Slashdot Mirror
Gentoo Offers PPC LiveCDs
drunkentiger writes "Ripped right off their homepage: In a recent Slashdot article, someone asked if it were possible to create a fully-featured bootable Linux LiveCD for the Macintosh.
We thought this was a great idea. So today, we are releasing two full-featured LiveCDs for the PowerPC: one with KDE 3, and another with GNOME 2. Take a look at the KDE LiveCD running MacOS X in a window via Mac on Linux. LiveCDs can be downloaded here or from these mirrors."
This is great, because making an OSX boot disk can be a pain in the arse. I could use this to run a program like Radmind to image a mac from a CD. With Unix(tm) tools able to run cross-platform, I can use Linux as a repair cd.
Very happy.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
it will only boot on a "new world" mac.
NetBSD's run on macppc for a long, long, long time.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
I've been running Gentoo-1.4 release candidates on my G3 server for almost a year now, I can tell you, Gentoo and PPC are an awesome combination.
The PowerPC architecture is amazingly snappy and responsive, even though my box only has a 450MHz CPU. I get the feeling that the PPC arch is a lot less 'laggy' than the x86, just a vague feeling, but it's quite nice. Compiling my whole distro with "-mcpu=750" and a few other options has made my old box into quite a workhorse. Anyone else want to share PPC/Linux experiences?
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
As I look for a fast mirror to download from, I see that many of the mirrors have not been updated yet. In addition, some of them do not seem to have complete files (4.7M for an ISO is a bit small, don't you think?).
/releases/ppc/livecd/1.4_rc7 for the files.
Look around and see what you can find. Also, you'll want to look in
A Gentoo LiveCD is a bootable demonstration of what Gentoo linux would look like on your machine. However, it is not a source compiled installation. But once the LiveCD is booted, you can install a source compiled Gentoo installation.
Someone else already said x86 for desktop, ppc for laptop, and I basically agree.
The downside to the ppc on desktop is price/performance. It's not a huge gap. But you definately get more flops per buck on the x86 market.
PPC is really a much better designed architecture, however. One of the main practical benefits is a cooler running system using less power. Very important points on a laptop. Not insignificant on a desktop either, but not nearly as important there.
Apple laptops are really nice. Whether running OSX or Linux. For a portable workstation I wouldn't go any other way.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I dunno if this will work for the LiveCD, but if you have an oldworld mac, and don't have a macos install/hfs partition, check this out: http://www.mfdh.ca/~mfdh/apple/debian_on_oldworld_ mac.html
please don't /. it to death :) Perhaps someone has mirroring abilities?
I got a +5, Troll
LiveCDs are cool. I'm use Knoppix all the time (Linux bliss in the computer lab, finally).
... we get all the benefits of being able to give away live CDs to our less computer-literate friends with our favorite distro, but most importantly, we can use the disks ourselves to install Gentoo, upgrade, or rescue it, and all the utilities present are familiar and located in familiar places (something not always true with a liveCd from another distro). Of course, this works both ways if one prefers Debian, Mandrake, or what have you.
But what is the logic behind using a source-based distribution for a LiveCD?
I don't have anything against Gentoo, but fail to see *why* Gentoo...
Is PPC support better with Gentoo? Or are the Gentoo guys just the first ones to do this for PPCs?
First, Gentoo is much more than a source based distro.
1) portage is arguably the best package manager known to man. It exceeds IMHO apt-get, which is perhaps the second (or maybe third, depending on one's POV) finest package manager. Having easy access to portage from a live CD is fantastic for those who want to go the next step and actually install Gentoo, or rescue an existing Gentoo system.
2) Being a source based distro means one can optimize one's build to their own hardware. Taken a step further, one could optimize a Gentoo LiveCD for their hardware (PPC, Athlon v. Intel, etc.)
3) Source based v. Binary based is, for purposes of RUNNING the LiveCD, completely orthogonal, as the LiveCD itself contains all binaries. So, the best answer to your question as to why is "why not?"
While the tools available to Gentooers allow for more optimization out of the box than, say, Debian by default (yes, you can build debian from source with apt-get, but as one who as done so I can say it is quite painful), to those running the LiveCD the only affect will be a faster, snappier LiveCD, assuming they have downloaded an ISO optimized for their architecture.
For those of us running Gentoo it is a godsend
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
http://penguinppc.org/projects/bootx/
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
"OK, so no serious business is going to even consider Gentoo in the near future"
The United States Air Force and a Major Air Force contractor are preparing to use Gentoo, even without the "proper support and QA in place."
Gnome Flavor
KDE Flavor
Taken from MentlFlos's link below:
Gnome
KDE
I completely understand that this is a joke, but in fair defense directed towards the folks who don't know any different:
;) ).
1) Many new Gentoo users take up to a week to install it for the first time. That said, many of the kernel sources Gentoo offers (such as Red Hat sources) are patched to the point that ramming your CPU to 100% doesn't slow your box down. The only thing that can make my system lag is heavy disk/swap access.
2) In regards to testing packages, Red Hat, Debian, etc. have been proven to be quite stable. However, in fairness, I'm on the "unstable" tree on Gentoo and I can't remember the last time I had an app crash.
In short, if you're a geek, don't mind a few days downtime for installation and can deal with hand configuring your box, you might give Gentoo a try. The installation process is very well documented, but can be difficult if you run into problems. Once installed, though, Gentoo is the easiest distro I've seen in regards to maintenance and administration.
It's not for everyone, but some will love it.
Ignore the zealots, most of them are just excited, they'll grow out of it in time (I'm speaking from personal experience here
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Flash and Quicktime are some of my favorite uses for MOL. I'd also suggest if you desire the latest Moz build you might just be out of luck with Linux PPC -- unless you roll your own, of course.
-Alec
Use fink and you can use the linux software you are acustomed to under macosx. You will get alot of software with your powerbook though. (projectbuilder, interface builder, appleworks, itunes, iphoto, imovie, idvd if you have superdrive, omnigraffle i think,...) You might not even need to buy extra software.
linuxppc2000 can boot directly from cd on old world macs i've got one here and they are still available on the net, so obviously it could be done.
There is no such thing as a RW mode for CD-RWs. They can be written and blanked only. They cannot be used like a regular hard disk, unless you want to delve into proprietary systems like DirectCD, InCD, etc., none of which work under Linux.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
In short, if you're a geek, don't mind a few days downtime for installation and can deal with hand configuring your box, you might give Gentoo a try.
/boot partitions to allow multiple, independent installs and provide easy failback if an upgrade goes awry).
/boot partiton, mount them under /mnt/gentoo (or whever), untar the stage 1 tarball into /mnt/gentoo (or wherever), mount -o bind /proc /mnt/gentoo/pric (or wherever/proc) per the install docs, and install in a chrooted environment.
Just a minor point. No downtime is required whatsoever if you have a second set of partitions handy (and with the size of today's hard drives, there really isn't any excuse for not creating a second set of / and
Simply install your filesystem(s) of choice on your spare / and
No need to shutdown and boot off of CD (Live or otherwise), no need to do without the services of your existing GNU/Linux installation. The entire process of installing, be it a day (on a fast dual Athlon) or a week (on a slower P2) won't prevent you from using your computer one iota, modulo the CPU and network usage itself (which a ctrl-z will fix if you need the cycles for another task).
It isn't for everyone, but for those capable of going through the install, it is delightful, and as you correctly point out, of all the GNU/Linux distributions far and wide it is hands down the easiest to maintain, administer, and keep up to date.
Of course, it is fashionable to characterize enthusiasts of every ilk 'zealots' these days, and the guise of humor is often used for disseminating such ad homonem labels. However, one can easilly differentiate between a zealot who lives in denial of the shortcomings of his source of zealotry while insisting it is the only true way (Microsoft astroturfers and marketers are a prime example of this, though by no means the only example), while enthusiasts will generally recognize and try to better the shortcomings of their source of enthusiasm, and will generally acknowledge that other solutions work and, while not the enthusiast's favorite, are nevertheless viable.
Most GNU/Linux, Free Software, and open source enthusiasts are not zealots. Many Microsoft enthusiasts (astroturfers excepted) are not zealots. It is past time people stopped misusing the word.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Slightly offtopic, but Debian unstable *is* unstable. This latest bug has broken Evolution.
make one yourself http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/ Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Maci ntosh/System/Mac_OS_8.1_Update/Disk_Tools_PPC.img. bin
And I forget what it is, exactly, but it has something to do with the fact that the compiler Apple builds releases of OSX with actually isn't using all of the PPC's registers appropriately (that's what the ballyhoo about 'Panther' is all about: properly aligned registers, '64-bit Already'), and anyway somewhere along the line there is a significant performance hit taken on all Apple OS'es
I wish I could find the link with the details, but man google is just not parsing right tonight. Sorry.
Anyway, this would explain the snappiness
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I'd like to add to this - there's been a recent thread on gentoo-dev on the subject of portage (the Gentoo package manager) under OS X. Currently, it doesn't work. It's about to. Summary of events:
8:02 P.M.: E-mail from user with details on how he tried to compile portage and was hung up on a few issues.
9:25 P.M.: Head developer replies and says he'll do the port.
5:07 P.M. the next day: Head developer updates his status to "should be done today."
That kind of response, interest, and feedback really makes the community great, no matter how many compile-time-fomit-everything jokes there are floating about.