iBooks love Linux

Lisa writes "An Apple iBook turns out to be a great choice for running Debian GNU/Linux. Edd Dumbill, the editor of XML.com explains why." This could also be an argument for why to use Mac OS X instead of Linux in the first place, but if you do want to use Linux, then a Mac is a good choice. :-)

Comments

sigh - time for a hard drive upgrade...

[3nd3r]

Well I haven't even received it yet. Tomorrow hopefully and I want to upgrade the hard drive. Well there's partitioning the 10 gig into 3... Anyone know how much space the debian install in a typical workstation setup with apache, php and mysql would take?

Re:sigh - time for a hard drive upgrade...

[Captain Pedantic]

1 gig? Maybe 2.

Accelerated X?

[Eagle7]

I love Linux on my iBook 500 (it's my main machine), but I am really dieing for accelerated X - X is the only slow part (and it kills DVD playing, etc).

I haven't done enough research into getting it working, but my impression is that right now it does not.

Does anyone out there have it working? Could you post some tips/resources/steps? Thanks!

Re:Accelerated X?

[owenc]

Um, accelerated X worked right out of the box for me, in debian woody.
If you are going to use the xf86config utility, try going to option 36 from the list of video cards, the rage128

This is odd...

[qurob]

Before I could do anything, I had to feed the machine four "system restore" CDs, which appeared to install a complete disk image onto the hard disk. That took about 45 minutes, after which I was free to start Mac OS X. As I knew I would shortly trash and repartition the hard disk, the wait was moderately frustrating.

Apple doesn't preload their software? Why was this guy loading the system restore, fresh out of the box?

Re:This is odd...

[tbmaddux]

Apple doesn't preload their software? Why was this guy loading the system restore, fresh out of the box?

Apple does preload their software on every Mac I've owned for the past 10 years (TiPB G4, beige G3, 6100).

But more to the point, why did he bother? Why didn't this guy just boot using either MacOS X or MacOS 9 install CDs and partition, if he never really intended to use MacOS X?

Re:This is odd...

[sobchak]

From what I've read, the guy is in Australia and apparently some Macs are delivered there without the software installed... you get a screen that tells you to insert the first system restore CD and then feed it system restore CD's till it's done. (Reminds me of the old days installing Aldus Pagemaker 4. ;) This is NOT the way Macs are configured in most of the world. Instead it's plug it in and turn it on, pretty much like an appliance.

Re:This is odd...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a reader report at Macintouch that mentions this oddity about 1/4 way down the page. Apparently, many localized systems from Apple don't have all of the software pre-loaded. I'm guessing that Apple just makes a universal config machine, and dumps in whatever CD's are appropriate for the country it is being shipped to. I suspect that fully pre-loaded machines only arrive in larger markets, like US and Japan.

Re:This is odd...

[drsmithy]

Yeah I had the same thing with my TiBook and I live in .au. Must be some localisation thing.

Re:This is odd...

[stux]

The other thing is, in say the australian config machines... you get to choose New Zealand, International English, Australia etc.

The configs are slightly different, so when you boot it up, you basically choose 4 buttons, and then you spend an hour as it restores everything :)

Its a pain in the arse... BUT it DOES happen.

Re:This is odd...

[dadragon]

The other thing is, in say the australian config machines... you get to choose New Zealand, International English, Australia etc.

The configs are slightly different, so when you boot it up, you basically choose 4 buttons, and then you spend an hour as it restores everything :)

I'd like to be able to do that. I live in Canada, and we get the USA version (They call it "North American English", there is no such thing.)of the software. Its spell checker doesn't know how to spell to the satisfaction of most English profs here, and the speech synthesis does not pronounce certain words properly and especially, it doen't pronounce the letter "Z" properly.

Re:This is odd...

[Anonymous Coward]

My iBook arrived with all it's software preinstalled, and I'm in Australia.

It is a little unusual that his system didn't come with the software installed...

Re:This is odd...

[shippo]

I purchased a 600 MHz G3 iBook in the UK last month, and had to go through the same process.

Re:This is odd...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but at least the speech synthesis doesn't come back with a very mechanical "Bill-ee Bawb weel nawt say that word"...

Someone besides me had to be typing curse words into the speech machine at Chuck E Cheeses in the 80s - don't spell it F U C K, spell it F A W K, and voila, Billy Bob curses and small children run away crying.

X server is reasonable fast

[ubiquitin]

The video chip in iBooks is the ATIRage128, and the appropriate XFree86 port for that chipset compiles with little effort. I think smooth DVD playback takes more than just a fast-ass X server, though.

Why Linux and not Darwon+X

[EccentricAnomaly]

The whole OS X vs. Linux debate aside..

Why not use Dawin and X instead of Linux? This way you'd have an open source free as in freedom system with full hardware support.

Am I missing some reason to put Linux on an iBook instead of some Darwin+X configuration?

Re:Why Linux and not Darwon+X

[stere0]

I can think of many reasons.. there is no darwin community to help you when xyz won't work, there is no package manager (fink is not ready for primetime yet), KDE does kiynky stuff with ELF binaries and therefore won't work on Darwin, etc.

I don't think anyone is using Darwin and X instead of Gnu/Linux yet - at least not on their main box; what would the advantages be anyway?

Re:Why Linux and not Darwon+X

[Bob The Cowboy]

Why Linux and not Darwin.....

here's a couple reasons, I guess

Darwin may be (mostly) open, but the rest of OSX isn't...

Geek Factor?

Bored with money to spare?

Personally, I might install linux on it..... but it would be a dual-boot... I wouldn't ditch OSX without really good reason

Bill

Re:Why Linux and not Darwon+X

[quinto2000]

The guy already knew Debian -- he was looking to replace his broken Debian configuration. He sticks with the OS he knows.

Re:Why Linux and not Darwon+X

[coolgeek]

it's not as easy as it sounds. libtool is the primary issue...a different one is used under OS X. fink deals with it, but only on a handful of packages. and if you want to compile with different options than in the fink packages, you're on your own. some things compile straight away, ncftp, lynx, went just fine for me. other things like ImageMagick getting multiply defined symbols. postgresql needs the "posix" patch to compile. even apache i can only compile on my pb not my desktop, cuz i got a different toolset on the desktop, too lazy and i don't want to take the time away from my happy little mod_perl world to figure it out... i slugged it out to get what i needed built so i can use what i consider to be a decent editor under OS X and run apache/postgresql/other unix stuff. otherwise it's a real clusterfuck. too bad the macgimp et.al. assholes infringed GPL resulting in fink maintainer dude taking a hike... he was really on the right track.

Re:Why Linux and not Darwon+X

[TheAJofOZ]

Darwin may be (mostly) open, but the rest of OSX isn't...

Wrong, Darwin is fully opensource. The original poster was suggesting using Darwin and X-Windows which doesn't involve anything proprietary and there are plenty of people already doing this. Plus, with the GNU-Darwin project, you're looking at a complete environment a la RedHat, though currently much more immature.

Re:Why Linux and not Darwon+X

[Arker]

Why not use Dawin and X instead of Linux? This way you'd have an open source free as in freedom system with full hardware support.

Not true. Darwin's license isn't quite Free, regardless of whether it's "open."

But beyond that, Darwin is built on NeXT/MACH, which is a hell of a lot of overhead your X11R6 system won't get any good out of whatsoever over a lean mean PPC Linux kernel. The only hardware it wouldn't support was the modem, and on most ibooks everything works.

The question isn't why Linux, the answer is obviously that he was a Linux user. The question is why the iBook. Nice hardware at a nice price. PPC architecture has less heat and less electrical usage - bigger pluses on a laptop than on a desktop. The screens are nice, the keyboards are nice, the little track-mice are very nice except for only having one button, and that can be worked around easily enough.

Re:Why Linux and not Darwon+X

[Lally Singh]

I think you've got it backwards. NeXT is built on top of what is now Darwin. Darwin is a Mach/BSD kernel. The full source for Darwin is available from www.opensource.apple.com.

But, as a pure UNIX box, Linux would still do better right now, because it's got the maturity advantage (right now).

Booting new macs directly on Debian cds

[stere0]

If you buy a mac and you want to install Debian on it, you can put Apple's CDs away and just boot your toy from the Debian isos. Anything built after the iMac will work.

However, if like Edd you're an experienced user with a good connection to the net, the Woody netinst isos for PPC (they're also available for i386) are what you're looking for. They're a bare, 30 Mo heavy Debian installer which download the base OS and the packages you decide to install from a debian mirror. I've saved a lot of time and bandwidth using them.

If like him you also want to use Mac OS, don't use the "system restore" CDs on your first boot either. Don't create these two partitions from Linux in this case as this has been known to cause trouble. Instead, boot from the Mac OS X CD that came with your mac, prepare two partitions, the first one being for Mac OS, then reboot from the "system restore" CDs.

Once you're done with your Mac OS install, boot from one of the isos mentioned above and install your Debian. Since Mac OS can't read ext2 and Linux isn't very good at handling HFS+, I always keep a small (~100 Mo) HFS partition when I install two systems on a mac, which is very useful to transfer files between the two systems.

No PCMCIA? No Modem? No Thanks.

[rubinson]

I have been strongly considering picking up an iBook on which to run Debian for precisely the reasons the author mentions - lightweight, good looks, well supported hardware.

I never realized, however, that it doesn't support PCMCIA. Not that big of a deal I guess, considering that networking and modem are built in. But now it appears that Apple is bundling soft-modems instead of hardware modems. That's no better than an x86 based system. At least with the latter, I can use my PC cards.

Although I'll certainly continue to lust over them from afar, my flirtation with Macs may have just ended.

Re:No PCMCIA? No Modem? No Thanks.

[Lally Singh]

Hmm, quoting from the hardware documentation:

The modem appears to the system as a serial port that responds to the typical AT commands. The modem provides digital sound output data to the Pangea IC for monitoring the progress of the modem connection.

The emphasis is my own.

linux on mac's

[linuxpng]

I've installed yellowdog on a powerbook g4 and I have to say setup is MUCH easier than on popular x86 hardware. Just given the fact that there is much more finite hardware when dealing with newer mac's. My experience has been very positive. I cannot, however, speak for the modem as I have not even tried to use it. Everything else worked right out of the box.

Re:linux on mac's

[Discoflamingo13]

My TiBook loves everything about Linux fine, except for XWindows. I'm using the 2.2 (Rome) YellowDawg, and I haven't been able to get Xwindows out of 8-bit graphics since the install. I hear about lots of people who have had success with Debian or LinuxPPC (which I thought was just doing kernel things now), but most of their stories are in Japanese or Dutch. For now, all I need is a working XF86Config file, and some insight on how to disable the Dawg's XConfigurator from trashing my previous config file every time I boot. I'm used to BSD-style bootscripts, so I still haven't quite gotten the hang of tweaking things on these new-fangled "RedHat" scripts on the Dawg. But - the lack of X-windows has kept me working at the console on my senior capstone papers, (God bless emacs and ssh) so it's not all bad. Also, the battery lasts a LONG time without using X-windows (But capstones are almost over).

Seriously, if you can tell me how your got it working, you've found yourself a new best friend. And a beer or two if you're ever in St. Paul.

PS- most of the comments I could read talked about how the modem was mostly done in software, and it could take a while for PPC developers to get it working correctly without help from Apple.

Re:Why Linux and not Darwin+X

[EccentricAnomaly]

I can think of many reasons.. there is no darwin community to help you when xyz won't work, there is no package manager (fink is not ready for primetime yet), KDE does kiynky stuff with ELF binaries and therefore won't work on Darwin, etc.

I don't think anyone is using Darwin and X instead of Gnu/Linux yet - at least not on their main box; what would the advantages be anyway?

I was thinking the advantage of Darwin over Linux would be better harware support on Macs.

There is a very helpful Darwin community (although not as large as Linux). I guess lack of Linux ports would be a problem, but not a show-stopper. Sure x86 Linux binaries won't work on a Mac whether you have Darwin or linux (unless you do some crazy Linux install on virtual PC),but if you have the source it should be possible to get things to work eventually.

I just have to wonder if one had a Darwin+X+Gnustep system if it would be possible to write Cocoa apps that would run on both that system and on Mac OS X (without a recompile). Such a sytem would be open source and run on Macs and x86 machines... and could possibly benefit from more commercial apps than Linux.

And the Darwin microkernal would be much more user-friendly as far as kernal re-compiles go...

Re:No PCMCIA? No Modem? No Thanks.

[SirRichardPumpaloaf]

The iBook actually does have a PC-Card slot, it's just not externally accessible. The Airport card plugs into it, but I've heard that you can plug other things in as well (if they fit).

Re:Why Linux and not Darwin+X

[TheAJofOZ]

And the Darwin microkernal would be much more user-friendly as far as kernal re-compiles go...

Now there's a man who's never tried to compile the Darwin kernel. The build process is awful, absolutely awful. Admittedly I believe Apple has been working on it but last I check it was *far* more difficult than Linux.

Re:No PCMCIA? No Modem? No Thanks.

[rehannan]

AFAIK, the Airport slot on Macs will only accept an Apple Airport card. The Airport card and PCMCIA cards are not interchangeable.

Re: for the record....

[ubiquitin]

the MacGIMP project has been supportive of Fink since the very beginning, giving full acknowledgement and posting source. It was the guy at OpenOSX who was the asshole, not giving credit, or sharing source.

Re:No PCMCIA? No Modem? No Thanks.

[tobyglyn]

Forget the iBook, buy a second hand 400mhz Titanium G4 Powerbook. You get your slot, a G4 (with 1mb L2) instead of a G3 (with 256k L2), that beautiful 15" display and irDA too. It will also hold a GB of RAM and has space for larger HDs than the iBook. Also by moving one resistor you can change it from 400mhz to 500mhz with no reliability problems since the CPU in the 400mhz model appears to be a 500mhz G4 clocked to 400 for marketing reasons.

I wonder...

[Krapangor]

if it's possible to use usable distros with an ibook, too.

Re:I wonder...

[azosx]

Yeah, I dated a girl who was a member of Mensa. She let me take a dump on her chest if that tells you anything.

Re:Why Linux and not Darwin+X

[EccentricAnomaly]

Now there's a man who's never tried to compile the Darwin kernel. The build process is awful, absolutely awful. Admittedly I believe Apple has been working on it but last I check it was *far* more difficult than Linux.

But with microkernal architecture recompiles should be far less frequent than with a monolithic kernal. Hopefully only those who want a 'hot rod' system should even have to bother.

Re:No PCMCIA? No Modem? No Thanks.

[TotallyUseless]

you are correct, it is called the Airport slot. iBooks have no pcmcia

Re:No PCMCIA? No Modem? No Thanks.

[Blackstealth]

It _is_ actually possible to put PCMCIA cards into an iBook, however it's an ugly procedure and involves a fair bit of work - two of the data pins are swapped. It's not really practical for everyday use (at least in an iBook).

At one point it was a regularly discussed topic on the Applefritter Forums. See this topic @ the aforementioned forums for further information :
- Blueberry iBook monitor Hack?
- Airport slot as a PCMCIA slot???

What's different?

[jcsehak]

What, do the circular cursors spin the other way? Maybe I'll place a collect call to some Aussie to find out...

Re:No PCMCIA? No Modem? No Thanks.

[Analog Penguin]

Trust me, at least on the iBook 600, the internal modem is NOT supported. It's a Connextant HCF controllerless modem (read: cheap piece of worthless shit even in Mac OS, be it 9 or X), and while beta drivers are out for Intel architechtures, there is no modem support for the latest iBooks. (I have one, so I know.) According to the info page for Ben Herrenschmidt's iBook kernel, however, the iBook 500's internal modem IS supported, so I assume that's what the above quote pertains to.

I'm a PC guy...

[ulbador]

... to the core.. But my Ibook just got here and it didn't even boot up MacOS before I had installed YellowDog.. It is definitely a beautiful machine in form factor, configurability and all around mojo

Re:I'm a PC guy...

[MoneyT]

you should muck with X too