Slashdot Mirror
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.
I managed to get YDL 2.0 running on my old Apple clone - A Power Computing Power Tower 220e. I have a G3 upgrade card in it, and it works well. I can't wait to try 2.2, hopefully it will be even better at supporting the weird clone hardware. I should download it soon...
YDL's RPMs make it easy for anyone who's familiar with Redhat or Mandrake to get YDL running on a PPC. Woohoo!
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Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
That has to do with dual-booting Yellow Dog Linux and OS X? just asking.
What, me worry?
I have used Mandrake on x86 for several years, but two weeks ago I bought myself an iBook (my old Toshiba fell on the floor, RIP) and decided to go with Debian Woody PPC.
;)
;)
To my great surprise it went mostly smooth. I downloaded a minimal CD image and got up and running from there. apt-get install really is as cool as they say
My biggest problem was that by default I had kernel 2.2 something and PMU (APM for Mac) crashed and burned. 2.4 fixed that though.
I really can't say that PPC is so mega-cool, but walking around with an Apple laptop (very rare) with Linux installed (almost as rare) is very geeky
Why is there no link to YDL itself , but instead there is actually a link to Mandrake in the main story?
Patience is a virtue, but I don't have the time - TH
meaning "Apple," mostly
Terrasoft makes some nice PPC hardware in addition to their distro.
irb(main):001:0>
I use my Powerbook and have to say that yes it is nice, but no it is not nice.
./configure and autoconf properly to take into account a PowerPc platform. Many times I get platform not support or it simply does not compile. Case in point, Anjuta, or PNET. Sure it could be fixed with a bunch of tweaks, but it gets my goat that I need to tweak at all!!!
It is nice in the sense that the notebook works well. But it is a major headache to get software to work.
While some folks may say, it is LINUX and therefore it will work, that is a figment of the imagination.
Firstly when using closed software people only say Linux. When I mention PowerPC they say no problem if it is Linux it works. But then I mention it is not Intel and they say "oh, sorry, but it works on Intel".
Secondly when using open source many people do not setup the
The only software that has worked without problem whatsoever are the bigger projects (Apache, Perl, etc) and Java. I am amazed at how well Java moves from Windows, Linux Intel and Linux PowerPC.
My conclusion is that even Open Source and closed source are as arrogant about non-intel platforms.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I received my YDL 2.2 CDs the same day this was last referenced on Slashdot and posted a rant about the problems I had installing it on a brand new Power Mac G4. The next day, one of their support guys e-mailed me. After a couple of e-mails, I was up and running.
I was really impressed with Terra Soft's support for scanning Slashdot for comments by little whiners like myself and actually giving me a hand. I had mad no effort to understand the problem when I posted my rant but yet this guy went out of his way to help me. I'm certainly not that forgiving to my customers, even though they've paid for my help.
After resolving my install problem, I've been very happy with the distro. I'm planning on using this for the basis for future development at my company.
Kudos to Terra Soft!
I should have 70 BriQs today or tommorow sans drivebay housing. I'm pretty dissapointed with the per-node pricing of Black Lab Linux (by the same folks).
I'm thinking at the moment that I'll netboot Debian and install my own clustering libraries and tools, since as far as I can tell, everything included in Black Lab is available elsewhere except their graphical cluster management tools.
Too bad they didn't see fit to GPL them and just make money on their rather expensive BriQ's (We paid $1500/per for G4s) before Black Lab was released.
Does anyone have any experience with these? Any tips?
I used YDL when I first got my TiBook. I had to, because I needed 802.11 support and Apple didn't support Orinoco. I switched because I needed Firewire more than I needed Orinoco. My experiences:
YDL: Works as well as any mainstream Linux distribution. Yup works, by some definition of "works". Better still, Ximian's stuff builds from SRPMS, and Ximian now explicitly supports them with binaries. Not hard to get current, buildable kernel source, and FreeSWAN works nicely for IPsec. The (major) negative is that Firewire support blows, and it is pointless to buy hard drives that don't come in Firewire enclosures. When I left YDL, SBP2 drivers didn't work at all. The (minor) negative is that companies don't distribute closed-source binaries for YDL, and they do for X86 Linux.
OSX 10.1: A dream; xterms, xemacs, and Adobe Illustrator on the same screen. Rootless XFree86, transparent anything, beautiful user interface, antialiasing. It's faster than Linux for applications and slower for tools. The one (big) negative is that there is no credible IPsec or VPN support. A minor negative is that you can't keep current with BOTH the dev kernel AND Apple's updates.
I'm on OSX 10.1.3 now and I'm not looking back. However, I can understand why people want PPC Linux, if they already simply use Linux for everything and want good portable environments. It's good to hear that YDL continues to move forward.