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Running Multiple OSes on Macs?
raist_online asks: "My boss has just received a new iBook and asked me to sort out a multi-OS install. I'll admit to being a PC hardware person primarily. If it was a PC-based machine I'd install Linux as a base system, then put Executor on for Mac emulation and VMWare for other PC hosted OS's, but I'm sure there must be a better way to handle the Linux / Mac thing with OSX around (I'm just not sure what that is) and I know that VMWare only runs on PC processors (Intel and Athlons). So, what do you suggest? Yellow Dog or Mandrake Linux? OSX or Executor or what? Is there a virtual PC I can use? For our research, the more operating systems we can get onto this one machine, the better!"
Virtual PC will run both Linux and Windows flavors in a Mac "VM" so to speak. I haven't used it myself, but I've read that it's pretty nice.
The first thing you need to do is create separate virtual partions. This makes everything that comes next easier.
OSX on one, OS9 on the other, Linux on the rest is one way to go.
A lot of Linux/UNIX can run in OSX, including Xwindows.
Virtual PC is a reasonable option if you need Windows compaibility. Go with YellowDog Linux (or Mandrake, Debian, FreeBSD, etc) if you don't.
Some HD space would be nice, but not absolutely essential.
I currently have OSX/OS9/YDL 2.1(2.4.10 kernel) running native and Win95/98/XP running via Virtual PC5 (connectix). Works fine.
As usual, a simple search on google turns up lots of links. Like this which describes a "Linux installation on an Apple iBook" as a triple boot system with Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, and Debian Linux. You then run your PC emulator in OS 9.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ibook.html
Here.
Has some really useful features, such as disk-safe undo that isn't available on windows.
I especially like the tagline:
With the advent of this new version, PC users have no problem crossing over to the Mac. It's one thing to tell PC users that a Mac is better, but to show them that even a PC is better when it runs on a Mac really drives the point home.
You drank my drink, you drunk!
If installing Linux, I suggest Debian GNU/Linux. I've had better luck with their distro on PPC Macs than other distributions. (Maybe I'm just more used to apt than RPM.)
You might also want to check out MacOnLinux, which lets you run MacOS on top of Linux.
Finally, there's always Darwin and X Windows!
For an iBook, you don't need YABootLoader. Open Firmware has a bootloader in the boot rom. All you have to do is hold down option during boot up. It will bring up a graphical menu of all the viable "kernels" (for the lack of a better term).
With multiple partitions, she/he could boot into any OS. The advantage is that each OS would run at full power, the disadvantage is that all Windows and many Unix flavors would be unavailable.
With VirtualPC, they could run pretty much any OS. And they could have a multitude of OSes running in different windows at the same time. Last VPC I used was version 2, which was good. Version 5 is supposed to be phenomenal.
But there could be different options which would be more appropriate depending on what he/she is trying to accomplish. Is this just a power trip, or is there a serious reason for this?
I'm running MkLinux, so I use BootX. There's YaBoot too.
No, this won't work. WINE Is Not an Emulator. It is just an implementation of the Windows API. It will only run on x86 systems. I guess it could run on a PPC system with a re-compile, but it would only run Windows PPC binaries, in other words, nothing. WINE is similiar to something on PPC Linux called MOL, or Mac On Linux. It is an implementation of the classic Mac API. But again, it will only run on PPC architecture.
You mentioned VMWare in the question and I just wanted to point out something for anyone that doesn't know. VMWare virtualizes PC hardware, it won't run on a PPC. VirtualPC was mentioned before and that seems to be the accepted PC on Mac emulation solution.
Yes, it should. All New World Macs (ones with the Mac OS ROM on the hd instead of in firmware) will have this ability. All Macs that have been inroduced after the first iMac are New World.