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.

Comments

Why?

[LoudMusic]

... 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

Re:Why?

[Auckerman]

"Why would anyone run Linux on a new Apple though?"

People who want a cheap, lightweight notebook (iBook), without having to use a "proprietary" OS, which has the cavet of "locking in" people to an OS. Not that I'm one of them, as I'm posting from Mozilla in OS X.

Re:Why?

[Queer Boy]

One of the most obvious is that maybe some people want an ultra-modern operating system that runs just as well on hardware a few years old.

Another reason may be to do some serious programming (serious meaning developing other tools, things like Apache and Gimp), where there are tons of free already ported and tested dev tools.

There's a lot of support behind Linux, and not all that much behind Darwin right now. It all boils down to the right tool for the job.

Some people just want to get behind something that is free (as in beer and speech) while having a stylish computer to do it.

Re:Why?

[Jeffrey Baker]

Linux can run all MacOS 9 software using Mac-on-Linux, which is the functional equivalent of "Classic" which MacOS X uses to run the same applications. Linux PPC supports an aweful lot of PCMCIA cards on the powerbook that OS X doesn't. Linux PPC has better power management than OS X (yes I'm serious). Linux can play DVD movies on the external monitor of a powerbook, but OS X cannot. Linux has a journalling filesystem and OS X doesn't. OS X is loaded with local root vulnerabilities, and probably a lot of undiscovered remote vulnerabilities as well.

Honsetly OS X hasn't got that much going for it.

Re:Why?

[GMontag451]

You don't need YaBoot to do that anymore. On any New World Mac (i.e. any Mac made after the first iMac), all you have to do is hold down the Option key during boot. This will bring up an OF based OS menu that will include all bootable volumes available.

Re:Why?

[Jeffrey Baker]

It's a big post, lemme see if I can cover it all.

Maybe so, I wouldn't know. But in general, OS X supports a lot more Apple hardware than Linux. For example, XFree86 4.1 is still unaccelerated for a lot of video cards in Apple systems, Firewire device support in Linux is flaky, and sound doesn't work under Linux in many systems (particularly laptops).

I disagree with this pretty strongly. Linux PPC runs on essentially any Apple PCI PowerPC machine ever made. MacOS X runs only on recent G3 and G4 models. It doesn't even fully support the DVD decoding hardware in older G3 laptops. It doesn't support the original PowerBook G3 at allApple's new OS doesn't support hardware they were shipping only 18 months ago. Now that's service with a smile! (Reference: System Requirements for MacOS X 10.1)

XFree86 is accelerated for Mach 64, Rage 128, and Radeon which covers all the Macs I care about. 2d drawing, video scaling, colorspace conversion, and 3d OpenGL are all supported. Sound works on everything that OS X supports except the newest iBook.

BS. I've got an iBook with YDL 2.0 and it doesn't even support suspend/sleep mode, nor does it dim the display. It can spin down the disk and blank the display, but that's it.

YDL is the worst Linux PPC distribution you can buy. Get Debian/PPC and install a BenH kernel which supports power management on PowerBooks (and iMacs, Cubes, etc.) Linux powers off my PCMCIA cards when the PowerBook sleeps, where MacOS X does not. If I put my PowerBook to sleep under MacOS X 10.1, my battery will be drained by morning. With Linux it sleeps as long as MacOS 9 does.

BS again. I just watched a DVD on my TV this past weekend driven by the AV connector on my iBook, in OS 10.1. Further, I'd like to know what version of Linux for PPC supports video out on my iBook.

Well that's great for the iBook, but on the PowerBook neither the TV nor the external monitor can play movies, and you also can't play movies on the LCD with a TV or monitor attached. Linux does this just fine. I use VideoLAN which has Altivec acceleration, and incidentally also has an embryonic MacOS X port. Read the Apple Technical Note 60895 "DVD Player 3.0 Does Not Work With External Monitor Connected to PowerBook"

Like what? Are you going to provide any examples, or are you just making stuff up?

Hear me now or hear me later: OS X is *loaded* with local root exploits. Here's one article.

5. How about timely support for future hardware you're likely to buy?

How about support for hardware I just bought a few months ago? Oh wait, that might cut into Steve's personal slush fund.

Why YLD is great for the Linux community.

[heldlikesound]

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!!!

Re:Not a troll, a serious question

[dankow]

The term 'PPC' includes G3 and G4 machines, not just the original PPC architecture. So yes, there are a lot of PPC machines out there.

Linux on Open Firmware Machines

[johnalex]

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.

SuSE for PPC vs YD ?

[green pizza]

How does YD compare to SuSE's PPC offerings? Looks like SuSE has put together a pretty nice PPC distro too:

http://www.suse.com/us/products/suse_linux/ppc/ind ex.html

Linux 4 PPC is a great Mac Saver...

[toupsie]

I have been using Linux on Macs going back to Apple's Mklinux DR2 distro to maximize my old Macs. Unlike my x86 boxes, when my Macs get long in the tooth, I can't bear to throw them away or sell them. I can't tell you why but I just can't part with them. That's the beauty of Linux and Darwin. Once they are no longer useful for my desktop work, they are backed up, reformatted, LinuxPPC installed (sometimes Darwin) and stuffed into my server closet until they blow their motherboards (which hasn't happened). The 604e chipped PowerMacs make great e-mail and web servers for a small to medium sized business. I can't wait to try out Yellow Dog's latest distro. I have had such great results with the LinuxPPC folks. These guys are supposed to be top notch PPC folks.

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.

Re:Linux 4 PPC is a great Mac Saver...

[toupsie]

Sure! try http://127.0.0.1/ ! Bet ya a dollar to a donut, it will run as fast as your machine!

Re:ext3

[toupsie]

Does OS X have journaling?

Not yet. Currently the only choices for filesystems are HFS+ and UFS. I would love to have a journaling file system. Great thing about Mac OS X is the open source project, Darwin. So even if Apple doesn't add a journaling FS some open source hacker can!

Now if I can only get X Windows w/ GNOME running smoothly on my G4/Dual 500, I would be in OS paradise!!!

Re:do it the right way

[treellama]

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.

Mandrake

[Dr. Sp0ng]

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...

Is Linux PPC a profitable business?

[chrysalis]

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.

Nice GNU tools site for OS X

[call -151]

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.

Re:ext3

[TotallyUseless]

check here for an easy to follow tutorial to get xfree86, gtk+, gimp, etc set up and running on OSX. It gives a link to download a binary for xfree86, install instructions, and tells you how to use fink to install just about anything else you could want. enjoy

needs better ease of use

[jchristopher]

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.

Linux-on-Mac solutions

[Weasel Boy]

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.