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First Beta Of Mandrake Linux 8.2 For PPC
belbo writes "On Friday, an article on MandrakeForum announced the immediate availability of the first beta of Mandrake Linux 8.2 for PPC.
Apart from the features of the upcoming 8.2 release for i586, this beta offers network installation via AirPort, an AppleScript wrapper for passing parameters to BootX, a patched 2.4.17 kernel, support for 1394, support for Radeon/Riva cards (via XFree 4.2) and more." Great news. I run Yellow Dog Linux for PPC boxes, but am still waiting for a good Linux for PPC release that does everything well, and out of the box. Maybe this is the one?
My only experience with linux on the ppc was.. linuxppc, a few years ago. That distro, howeever, is very much a redhat for ppc rather than a distro unto itself. Has anyone out there in slashdot land installed and used debain-ppc? How does it compare to ydl and linuxppc?
It sounds like the new Mandrake is intended to be TiBook-ready. If anyone tries it on a laptop soon enough to post, I'd be very interested to hear how the installation went and what kind of multimedia support you got.
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What does any breed of PPC linux offer now that OS X doesn't?
Of the two, only Linux PPC will run decently well on a non-G4 Macintosh. Wasn't OS X optimized for G4 machines? When I was looking to install an OS in addition to OS 9.1 on my G3/350rev1, I looked at Apple's "OS X supported on" page, and saw my machine at the bottom of the list. Given the (then) performance problems that OS X was having, it made the decision to install Linux PPC easy.
Oh, yeah, the YDL CDs were $30. Mac OS X is >$100?
I have to say that I'm impressed with what Mandrake has done. I've always believed that they're the best "desktop" Linux distro I've used - plenty of software, simple to use (like setting up a NAT - takes 5 minutes under Mandrake, took me 2 weeks under Redhat).
But after having had my Mac for 2 weeks, and basically unplugged my Linux box after I threw samba, imap, postfix, DarwinX, Gimp, etc on the Mac box, I have to ask if I'm all that interested in the Mandrake Linux now.
Well...not really. Perhaps if I was going to run G4 box as a pure server, then I'd consider that idea, but otherwise, I have everything I need. (And even then, I'd have to consider just what kind of server I was running that I'd want to switch from OS X).
But I think it's great that Mandrake is doing this anyway - there's always people who simply want to run Linux on whatever platforms they want, and if nothing else, it keeps Mac (and everybody else) on their toes to keep innovating.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
No one on this forum has yet mentioned SuSE PPC as an alternative Linux for mac hardware. I was very disappointed with LinuxPPC when I first tried it, (and mkLinux, but that was way back).
I installed the first SuSE beta and have been using their distros ever since. The best things about it are the detailed printed documentation, the professional quality of the distro, great installation tech support and the bundled software (6 CD's worth).
It's also nice using a distro that is used on PC's. I don't feel like I'm using a stepchild OS. I'm sure this new mandrake will help reduce the stigma of running linux on PPC as well.
That said, however, with OS X 10.1, I very rarely find myself booting off of my linux partition. I miss the multiple workspaces, but I really like being able to use BBEdit and Office without starting up MOL.
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Sure, Linux is just another "free" option, but so is Darwin.
When I was running an old PowerBook 3400, I loaded LinuxPPC onto a Jaz 2GB disk and booted from that a few times just to say "Yeah, I had a UNIX-like OS running on it." Aside from that, it was just a toy.
Right now, there isn't a whole lot that Linux for PowerPC can do that OS X cannot do. Maybe these Linuxes can run on a wider variety of machines (read: non-G3 new-world ROM boxen), but aside from that, I really don't see any benefits.
Still, it is nice to see that companies still believe in and support the PowerPC archetecture as a whole and don't mind devoting resources to it.
I've had the same thoughts. I think the reason that I like running Linux (GNOME) better is the configurability. I guess maybe I'm fickle, but it seems like I am changing my GTK+ theme once a week, with my window manager and background. I just can't do that with Mac OS. I can't get it so that I feel completely comfortable. I am guessing though, in the future, there will be Mac OS UI tweeks that will make it better for me to use...
look at all the options you have for desktops/windowmanagers... sure OSX has a nice one but it's a "one size fits all" deal,... Linux gives you choice.
beyond that just look at the thousands of apps available for Linux, how many Mac apps still need to run in classic mode?
AND there's MacOnLinux, letting you bring up "classic mode" on your Linux desktop, I don't know if MacOnLinux lets you run OSX inside it but I wouldn't doubt it.
in summary, Linux has all linux has PLUS all the apps Mac has, running under the Linux OS. sounds like a winner to me.
keep the os9 partition around for watching Quicktime video's and running mac apps but you don't dual boot, it just runs inside Linux.
I'm getting a mac soon, and will put this Mandrake 8.2 on it.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
Well, there's support for applications that aren't yet supported on osx, and perhaps they want an OS thats entirely open source.
Don't know about the airport-at-boot but the latest Linux kernels (with benh's patches) all have excellent support for my iBook2. Sound works, DVD works, network works, but I don't have airport (however, there's a kernel driver for it, and it's not even marked "EXPERIMENTAL" so I guess it probably works well too).
It's so much more responsive than OS X that it's not even funny. I wonder if anyone else notices this on their G3s? That's the one reason I find myself in Linux more now.
just to let you know... I use Debian on the iBook.
-clee
Last night I installed Yellow Dog 2.1. It's so much faster than OS X on my iBook (500mhz, 640 MB RAM) that if I can get the Airport card working, there's no way I'll ever use OS X again.
It amazes me that a bunch of open source dudes can make an OS that runs faster than Apple's own - seriously Apple should take a lesson from this. They should be ashamed of OS X.