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A Power Users Look at Linux on the Mac
An anonymous reader writes "Even though most Linux users have treated Linux as an operating system for their x86 white boxes, Linux runs equally well on PowerPC machines. This article looks at Linux on the PowerPC and the appealing range of PPC machines produced by Apple, where the option of using Linux is of great value to many users."
... the OS X system is just so fucking sweet though. I *never* thought I'd enjoy it, but a student got a new Mac notebook when OS X was first introduced, and he showed me how he organized his iCal and Outlook to keep track of homework, labs, and projects, and how he could open a native terminal window and do things like ls -R | grep filename and search his system for files.
Well, needless to say, I feel in love. Things like the recent introduction of iTunes and a better browser only make the deal sweeter.
Sure, the hardware's pricier and maybe a bit modern art-deco for my tastes, but as much as I love Linux, I can't imagine running it instead of OS X on my laptop.
Even Robin Malda uses OS X!
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Here's hoping that Apple does real well, so that there are a lot of cheap used PPCs out there. I like what I see on my friends powerbook, I just can't justify the price at this time.
...will they sell me one without charging me for the MacOS?
If I buy a Mac then I'm paying for the OS and the brand. Is there another, cheaper, source for the hardware?
The last paragraph of the article talks about running a program called Mac-On-Linux, which lets you run Mac OS 9 and/or Mac OS X while running Linux. I have heard about this before, but does it actually work? There is no way that I would give up the number of apps that I use every day in Mac OS X to run Linux. If Reason, Photoshop, Director, and HTML Face X run under MOL I'll be happy to try a Linux distribution.
*BSD vs Linux may not matter if you can compile source for your applications. But not if you've (or your school) purchased libraries, licenses, or pre-compiled applications for Linux, then BSD might not be an option.
Turns out that cute girl's A|X t-shirt didn't mean AIX. Who would've thought?!
One thing that is certain: If you use a Mac, you have no exotic hardware and drivers should work quite well. Thousands of users have the same harware configuration as you. Therefore you can get the most out of the hardware - if you want to use linux on a mac - I think MacOSX is quite a nice Operating System, especially for desktop use.
Spelling mistakes: My is english spoken not tongue of mother.
Everyone talks about user-friendliness issues that prevent Linux from becoming desktop-worthy. Wouldn't Apple be the best platform to introduce this on? Not due to technical merit, but simply because ease-of-use is a major selling point to Apple? If people want to make a truly slam-bang intuitive GUI for Linux, code it for PPC and worry about porting it later. Hell, Apple themselves could sponsor such a project and use it as a way to garner themselves more Mac sales. "Look, the most intuitive Linux distro out there runs best on a Mac!" Maybe end-users wouldn't get it right away, but sysadmins and such types would, and there's always the "My friend knows computers, and..." factor to be considered. They'll hear about it soon enough (remember when the Internet was a geek-exclusive playground?).
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... in Europe. Seriously, compare the prices at the current exchange rates, especially for Powerbooks (but do remember to substract the VAT, which is included in most European Apple stores). Apple sells it's stuff for hundreds of dollars more in Europe. Same goes for many brand stuff electronics and PCs. But with PCs, at least you can buy separate components, which are usually not much more expensive than in the US.
If so, then that would be a real good reason to replace OS/X with it.
This is my sig.
Mac OS X is so much more refined than Linux, and actually has a huge amount of produtivity software. So why should anyone in their right mind want to run Linux on a Mac, unless (s)he is a masochist?
Doesn't OS X have the 'locate ' command?
It's faster that ls -R | grep since it goes against a pre-indexed db of the file system.
Simply put: I don't like OS X. Its not because I think Linux is superior; OS X just doesn't go with my personal preferences. I realize you excluded that option from your question but I feel that most people who run linux on Macs do so becasue they prefer linux. Hence my machine at work has only Yellow Dog on it (this also has the side affect of keeping everyone else away from that machine :)).
:)
Oh, and as someone responsible for patching all of those OS X boxes let me say that the machines are only as secure as the patches you apply to them. If you don't patch the OS X machines, or the linux machines, or the windows machines, they're going to be vulnerable. I'd say at the moment I've applied as many patches to the Linux machine as security updates to the OS X machines. The windows machines (two of them) are currently unpluged in a corner so I feel they're pretty safe at the moment.
That second hierarchy actually comes from NeXTSTEP, where it was called /NextApplications, /NextLibrary, /NextDeveloper, etc. Mac OS 9 did not have a particular imposition of hierarchy in the same way that UNIX might; applications can live just about anywhere.
Secondly there's a very conscious and IMHO good reason to farm off the NeXTish stuff into a different hierarchy - that is that it's a different system. All of the files in /etc, /usr, /var etc. are in the same places that you would expect to find them on any UNIX. Looking for the run control scripts? They're in /etc/rc*.
The OPENSTEP-derived APIs, the Aqua GUI, Cocoa applications etc. are orthogonal to UNIX. They just happen to be running on a UNIX system (unless you're using Yellow Box for Windows NT). Keeping them in their own hierarchies so that they don't intrude on or get confused with UNIX stuff is a good idea.
There is an anti-case-study: GNUstep does indeed put all of its files into the UNIX hierarchy, but it still partitions them into separate subdirectories, namely /usr/GNUstep and ~/GNUstep. Again, because it's orthogonal to the underlying UNIX system, it tries to keep out of its way.
I prefer Linux, that's all. I like that it all is open source, I like the ability to chose my favorite DE ...
So what it comes down to is, while OSX is a great OS there is a OS I prefer. Now would you please tell me a reason why I shouldn't use it?
However I had a coworker who had a MAC OSX lap top. I was impressed. All the goodness of a nix shell, xwindows, plus easy-to-do everything MAC style.
Given all that a MAC 0SX gives you I can't see why anyone would want to run linux on it.
It would be like bringing bolagna on whitebread with you to a fancy restaurant you love.
Steve
but if you bought a precompilied linux app. it wont run on linux PPC (unless it was compilied for it but fat chance on that). Your more likely to get support for your OS X then linux on PPC.
...and don't see an incentive of using Linux. Most of my linux apps have been ported to osx , some with cocoa gui and the works, like xchat, wget, etc.
And there isn't an nvidia driver for linux/ppc.
So really, why use Linux here? I even have fink if i need some gnu/linux stuff.
I wouldn't even know how to install linux here, because i would need to repartition and don't want to lose data.
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I have a All in One G3, 250mhz G3 w/768 mb of ram.
OS X runs OK on it but Yellow Dog, in addition to providing a modern browser for the platform, etc., just flat flies on the machine.
Resize a window on an old machine running OS X and you will know the pain of having a kick ass OS that is unusable in normal circumstances.
Linux provides older macs with a modern OS without the bloat.
As for hardware support, at least using YDL, the volume control on the old AIO is functional while on OS X it is broken.
YDL also fits nicely on my 1Ghz G4 flat panel imac although it does not provide any additional functionality that is not already available through OS X.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
I run a studio as well, I had the same problems with win 2k, installing it pressing f6 or f8 to force it to install as a non acpi computer...
Well I run xp sp1 on the same studio system now, there are no issues anymore and you don't need to do acpi things ( see http://www.musicxp.net ), it runs perfectly now. Just be sure your soundcard has a irq of its own (perhaps you need to stick it in another slot). One more thing don't install any other crap on that computer except for the audio software. My system is really stable and runs the original SX 2.01, I've heard about people using the warez version and that one is less stable.
The main thing about running a studio computer under windows is the broad availability of software. Many vst plugins are never released on the Mac.
If you were to try before buy an audio-app and you wanted too be that audio-app to be the full cracked version, instead of a demoversion, chances are that you'd find it with a p2p sharing program or whatever are much higher than if you wanted a warez-version of a mac audio-app. (neither of us would do such a thing of course)
Well done on copying that from Trollaxor's site - I've seen this before. However, I shall reply to each of these points as if they were your own, in the hope that I may enlighten you..
1) True... to an extent. Why run software on PowerPC that did not originate on PowerPC? So, let's get rid of Microsoft Office v.X, the Mach microkernel, most of OS X's userspace utilities... They originated on Intel CPUs (mainly), so what are we using them on PowerPC for? Also, please note that Apple did *not* write Mach - it was developed at Carnegie Mellon University... on ia32.
2) How is Aqua/Quartz more complicated than Mach? Mach is the core of the OS - if that goes wrong you're screwed. If Aqua goes wrong - no problem. You just fall back to a text console. If Apple *could* make Mach closed source - I bet they would. Unfortunately, because they didn't write it, but instead just borrowed Mach from a university, it must remain open source. Hence why it is open. Aqua/Quartz is closed because *they wrote it*.
And Linus Torvalds may sift through a few dozen megabytes of patches a day, but that's what his job is. He works full time on Linux. He does not have any other job at the moment. Neither does he have to "attempt to integrate it into the kernel" - the patch is simply a patch - he just okays it and it goes in. Please also note that if Linux and open source wasn't here, Apple's OS X wouldn't exist.
3) This is precisely where Linux's advantage for both power users and newbies is; power users have the option of *completely* changing the GUI - something you can not do in OS X. Newbies use the default GUI, such as KDE or GNOME, which are just as good as any other GUI. Of course, people have their preferences.
And Aqua is much slower than X11. Neither does it have any of the really useful features that X11 has, such as network transparency.
4) True - this is probably Linux's major weakness, but distribution vendors such as Mandrake are making this much less user-centric and automating the process instead.
Regarding the sendmail stuff, it's your decision to have decided to compile the stuff from source. If you were running a decent distribution, such as Debian, then just a simple apt-get command would have done it all for you, in much less time. And don't say "oh, but any normal user wouldn't know about apt-get", because no "normal user" would want to patch sendmail/ssh because of security issues.
I use Linux on two PowerBook G4s - a 667MHz rev B and a 1.25GHz 15" Aluminium - and it's much more useful, and snappy, than OS X ever was.
George
George Wright
twice now I have had my workflow disrupted because of hardware failure and it isn't just a matter of copying the files to pick up where I left off. [...] That is why I will be choosing to run Linux on Apple hardware.
You're nuts. That's tantamount to "My Ford Pinto kept exploding when it got rear ended, so I changed brands of gasoline."
If there are hardware issues with your machine, the choice of OS won't make much difference.
Trolling is a art,
(1) Office v.X, unlike previous versions of Office for Mac, was written from scratch using Carbon and Mac Toolbox APIs--it's not just a port. As for Mach, you may be unaware that Apple's current Chief Software Technology Officer, Avie Tevanian, was the principal designer of Mach while he was at CMU. His name still appears all over the place in the Mach sources.
(2) Contrary to what you imply, Apple has chosen to release a lot of code under the APSL that they could, technically and legally, have kept closed. Rendezvous is one example. The Darwin Streaming Server is another biggie.
(3) Linux gives me a choice of 10,000 mediocre UIs. Meanwhile, OS X comes out of the box with one fantastic UI, and if I don't like the way it looks, it's skinnable with free third-party tools.
(4) You conceded this point.
Everything I've said here is true to the best of my knowledge. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
If Apple could come up with a reasonably priced Mac, I'd get one, just for experiment sake. It might just make another high-tech toy to play with.
My problem is pretty much what you describe: I already have monitors, and damn better ones than what's in iMacs, so that rules those out. And I simply don't need a laptop at all, so that rules out iBooks and PowerBooks. And the G5, well, let's just say I'm not going to pay twice the price of an Athlon 64 (not counting the yearly Apple tax on MacOS upgrades) just to get Apple's logo and a funny blue desktop theme.
But just to be nasty, I don't think Apple has that much of a reason to lower prices. Their hardware _is_ underperforming, and you can know that when benchmarks start pitting a dual CPU G5 against a single CPU P4. (And start putting ridiculously expensive and unneeded gizmos in the P4, like the most expensive professional Open GL card, to hike the price up the Mac's. The Mac compared, of course, having a much cheaper ATI 9800 in it. Well, guess if it ends up just as fast, might as well try to hide that a PC equivalent is half the price.) As a replacement for the previous benchmarks which needed to cripple the PC's compiler to look competitive.
Getting in the price race for commodity hardware still isn't going to sell much more boxes than they already do. Once you catter to that market, we're talking bang per buck. Apple desktops don't have the bang, and can't match Dell's buck, so I really can't see them selling gazillions of boxes in that market.
Plus, to be even nastier, without the "I'm an elitist snob and look how much I can afford to pay for a modern art computer case" factor, they might actually sell _less_ boxes. Noone got fanboys for selling commodities yet.
The same goes for the UI and apps. Apple doesn't want to be yet another X11 box. First because that just begs comparing it to a PC running the exact same X11 and the exact same software on X11. Second, it just begs comparing the cost of just downloading the latest XFree86, versus paying the yearly Apple tax on MacOS. And third, see above. Being another X11 box doesn't have that nice "I'm a snob with an expensive kitsch for a GUI" touch.
So I really can't see them getting in a pissing contest with Dell, price-wise. It's just not economically feasible.
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I bought an iBook and tried OSX for the heck of it.
After a short period of discomfort I deleted OSX and installed Linux.
Now I'm happy.
My point: not everybody that tries MacOSX is immediately smitten with it.
I'm getting tired of these "only recent stuff runs OS X" posts. 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2 run on anything with a G3 built-in, which means 1997 onward. 10.3 runs on anything with built-in USB, which means the iMac in 1998, and the Blue and White from 1999 onward. That's over 5 years to run the most recent version of OS X. "anything in the last 2 years" indeed. Do remember that you're talking about a computer introduced in 1996. I wouldn't expect it to run OS X, and since you don't want to run Classic Mac OS (can't blame you much there), yeah, YDL is a fine choice.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.