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Yellow Dog Linux 2.1 Shipping
Durindana indicates this announcement of the newest version of Yellow Dog Linux, writing: "PowerPC fans, this is a big deal. YDL's certainly improved over its former state lately; hopefully 2.1 continues that trend. Does this make it the "best of class" (Mandrake's favorite term) for PPC?" There are at least four strong Linux-on-Mac contenders now, which is nice to see.
... surely I'm not the first post ... am I?
Why would anyone run Linux on a new Apple though? OSX will have so much more support and software availability than Linux on PPC ever could imagine. I see how YDL could be awsome on some older G3s (the beige ones that I have laying around at work), but there really can't be much demand for Linux on the new boxen. Can there?
~LoudMusic
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psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Even as a hardcore Mac user (start up the flamethrowers), I have always been sympathetic to the open source cause and been interested in the dev. of Linux. However, without and old PC to muck around with, I'd never had the chance to try it out for myself. Along comes YLD, and now I'm able to install Linux on my old Power Computing (apple clone) machine. There were a few hiccups, but due to all the great Linux resources on the web, I figured them out and now I have my very own Linux box! Anyway, YDL gives mac users that WANT to get more techincal a chance to and provides the Linux community with good exposure, and that's always a good thing!!!
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I really don't recommend Linux on the new Power Macs (B&W G3's and newer). The times I've tried to install LinuxPPC and YDL on these Macs, I nearly hosed the machine when I had to mess with the firmware.
I'm running OS X 10.1 on my beige G3, and I haven't had any trouble with it. Sure, I had to buy more RAM, but hey, I paid only $25 for a 256MB DIMM.
There's only one drawback to using OS X on the beige G3's: no serial support. Fortunately, I needed another printer anyway.
JA
http://www.johnalex.org/
I am not a PPC user, but I am a Linux user. I find it intersting that they are going with ext3 (as is RH). It will be interesting to see which journaling file systems the different distrobutions go with. Perhaps by years end, one or two of them will be dominant. Does OS X have journaling?
In general terms, it like comparing Debian/x86 to RedHat. YellowDog is still somewhat RedHat'ish last I knew.
But more importantly, Debian/PPC is doing great. I can't think of any glaring PPC-specific bugs in either Woody or Sid right now.
Has anyone attempted to port the XFS filesystem from SiliconGraphics to a PowerPC Linux variant?
How does YD compare to SuSE's PPC offerings? Looks like SuSE has put together a pretty nice PPC distro too:
d ex.html
http://www.suse.com/us/products/suse_linux/ppc/in
On a side note, I finally tried out Mandrake 8.1 x86. That is an AWESOME graphical install!!! Almost as nice as installing Mac OS X.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
NetBSD is great for a lot of platforms; it's running right now on my alpha, decstation, and i386. But for macppc it's just not there compared to linux. The documentation is even worse than with other major netbsd platforms (netbsd documentation is pretty bad/outdated). It _still_ comes with XFree 3.3.x (yes version 4 is in the package system), so no easy accelerated video if you've got a Radeon. Plus to boot it you have to muck around in OF trying to figure out the right settings (which if you have a machine built after 1996 aren't included in the install docs), compared to Yellow Dog's hacky-but-easy-to-use booter.
Now, I prefer netbsd to anything else (except OS X on my mac) but it needs a lot of work on macppc (mainly documentation-wise). I just wish I were up to the challenge.
It seems to me that most Linux users on normal PC's like to have a dual boot system so that when the dreaded instance comes up that you HAVE to run Windows, you can reboot and do what you have to do. Does anybody know if it's possible to setup a dual boot on a PPC? (Linux and MAC OS) If so, any reccomendations?
~ now you know
I run Mandrake 8 on my Powerbook (G3 Wallstreet second edition), and I'm quite impressed with it. There are *very* few differences between it and the x86 edition. I used to run LinuxPPC on it, but it seemed to be a very halfassed recompiled version of RedHat. How does Yellowdog compare? Also, does anybody know the state of the FreeBSD port? I'd really like to run it on there, since it's my favorite x86 OS...
Well, in keeping with YDL tradition, the iso is not available on their FTP and probably won't be for a couple months.
I'm a little ambivilent about this - I can understand that they want to make money from their open source endeavors, and by withholding the ISO, they ensure that if you really, got to have it, you'll buy it from them.
On the other hand, it would be nice to actually play with it before putting the cash out. I was once called an OS slut by another sysadmin, and he was right - I like to play with every distribution - not just of Linux, but OSes in general. So to me, freely available ISOs are a godsend. When I find a distribution I like, I've often purchased the retail version, to support the company/group in question. But I *do* enjoy trying before buying.
Times are bad for OSS companies. Progeny is dead, Eazel is also dead, Corel had so pass the Linux baton, SuSE did massive layoffs, Mandrake did an IPO in a hurry to avoid bankrupt, Redhat focuses on services, training and databases because they lose money by working on the distro, Dell has no more interest in Linux, Loki filled chapter 11...
And all these companies did something real. They worked on quality products, they weren't stupid start-ups selling vaporware. But the market wasn't large enough, and they failed.
Now, what about Linux PPC? Macs users are about 4 % of computer users. That's huge.
But now, if companies selling distros and Linux-related products on PC (+ some other architectures) went (or are going) bankrupt, how can a company survive with only 4 % of other's market?
Yellow Dog is a very good distro. I installed it once, and it was very easy, and it ran flawlessly. Plus the name is funny, I love it.
Having Linux vendors for non-Intel architectures is also very important, because portability is a strength of OSS.
But I can't understand how a company can survive by working on a PPC-only distro. This is a niche market.
I really hope the best for Yellog Dog Linux, but after the death of Progeny (an excellent, non-niche distro), I'm really doubtful.
{{.sig}}
using ybin/yaboot you can easily multi MacOS 8.x, MacOS 9.x, MacOS X and Linux. Even multiple installs of each OS. Check out http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/ybin/ for more info.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Not all PPC based computer are made by Apple. The PPC is a good chip and runs quite happily in the RS/6000, the GameCube ( not really a Linux candidate though ) and other unnamed machines.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
How old does a Mac have to be before it can't run YDL or LinuxPPC? I have a PowerBook 5300 (yucko) that I would like to use for something other than a doorstop, and wonder if installing YDL on it is possible, or sheer folly.
sulli
RTFJ.
Ever since I left graduate school almost three years ago, I have been running some distribution of Linux on some Power PC. My first experience was LinuxPPC on pre-G3 beige computer (I can't even remember the model). LinuxPPC was a pain in the ass, X only had 16 bit color depth, and many applications didn't work correctly. That said, it worked fantastically as an X client for the SGI servers that I worked on.
From there I used Yellow Dog Linux 1.2, which was a huge improvement. I installed this on a G3 iBook. Once again the graphics sucked, but the interface was clean and very easy to switch to. This distribution was essentially based on Red Hat 6.2. X still sucked, though.
When I traded my iBook for a blue G3 minitower, I upgraded my Linux distribution to SuSE 7.1. After some false starts on the installation (mostly due to USB hardware problems), I had the system up and running. I was stunned. 24 bit color, upgraded kernel, and tons of applications. SuSE rocked.
I'm tempted to try YDL 2.1, mainly because I like Terra Soft Solutions. That said, I think that the SuSE 7.3 PPC distribution will be absolutely amazing (they skipped the 7.2 release so they could concentrate on 7.3). I'll leave my system in place, and patiently wait.
The middle mind speaks!
One thing that OS X has going for it is that lots of the gnu tools are available and very easy to install via the fink mechanism and the other nice installers available. There is a good central clearing place of various tools, including XFree86, various window managers, and lots of good things at osxgnu.org which is worth checking out. For a while, XFree was broken in 10.1 but there is a patch there that works great. It seems like with so much available for OS X, it is harder to justify using LinuxPPC or the other linux distros for Apple machines.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
Thanks for the note. I already have Mac OS X running X Windows and GNOME, just not well. I get a ton of errors and program crashes. Sure Mac OS X can handle the crashing apps well, but I can't when one of my GNOME games does and my high score is in sight! :)
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Yellog Dog is trying to market to existing Macintosh users. Those users are accustomed to Apple's ease of use. I tried Yellow Dog, and it was not nearly the equal of the latest x86 (RedHat or Mandrake) installers. I can't imagine that they will persuade many mac users to switch.
There are at least four strong Linux-on-Mac contenders now, which is nice to see.
No, there are not. LinuxPPC is all but stagnated, MkLinux development has slowed to a snail's pace after Apple tossed them of the USS Jobs into rough seas, in an old Zodiac with just one oar, SuSE is, well, SuSE, and Mandrake PPC is a bitch to install on Pre-Grey G3 boxen.
Hardly a steller showing for a fantastic platform. I all but abandoned my efforts at converting a StarMax 4000 (aka PowerPC 4400) into a Samba box. Installation is anything but straightforward unless you have a NewWorld machine, and the packages and updates are not particularly well kept up.
I'm not faulting any particular distro or person here, but fact of the matter is, to call it a strong showing is just Linux bunko.
No sig is worth reading.
Yes, Gnome runs on OS X. I used Fink to install Gnome on my Powerbook G3/500, it runs fine, although a few applets are a little flaky (this will improve with time). XWindows even runs rootless with XDarwin, you can have the Gnome control strip across the bottom and I put the OS X dock across the right side of the screen, so both are accessible at the same time. You ought to see a screenshot I made, I fired up Virtual PC with two windows of Win98SE, Win2k, then I fired up rootless XDarwin with Gnu Midnight Commander, then MacOS X and then Classic, and MacMame for good measure. By my count, that's 6 OSes running at the same time! Try that on your pathetic x86 machines!
LinuxPPC used to be a good platform. I had it running on my B&W G3 for quite a while as a student. But since I finished off my degree I hadn't had a burning need to boot linux.
Armed with a few spare hours last weekend, I decided to give it a boot and see how it compared with my new installation of 10.1... And I couldn't boot. I figured that this was a sign to go get the latest distro and install a 2.4 kernel. But lo and behold, I seemed to already have the latest version of LinuxPPC (2000). And half the links on their pages were broken.
Has LinuxPPC really stalled out completely? Is anybody out there still working on the distro?
I assumed the writer was referring to Yellow Dog, SuSE, Mandrake, and Debian. Adding LinuxPPC and MkLinux brings the tally up to six, and Linux-m68k makes seven. Linux on the Mac is flourishing.
I'm sorry, but yellow dog never was worth it.
Its just a repackaged linuxPPC that has become VERY source un-friendly. Any release on any platform that isn't compleetly source friendly is just a waste. Now what I'm really waiting for is a Slackware PPC distro...
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
On the Mac, you can run x86 stuff inside of VirtualPC. It runs great and it's the best way to test Web sites, because you can keep a whole room full of testing machines on one hard drive and even run them side by side in separate windows. When I use it full screen it's easy to forget that I'm not on an actual Windows box, at least on a G4. You get decent speeds on a G3, too. It's only about $50 + Windows as well.
Linux on an iBook or PowerBook is great if you're into Linux. You get long battery life and really nice machines with lots of connectivity. Kudos to all of the Linux on PPC developers for enabling more people to use great Apple hardware.