Linux on the iMac G4

Brent Foster writes: "The staff at iMacLinux.net have Linux running on the new flat panel iMac G4s. They have an initial installation guide available here(1). It has several photos of the iMac G4 during the installation as well as cat /proc/cpuinfo. They also have some photos of the unpacking available here(2). The iMac was sponsored by PowerMax, it is nice to see companies sponsoring Linux efforts, especially in the Apple world." John Buswell adds: "It currently works in novideo mode, but we plan on testing newer kernels and XFree 4.2 with nvidia patches later this week."

Comments

Re:In addition to, not instead of

[keytoe]

there's not Apache/mod_perl build for Fink yet

While you are correct about the absence of apache/mod_perl for Fink, you might like to know that the mod_perl DSO for apache is included with the standard OS X install. Simply edit your apache.conf file to load it (actually, just un-comment the line that calls it).

I spent hours trying to get apache/mod_perl/mod_ssl compiled and installed before I realised it was alread done for me... and Software Update keeps it fresh, even!

Re:In 10 years you'll be glad your Mac runs Linux

[namespan]

Since Apple have a propensity to obsolete their hardware, and OSes rather quickly.

"Quickly" is relative -- it depends on if you're trying to compare with other proprietary systems or open source.

If you're talking Linux, well, any OSS software beats the hell out of anything else for longevity on HW, of course. Anyone who wants to can port to any HW and maintain it

But at the moment, I'm typing this on a five+ year old PowerMac 9500. Running Mac OS 9.2 on 48 MB ram rather smoothly. Some pages render badly in Netscape, but it's a very serviceable machine that would be MORE serviceable if I threw gobs o' ram in. Try running Windows ME or 2000 on a Pentium II 200 with 48 MB RAM.

(The 9500 will run OS X with some tweaking if I put a G3/G4 upgrade in it, BTW).

Look at 68k macs - no longer supported by any current version of the MacOS.

68030 Macs (last off the line sometime around 93/94) lost OS support in OS 8 (Fall 1998). Again, that's 4-5 years of support. 68040 Macs (dropped about 1995) lost support in OS 9 (2000) -- again about 5 years. And this is only time from when they CEASE manufacturing the old models... if you go from the time they start, it's phenomenal. Take the venerable SE/30... off the line in '89, finally dropped from support in 1998. That's 9 years of support. Not too shabby.

The other angles is that if you use the contemporary software, most Macs run quite well. I have an SE/30 that's still knockout for Word Processing, basic spreadsheet, music sequencing/notation, and checking email. You can argue the same for any hardware, but in terms of utility, beats the hell out of any 1989 intel hardware I've seen.