flame me, I burn easily.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
They are on the unsupported, but should work list. I take that to mean that they don't have those machines sitting around, so they have no way to support you if you have problems.
We have the same problem where I work. We write drivers to be as portable as possible, but don't promise they will work on all hardware on all the OSs we support. On some OSs we provide source code for the files that are system specific, object files for the rest, and a porting guide. They can port it themselves, but don't expect much support for your hardware if it doesn't work.
There are other drivers where we just provide all the source, it depends on the product, and legal issues with whatever IP is involved.
found this link in 2 clicks
a re .shtml
http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/support/faq_hardw
and on my third click
What hardware will simply NOT work with Yellow Dog Linux?
- Power Macintosh 6100, 7100, 8100
- WGS 6150, 8150, 9150
- The PowerBook 1400, 2300, and 5300
- Any Performa 52xx, 53xx, 61xx, 62xx, and 63xx.
- The 6360 is the only exception -- it will boot the Linux kernel
---
This
You are wrong. But is a common mistake. They do in fact have to give source or make it possible to get source when they distribute the binaries to you.That would mean that either the box set has cds with the source on them or they have a ftp site somwhere with the source. They do not have to give the source to anyone to whom they do not give binaries. So if for example I go buy a boxset and burn and give you a copy of the binary cds. I and not YDL would be the one who at that point would owe you the source.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I also am still running MkLinux on an old 7100/80 and while it certainly isn't the latest/greatest Linux distro, it certainly is functional. There are worse things than learning how to use Linux from the command line. Personally, I have grown to prefer it (and I am not a UNIX guru-- I'm a dyed in the wool Mac fan since my first Mac Plus 12 years ago.) You can learn a lot, even with MkLinux (including that Joy of Joys for a Mac User Linux Newbie: Learning to Mount a Floppy! )
So, if you want to let that 7100 continue to rot under the TV, be my guest... but don't bellyache about it when there ARE options out there you just don't want to explore.
Curious__George,br>
***General Consultant to the Human Race*** My opinions are free. You get what you pay for.
If you ever want Linux to get out of the server room and onto the desktop, shut the fuck up and start compiling kernels for every ancient piece of hardware. When you're done, get to work on a nice, pretty installer that handles the mess of partitioning and configuring a distro to any machine with no user intervention.
Why?
Because despite the fact I've installed more NuBus, PDS, PCI, SIMMs, DIMMs, AirPort, PCMCIA, and proprietary cards than you have sitting in the umpteen spare parts boxes in your closet, despite the fact I've wrangled my fingers into the most contorted positions to get to parts nestled way, way, way down in the innards of PM8100's, despite the countless pieces of hardware I've installed into every generation of Macintosh boxen, I still want an OS that installs and is up and running in a snap. I'll tweak once it's running. If getting it running is like some marathon several-month-long episode of Junkyard Wars, I want no part of it, thanks.
Moral of the story: until Linux distros can install on virtually every piece of hardware and be running ( and online, and printing to the printer) before the average user finishes two cups of coffee, it's never gonna make it out of the server room.
---
MacTacToe - for every problem, an elegant solution
How about serve email from your 7200?
so i've been working in a few of the cisco 7200s here at work most of the day. i take a break and open up slashdot and start reading this comment. with my mind still on the ciscos i think "why on earth would i want to serve mail from a router?"
maybe i need a coffee...
Silly slashdot, sigs are for kids!
Not only that the FSF encourages distributors to charge for software, with the notion that this is a prime opportunity to secure funding to further develop Free Software-- something I'd say Yellow Dog is involved in. Certainly the $30-$40 for the set of disks you get from YDL is not making anyone a multimillionaire-- their 1.2 distribution was dang nice, imho, and I'm guessing that 2.0 would be money well spent as well (especially if you're not going to be a hardline Free Software zealot and only use the main tree from Debian).
I do not have a signature
Your last statement is actually untrue. If YDL sends you a binary and a source CD, they don't have to make any offers to provide the source code to you or to anyone else ever again-- they already have satisfied Section 3a of the GPL.
The GPL says you cannot set a price for the source code at all, except for the actual physical cost of distributing it (i.e. price of a blank CD or whatever). This is to prevent the source code from becoming very expensive while the binaries remain affordable.
If I buy a copy of YDL and they include the source, I'm personally responsible for giving copies of the source along with the executables if I'm sharing with my friends. The only way I'm safe is if I receive an offer for the source, but no actual source code. Then I can pass along the offer.
I do not have a signature
Kind of like Mac and/or Linux users, eh?
sulli
RTFJ.
So... is that "legal"? I am not a programmer, but if I was, I'd be very upset that they are selling my work but not obeying the terms of the license I released under.
I know there is no requirement that they actually make an .iso for you, but don't they have to at least make the source available?
Yet both those machines are on the "unsupported" list.
It's interesting that the place where Linux is most useful - older hardware that needs a new life - are frequently the machines that YellowDog won't run on. Is anybody actually going to run out and buy a new G4, with MacOS X included... and then put Linux on it? If you're shopping for new stuff to run Linux, would you even consider PPC hardware? The reason to buy a G4 is to get MacOS, otherwise, what's the point?
YellowDog would be great for putting those old 7200 era machines to work...but it won't run on them!
Size. 8x8x9 is really small, cute, and nifty. The next closest hardware is a Cobalt Qube, which is, what, $3k?
Fanless. Cool. Low powered.
Aesthetics. Not a terribly profound reason, but a Cube does look rather nifty.
That's my guesses, at least.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
It takes some doing from the press release site, but you can make your way to the supported platforms page.
or you can click here
YDL 2.0
I'm sure it's great, but it won't work on my Power PC 7100AV at home.
Beware typoes.
According to this page (3rd party tools):
y .s html#psrv
http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/products/3rd-part
VAST & DEEP Parallel Tools, by Pacific Sierra Research
VAST is a precompiler that automatically applies high-level vector and parallel optimizations to C and Fortran programs. Of specific interest here is VAST-C/AltiVec, which automatically vectorizes C programs for AltiVec-enhanced C compilers, such as the modified gcc distributed by Yellow Dog/Black Lab...
You can always download from www.linuxiso.org (along with most other popular distros), but this server usually takes a day or so to get the latest versions.
===> An eye for an eye makes everyone blind - MG
The only issue some of you might have is that from what I read at iMacLinux it is not downloadable until the end of June. It honestly makes since to me to try and recoup some of the costs by having the people who want to try it out first pay for it. IMHO