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Linux for 601-based PPC Macs?
jTepp... asks: "The company I work for is upgrading the majority of our systems, and migrating to Linux for most of the machines. I have a lab full of early PPC Macs that I now have been told to Migrate to Linux if possible, or scrap the entire room and start over. Since this would come directly out of my IT budget, and I need to use it for other projects, I'd rather keep the machines. The catch is that most of these units are powered by 601 chips, for which I'm having a difficult time finding a flavor of Linux that will support. I see support for older chips, and newer chips, but not the 601. Anyone know why? Or where I can find support?"
He's probably stuck, and it's because Apple released their half-closed MkLinux that he's stuck.
Apple Computer really didn't want people crawling around in their hardware, reverse engineering it, figuring out all the warts and details. But that's what Linux kernal hackers do for fun.
They figured "we will throw them a bone, we'll create a dead-end 'Linux' and call it MkLinux."
As a result, they basically let all the air out of the efforts to roll support for Mac hardware into the regular Linux kernal, where it should be. So now there's all the orphaned hardware out there, nobody put the time into it to do it the right way (reverse engineering the hardware, like happened where necessary on x86) and MkLinux is basically a dead end branch.
Thanks Apple.