Terra Soft Ships Macs with Linux Preinstalled

dhovis writes "Do you think the Xserve is cool, but you wish it ran Linux? Well, MacCentral is reporting that Terra Soft Solutions, an Apple 'Value Added Reseller,' is now shipping Macs. They are offering several new Macs with Yellow Dog Linux preinstalled now, and are promising the Xserve will be available soon." They are currently shipping Power Mac G4s, iBooks, and iMacs, as well as AirPort cards. See the Terra Soft Store for more information.

Comments

I have to wonder why

[jkujawa]

Three years ago, this would have made sense. Apple has always made good hardware, putting good software on it makes a winning combination.

But now? OS X is a first-rate Unix, which I'm actually much happier using as a Unix than Linux.

It's a good idea, if you want to waste your Mac

[krog]

Slam me into -1, Flamebait land if you want.

But anyone who buys new Apple hardware and shuns Mac OS X in favor of Yellow Dog is throwing their money away. You can run Linux on PC hardware which is way cheaper than Apple hardware, and it will run better than Linux on PPC. Installing Linux or BSD on old Macs makes good sense sometimes, but when you have a top-quality Unix (OS X) which is more beautiful than any other Unix out there, why strive for second best?

price time * Timecost

[SuperCal]

A friend of mine bought a base model iBook online and had it mail ordered home. By the time it reached his home he had already downloaded and burned a linux dist ISO at my house. We had that baby running (by we I mean he) linux in less then a hour. That resaler wants a almost a $200 premium for installing free software. I think spending a hour is worth saving $200.

There can be reasons

[Sloppy]

There's multiple posts where people question running Linux when MacOS is already there, and in many ways, just plain better than Linux.

This is pretty much equivalent to saying, even in the context of x86 hardware, "Why would anyone run Linux when they could run FreeBSD?" or even "Why would anyone run FreeBSD when they could run Linux?" Just because something is good doesn't mean alternatives are necessarily stupid.

Linux does have features that Darwin doesn't have, BTW. Linux4Video, for example (not that I've ever got it to work on my hardware ;-). It's probably not important for 99% of the population, but no need to call the other 1% of the population stupid.

From someone who runs YDL on his Ti

[Mr_Icon]

A lot of questions here as per "why would anyone run linux when there is OS X?". I personally run YDL on my Titanium, and I have my personal reasons to. Let me see if I can cover them.

1. I do this primarily for ideological reasons. Aqua is closed-source, proprietary software and I do not like that. Understandably, you may have different ideals, so this might or might not apply to you.
2. I am a computer professional and whenever I am in OS X, I feel extremely constrained by the interface. Sure, it's pretty. However, I miss my virtual desktops, I miss my hotkeys, I miss focus-follows-mouse, I miss many other things that I'm used to. I miss having a usable mail client (I don't like Mail.app for several reasons that I won't go into). I know that I can "emulate" all those things, but in order to do that I would have to buy even more proprietary software that costs money -- as opposed to already having all of that available under X.
3. I admit -- I am boggled by the prettyness: from full alpha transparency to the consistency of the interface. Then again, I recently looked at gnome-2, and I like what I see. Full power of X-window -- including network transparency, which is non-existent in OS X -- and nearly just as pretty. Full alpha-transparency support is, of course, not there yet in X-window (apart from cheap tricks like grabbing whatever is below), but I find it actually annoying on OS X most of the time. It doesn't do anything to me in terms of real usefulness. I mean, whooptie-doo, I can see what's below my terminal. Now that's useful.
4. I don't like having to depend on one vendor for security updates. If I find that TerraSoft is taking too long to come up with a new version of a package, I apply the patches myself and install a patched RPM. In order to do that under OS X I would have to a) have access to the package source (which is not always available), b) guess and double-guess which patches Apple already applies to the packages to make them work, and c) install from source, possibly breaking the Apple's Automated Updater mechanism.
5. Darwin sucks as a unix. :) You can't just take a product and compile it under Darwin and expect it to work like you would under Linux or most BSD's. I mean -- c'mon, it doesn't even have dlopen. You have to emulate it. Besides, we run Red Hat at the office, and I like to have all configuration files to have the same layout between home and work. It's saner to me that way.

I do use OS X periodically. I have an MP3 player that can't be accessed from Linux at this time -- it only works from windows and mac classic; and I use Macromedia Fireworks with my Graphire Tablet from time to time. It has its uses. For real work I use YDL.

From my point of view, OS X is an OS written and suitable entirely for middle-of-the-road users. It's a system that a grandma can use without getting hopelessly lost and confused. I am not a grandma -- I'm an enthusiast. To draw popular analogies to cars, I like to get my hands into the very innards of the system, including replacing the engine, overhauling the suspension, and putting oversized tires. I can only do that efficiently enough under YDL -- when I try to do something like that to OS X, I feel like I'm ricing a Civic.

As there are companies who sell parts and tools to car enthusiasts, similarly TerraSoft sells a distribution to people who like to be adventurous with their computers. Branding that as "stupid" is not entirely correct, nor really called for.

Now, why did I get an Apple notebook in the first place? a) I didn't pay for it, :) and b) I was intrigued by OS X. Would I get another Apple notebook? Probably, but not a Titanium. I might get a next-generation iBook, whenever they come out on G4's. Simply because I've already invested in some software on OS X that I would like to keep using (same MM Fireworks, for example). Titanium is like an all-leather interior: good for impressing your date, but no real use otherwise. :)