Review: Yellow Dog Linux 2.2

fabiolrs writes: "imaclinux.net is running a review on Yellow Dog Linux 2.2. They could manage to run it on the iBook. YDG 2.2 is a great distro with KDE 2.2.2, Gnome 1.4, kernel 2.4.18 and Xfree86 4.2.0." Nice to see PPC systems (meaning "Apple," mostly) getting so much attention in the Linux world lately -- Mandrake's 8.2 PPC is also getting close to a release.

Comments

i was wrong

[fabiolrs]

sorry people! my fault! yellow dog linux 2.2 actually RUNS on an ibook!

i wouldn't call it great..

[Anonymous Coward]

bug ridden (take a look at their yup, update program for example, core software for the distro and it doesn't work right), difficult to install and very poor support is more like it. take a look at the ydl mailing list for lots of complaints. in addition the company has a pretty lousy policy of releasing iso images months after it's available in stores (to get people to buy it). i miss linuxppc, that was a good distro. fortunately debian, suse and mandrake are available.

posted anonymously so i don't get my butt sued .

Re:i wouldn't call it great..

[SerpentMage]

Sorry I cannot agree with that. I like YDL because they are the only ones trying to keep up with the latest and greatest. Look at Suse and Mandrake and there is no effort whatsoever.

I use YDL 2.1 with Natilaus installed and have say it is totally cool. Have not looked back.

Supported hardware still needs a little work...

[MarcoJROM]

Too bad anyone with $2000 (back in 1997) worth of powerbook 1400 rubble liing around are STILL screwed. Check out the hw-support

Oh well...there's always other options:
Apokalypse linux
MachTen

No ISO? No go.

[greygent]

I'd try Yellow Dog on my TiBook, but they appear to be one of those companies who don't release ISO's to their distribution until they're virtually obsolete.

It's their right, but not a very good practice to try and win over new customers who don't want to spend $$$ to test out a new distribution.

Thankfully, I was able to get Debian installed. Now only if I could figure out how to boot it properly from OpenFirmware. The steps in the recent O'reilly article didn't work for me.

Re:No ISO? No go.

[Jupiter9]

Don't you people read?
The Yellowdog Linux website says the iso will be distributed on the 8th of April. That's four days from now.

Re:No ISO? No go.

[_typo]

Thankfully, I was able to get Debian installed. Now only if I could figure out how to boot it properly from OpenFirmware. The steps in the recent O'reilly article didn't work for me.

Branden Robinson (the debian XFree maintainer) has a page about that kind of stuff.

Re:No ISO? No go.

[Coldfusion97]

The ISOs are hardly obsolete when they release them. Usually Terra Soft (the vendor that produces Yellow Dog) releases the ISOs a few weeks after the CDs start shipping.

They usually give themselves a few weeks to sell some CDs so they have SOME capital to continue development. I can hardly fault them for that, and to tell you the truth, I really don't mind because I'm already using the latest versions of a lot of the software that's included with Yellow Dog.

So you have to wait a couple of weeks to `yup update`* your distro, big deal.

* yup, or Yellow Dog Update, is a cross-platform CLI package management tool that Terra Soft maintains (similar to Debian's apt-get, but trimmed down).

Re:Anyone know of a good faq

[woggo]

check out this on OpenFirmware and this on partitioning your Mac.

O'Reilly article

[wiredog]

On Debian & iBook

Linux on Powerbook 1400

[beerits]

Have you checked here? They seem to have at least some success getting the 1400 to work.

Debian "Sid" on an ibook...

[Scott Ransom]

I haven't tried the new Yellow Dog, but a couple weeks ago I installed Debian unstable (closely following Branden Robinson's instructions) along with Benjamin Herrenschmidts 2.4.18 kernel on my new ibook (600MHz, 384MB, CD-RW/DVD-ROM, Airport wireless) and am extremely impressed about how everything works (all except the modem - which I never use anyways). DVDs (with xine), CD burning, wireless, sound, hardware accelerated 3D, built in ethernet, power management -- all for ~$2000 US. And Linux seems way more snappy than OSX. This is my first Mac, but if they work this well with Linux in the future, it may not be my last...

YDL--not for everybody

[catdevnull]

I've been using YDL on a G3 (Beige) for some 2 years. It's great as a server, but not-so-swell as a desktop solution. Outside of powe routages that exceed the UPS battery, it almost NEVER goes down. Runs as a webserver, mail server, AFP/AppleShare server, SAMBA, et. al. Over 100 users. init level 3 text log in is all I need. However, the desktop environment isn't nearly as robust and flexible as the Intel distros. In short: Use the right tool for the right job. If you want to use linux as a desktop solution, use Intel hardware--it's alot cheaper and supported globally. If you're looking for a rock-solid server that takes advantage of the PPC, YDL is the most stable linux server I've every seen. ...just my 2 cents... catdevnull > stdout

why is this okay?

[jchristopher]

The article basically says that YDL 2.2 is "okay", with quite a few quirks, their configuration tools crash, etc. Why is this considered "acceptable"? Is it wrong to expect more out of what is supposedly a "maintenance release" - shouldn't they have some stuff ironed out by now?

I have $100 just waiting to be donated to the first PPC Linux team that produces something that works properly on my iBook. Seriously. No one seems to want it.

In Yellow Dog 2.1, I followed their Airport setup instructions to the letter, but it does not work. Their "YUP" update tool does not work. Sound did not work. From the way the article reads, it sounds like 2.2 is more of the same, so why bother?

I'm also following the Mandrake 8.2 PPC beta process with much interest. As far as I can tell, there is ONE GUY - Stewart - working on it. He's doing some great things, but frankly, it's clear that he's overwhelmed. For example, my iBook2 cannot get IPs via DHCP over either the built in ethernet or the wireless inteface. Nobody knows why. Modem works, but only after you tweak the timout values in the dialer to be certain values. How would anyone know that? It should be done by the installer if the installation platform is the iBook!

I wish that these folks would work on getting the CORE stuff working, and working well, before they start including 2000 packages on the CDs. I can download Apache, MySQL, and 18 text editors later - right now, I need a working network connection!

The "gold standard", as far as I'm concerned, is RedHat 7.2 on a Dell Inspiron. Everything worked, and I mean EVERYTHING. No tweaking, no kernel upgrade, no command line garbage. Ethernet, video, mouse, keyboard, everything. So that's what I expect, but no PPC vendor has delivered it yet.

Given the very limited hardware a PPC vendor must support, I just expect it to work. It doesn't.