Gentoo LiveCD for PowerPC G5

tantive writes with this announcement from the Gentoo home page. "Gentoo for PowerPC G5 now available. We're proud to announce the availability of the Gentoo for PowerPC G5 32-bit LiveCD. ISOs are now available on our main OSU mirror. The LiveCD has been tested on a dual 2GHz G5 SMP PowerPC machine with 2.5GB RAM, a 1.6GHz machine, as well as others. It includes pre-released yaboot-1.3.11 bootloader and a 2.6.0-test9 benh kernel. It runs at 100% speed, with fans currently also at 100% (kernel developers are working on slowing down the fans when not needed)." Read more below.

The announcement continues "Installation is possible on the SATA drives. We are now hard at work to create optimized stages, and the store will carry G5 LiveCDs when stage building is finished. Right now you can bootstrap your own G5-optimized system, or use a generic ppc stage3 install with GRP to install Gentoo in 20 minutes. We would like to thank benh (PPC kernel developer) for his excellent work in supporting the G5, as well as all users who tested the ISO, and particularly IBM System Software researcher Eric Van Hensbergen, who provided fantastic test/debug help during the LiveCD development process."

Comments

Re:Gentoo vs Yellow Dog?

[bobthemonkey13]

Don't forget about Debian, either. Debian GNU/Linux has a PowerPC version as well. Of course, there are pros and cons to using Debian (please, let's not have a Debian vs. Gentoo pissing match here), but more options are always good. No matter what distro you choose, be sure to check if there are any pitfalls or tricks with your specific hardware configuration, and with the dual boot.

Now, for my opinion: I try to avoid RedHat-based distributions as much as possible, so I'd go for Debian (if I just want it to work) or Gentoo (if I'm feeling adventurous).

Re:Will the G5 livecd work on G4s?

[MBCook]

Nope. G5 CDs won't work on G4s or G3, but G4 CDs will work on G4s and G5 but not G3s and last but not least G3 CDs will work on G3s, G4s and G5s.

OK, if you didn't survive that, let's put it this way. The CDs work "UP" the processor list, but not "DOWN" (unless there is some specific bug that would prevent the G3 CD from working with the G5s, for example).

So will there be specific G5 distros? Not any more than there are specific Pentium IV distros or Athlon distros.

Question for Mac Linuxers

[Ianoo]

There are reasons for using Linux on a PC, which is because Windows can suck at times (well, a lot of the time!).

But what about Macintoshes? Your systems already come with a highly optimised BSD, why would anyone ever want to install Linux? Sure Aqua is proprietary, but can't you just compile && install vanilla XFree and run it on top of the Darwin/Mach/BSD core?

What is the reason for using the Linux kernel explictly, when you already have a GNU compatible toolchain and base system available out of the box?

I'm not trying to troll or anything, I'm seriously asking this question of Macintosh users, mainly since I have my eye (and my chequebook) on a PowerBook...

Re:Question for Mac Linuxers

[Bytesmiths]

"can't you just compile && install vanilla XFree and run it on top of the Darwin/Mach/BSD core?"

Sure, but again, why? The lastest MacOS X (10.3) comes with XFree86 4.3.0 as a supported binary.

IMHO, the biggest difference between MacOS X and a dual-boot Winux box is that you don't have to reboot the Mac to run Excel after you've been using GIMP. :-)

G5 fans must be on 100%.

[heldlikesound]

When I was at WWDC, I had the chance to talk to the team of engineers at Apple that designed and programmed the cooling system for the G5. They said that if the openfirmware detects anything but an Apple operating system, all fans crank to 100% to avoid meltdown, as you don't want to rely on a foriegn OS to regulate the 9 fans, which is a bit of a juggling act as it is!

Re:Gentoo vs Yellow Dog?

[Otter]

Which is most likely to work? what's the deal with Gentoo (YD is RedHat based... is Gentoo as well?)... I feel like such a newb when it comes to PPC linux.

Basically:

• Yellow Dog is Red Hat based while Debian and Gentoo (and Mandrake and SuSE, if they still exist for PPC) are what they are on x86. Going with what you're familiar with is probably a good idea.
• Yellow Dog, Gentoo and Debian have large PPC communities to provide support. The others don't.
• Personally, I prefer Yellow Dog because its PPC-only focus means it's better about putting in the little bells and whistles for Apple hardware support. YMMV.