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iBooks love Linux

Posted by pudge on from the and-so-do-i dept.

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. :-)

5 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. X server is reasonable fast by ubiquitin · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

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    http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
  2. Re:This is odd... by tbmaddux · · Score: 2, Informative
    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?

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    Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
  3. Booting new macs directly on Debian cds by stere0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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    Trollem mirabilem hanc subnotationis exigiutas non caperet
  4. Re:No PCMCIA? No Modem? No Thanks. by Lally+Singh · · Score: 3, Informative
    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.
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  5. Re:This is odd... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.