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Yellow Dog Linux 4.0 - Finally in Limited Release
sloopy writes "Terra Soft Solutions has released the long awaited and overdue next version of Yellow Dog Linux - version 4.0, for ydl.net enhanced subscribers and pre-installed on new machines, with full release to hopefully soon follow in the coming weeks. With this new release, they finally include native support for the new G5s (32-bit kernel/toolchain currently, full 64-bit soon) and continued support for the G4s and newer G3s."
It's so good to know that Yellow Dog Democrats now have a platform in the Digital Age!
I would have thought that Linux on Apple hardware makes most sense on the server side, in which case the fact that it's not all full 64-bit defeats the point.
On the desktop side, I see no advantage of running Linux rather than OS X. Don't get me wrong, I use Linux on my IBM laptop all the time, but on OS X I can run the same programs and also all the nice Mac OS X only things like iTunes.
From the site, YDL will "Bridge the gap between Intel and Apple, between x86 and PowerPC. Once you have become comfortable with the KDE or Gnome desktop, you can sit down with any Linux computer and feel right at home.
Linux will be around for a very long time. It may change, grow, expand, but it will most likely never die. No corporation (even Microsoft) can halt the production of Linux as everyone has the opportunity to offer improvements, to help it become better than it was. Linux users will never be in the position of finding their OS is no longer supported."
This is cool! Basically it allows you to keep all your existing stuff (from what i gathered) and move to a completely different and (in many people's opinion) better processor architecture, not to mention fancy keyboard/mouse with cool looking box/monitor. Question: Can you dual boot it though? because OSX is so damn pretty and it has X11 to support some linux st0ff.
too bad it wont run on my 17 inch gen 1 powerbook :(
Ah yes, and I'm sure trying out ppc linux distributions is the main reason why your x86 box is broken.
"when we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price" - RMS
:-D
We are not _all_ complete freeloaders, some of us just don't like to pirate commercial OS's or pay the MS tax.
Hint: MS tax is not applicable to Apple boxes
The unfortunate thing is that YDL has dropped support for the oldworld rom architecture. So now your beige g3's and the wallstreet powerbooks and earlier are no longer officially supported.
www.ebay.com
"you cradle your new 12" PowerBook G4 (small enough to hide at the office) running Yellow Dog Linux. Feeling so empowered by this transformation, you quickly demand full reimbursement for the cost of your Mac from your health insurance company, stating with affirmation that an Apple with Yellow Dog Linux is an NIH funded, clinically tested, FDA approved form of alternative medicine. And you would have walked to Canada to get one!
Yes, this is why people run Linux on a Mac. Hard to explain, isn't it? "
I hope they update their website. Currently, it says YDL is for the home user who desires to breathe life into old hardware"..
For those of use who continue to use a pre-G3 at home because that's all we really need, we can't use the new YDL. How many moms/aunts/not-so-technical cousins are using such older machines?
Finally? Goodness, you guys sure do ask a lot. G5's haven't been out all that long. =)
Can any YDL advocates provide some insight as to why they prefer this over OSX?
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
So I can run 32bit compile-as-you-go-and-fight-dependencies Linux, or 64bit it-just-works OSX? Wow, I mean, choice is good, but I had no idea it would be this good.
This isn't meant as a flame, but why would you run Linux on the machine instead of OSX? Is there some Linux threading thing that your app neads? Some Linux app that you wrote needs a POSIXism the way Linux implements it instead of the way BSD does?
Why reinvent the wheel (poorly)?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
if yes, once it becomes 64-bit, it'll be bloody dangerous.
Sig. No Sig.
First off, who the hell is modding these posts offtopic?
Secondly, yes, I prefer Gentoo PPC to Yellow Dog as well. However, I wouldn't recommend it to very many people I know, just because it has a significantly higher knowledge requirement and learning curve. While I have no problem with that (and run Gentoo on my x86 stuff also) and like source-based stuff, it's definitely handy that there's a binary distro out there too.
Also, I can only assume that your comparison was based on the old version of YDL, which is pretty crufty by now.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
I once wrote an article which summarises my experience with Linux on Apple hardware. It was published on OSNews. It's a little dated now (I wrote it a little over a year ago), but it offers my opinion on Yellow Dog Linux, which was overwhelmingly positive. Check it out here.
--Jon
Cleanstick.org: Dumb weblog about nothing
Its not clear if the G3 PB line is supported; it might be nice to get this for the Pismo line which can be a hair too slow for OS.X.
Any experience out there?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I asked a similar question on spymac a while ago (when I first bought a PB and was puzzled why people would install Linux). The answer I got then was to keep ancient Mac hardware useful.
But if YD is dropping support for even moderately old boxes and adding 64-bit support then what's the point? Well one I can think of (sitting here typing on my shitty work Dell laptop and dreaming of the Al PB and DP G5 I have at home) is for the quality of the hardware. If I *wanted* specifically to run Linux then I would choose to run it on a Mac because the hardware is so much better than any PC box: this is especially true of laptops. Even IBM's rather nice Thinkpads.
Edward
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
the very first thing i did with the G5 at work was to fink xmms so i wouldn't have to use iTunes.
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
Finally! I have long awaited this release as YDL3 was becoming slightly dated. A lot of people ask, why Linux when I can already use my sleek powerbook to run X applications and hell even apt-get software from Fink's binary repository. The answer is the same to why someone would want to run Linux on an x86 machine. Why run linux when you could just use cgywin?
:D).
MacOS X does Just Work, but sometimes it doesn't work the way I want it too. Sometimes I want to be able to compile any package and KNOW that it is going to work. Sometimes I want a pure linux development environment, and I am willing to take in a few of the caveats (ie. improper pmud).
Othertimes I just feel mired by a sleek GUI when I know how quickly I can execute the same task with a full linux environment.
Linux on apple hardware is a great thing (don't dis it until you try it
transmission_err
Hint: MS tax is not applicable to Apple boxes :-D
Sorry, but it is. MS owns a significant chunk of apple. But the worst part is that this way, not only are you paying them tribute for the copy of OSX you aren't going to use, but also for the inflated hardware price.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
With OSX, those nice guys at SCO won't sue you. You really need Linux to get them after you.
Run, Yellow dog, run !
I've have some powerbook owners who would like to be able to run Yellowdog but off of an external Firewire drive. Last I checked Yellowdog did not support this. Does anybody know what the status is on this feature.
Even though having a dual boot system is fairly safe "if you know what you are doing" there are people who don't want to muck with their OS X disk.
I, "the AC" did exactly that...
hardware freaks with money that realize that OS X is not freebsd or linux.
MS no longer owns a "significant chunk" of Apple, they sold (at least most) of their stock years ago when the value went back up.
As for inflated hardware price - if you want PPC nicely packaged, Apple is the only game in town. If you don't then don't worry about it.
That is false. M$ had invested $150 million (which is not that much) on non-voting Apple stock in 1997, but has long sold it (and made a hefty profit)
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
First $134M worth of shares is NOT a significant chunk of a multi-billion dollar company. Second, Microsoft sold those shares a long, long time ago.
But nice try at spreading some FUD, you should at least try to make it plausible.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Does anyone know if there is support for booting from Firewire in this release?
I don't think you watched the news when it happened and updated your information years after. MS doesn't "own Apple", but MS did buy some non voting shares in 1997 and has now sold them all anyway. The parent is right, there is no MS tax.
Jonathanjk.com
You don't deserve a G5.
What? Will this rumor ever die?
MS bought 150 million in non-voting stock back in 99 or so. The shares have since been sold. Please, let this rumor die.
#1 they had non-voting shares
#2 "Had" is the appropriate word...all of those non-voting shares have since been sold (back before the
Uhm. What the hell? This gets modded as +1 interesting? Good to see that slashdot's tradition of rewarding intelligent arguments for a case is in full swing.
Btw, to pick up on the "inflated hardware price" remark, show me where you can get the exact same features for a lower price and then i'll believe you. For example, which windows pc's have firewire 800?
Jonathanjk.com
This is not a flame or a troll but a real question.
If OS X can run most/all linux apps via X11, then why would someone want to run Yellow God native?
I thought the achillies heal of linux is the difficult/multivariation/infinitely configurable interface. Seems like if OS X nips that issue, and offers support of linux apps (X11), then I don't get the need to buy a G5 and ditch the OS it comes with for Yellow Dog.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
please answer a couple of basic questions for this non-Linux head, namely:
What's the origin of the name "Yellow Dog Linux"? Is it tied to the old song "Yellow Dog Blues"? If so, what exactly is the connection?
For that matter, what's the origin of "Red Hat"?
(At least I know Debian's story.)
--Kimota!, did a cursory google search once upon a time, but came up with nothin'
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
IBM has an article on Yellow Dog on PowerMacs. I personally can't see running anything but Mac OS X on a PowerMac, but to each his own.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Oh for God's sake.
Raising the concerns of running linux with a one button mouse is NOT trolling. Why is it that when you make an even vaguely negative comment about an Apple product you instantly get modded down?
I'm an apple fan; they're beautiful, reliable and generally all good, but they are NOT PERFECT.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
Does it not bother anyone that this is still only available to ydl.net Enhanced members, which means you need to pay about $90 to get it? I thought Linux was supposed to be free. :P
OOOOOoooooh! Shiny Firewire 800! Not like you could BUY a PC Firewire 800 card for a PC or anything...
Does this new release offer any way to get the iBook airport cards working in Linux?
The point is, you cannot get it WITH a windows machine, just like other innovations, thus nmac hardware is not so comparable.
Jonathanjk.com
I suspect your other doom-laden predictions are equally overstated. Even your own link to Forbes shows that Apple shares have increased more than $10 over the past 8 months (look at the share prices in the graph compared with the text of the article).
Conclusion: parent is a troll.
Oh, you're that person that always talks about the slow agonizing death of Apple and complains about the price of their equipment. You are absolutely right, you could buy a FW800 card for you PC or Linux box. The point being made here is that it is built into the computer by default. As I'm sure a 1000 people have already tried to show you...if you build a PC that is comparable to a Mac the price difference is not that great. Depending on the computer, sometimes the Mac is even cheaper. A dual G5 Mac is a great example. You can't compare it to a dual Pentium, you have to compare it to a dual Xeon or Itanium. The prices go up a bit in that scenario. I'm not bashing Intel. They make a great product. It is M$ that ruins it for them. They're great with Linux.
Why doesn't anything interesting happen when I have mod points?
wtf? you saying you can't order a windows box with a fw800 card pre-installed? you could order one right away. how about a spin on this, you can't get some macs _without_ it even if you dont't need it..
you live in a fantasy land or something or the apple bug bite you too bad? blind zealotry never helped anything.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Luckily, Debian supports lots more (and more platforms too). It'll be even closer to what you run on x86 etc (assuming they're Debian as well ;).
:)
And sarge/unstable have had all of the new YDL features for a while now, of course
Damn. I wish people would stop blaming Linux for their crappy distro's dependancy problems. If you don't like how your distro installs packages, use another one already!
Does anyone have a torrent for YDL 4.0rc1?
Microsoft Windows runs on stress and frustration.
What happens when i close the lid on my PB? Does it sleep as fast as OSX does? Does the sleep led work? how fast does it wake up?
Intall version 3 on beige hardware first, then use rpm or yum to "upgrade". There may be some corner cases where you might need to manually edit config files.
In addition to that, the financial numbers are not merely misleading but wholly false. Apple has billions in *cash*, not debt.
Start firing up Azureus, just need the torrent. Or is this not "free" to a long time ydl user?
Old-world G3s already required a different boot loader and bunch of extra steps since YDL 3.whatever was designed to boot with Open Firmware...
That was, in a blurry way, my point. There are literally thousands of PC manufacturers/assemblers out there. If you want it pre-installed, you can get it. Apple is the ONLY game in town for Apples, and if you want it pre-installed and Apple doesn't offer it, well then you're out of luck. Conversely, if you DON'T want it, you're out of luck there too.
I used to run gentoo on x86 (no, I don't care about the optimization, I just liked gentoo's system for controlling daemons and whatnot ) -- overall I ran linux of some sort or another for a few years and was pretty comfortable with it.
I moved to OS X after a linux hardware-incompatibility disaster and by and large I've never looked back. The thing is, I do simulation work in my free time that requires serious opengl and without hardware acceleration I'm SOL. Going mac made sense anyhow, since by day I'm a graphic designer and have always been on Macs, or at least since about '92. Until OS X I didn't consider the Mac to be a valid development platform, and until 10.2 I didn't consider OS X to be a valid system at all for general use )
What I'm curious about is wether live cds for PPC are available. I had heard about a gentoo ppc livecd but I couldn't actually *find* it.
I want to see what's happened in the few years I've been away and I'd like to see the level of hardware support. yes, I know that for my 12" PB support's going to suck, but really I just want to *see*.
Consider this an appeal for nostalgia.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
Does anyone know if the new YDL will support more than 768MB of memory? I installed YDL v3.1 on my 12" G4 PowerBook (which has 125MB) and couldn't get it to recognize more than 768MB.
As mentioned above. I love it.
photosMy Photostream
Before buying an iBook in November I used Debian/x86 for years as my primary environment. I am thinking of going to a dual-boot+MoL environment, but am holding off because of having a small-ish (30GB) hard drive. What would be the disk requirements for a minimal install + X (no KDE or Gnome for now) + openoffice.org? Also, what the pros and cons of YDL versus Debian? I like the Debian way of doing things (huge selection of packages that tend to work and be consistent), but I have no idea about its support for Macs (other than that packages seem to be fairly widely availible).
Do either work in PearPC? I've been meaning to give the emulator a spin, but am not willing to buy a copy of OS X to run on it.
-=-=-=-=-=
I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
tangent to the argument, but to most of us mac users, your imac isn't that old. It's definitely at it's tail end, and thank god for linux, that can add more life, but many mac users are doing fine on 4 or 5 year old machines, many without any major upgrades.
My beige G3 with an upgraded CPU sits on my room mates desk where it gets 4 or more hours use a night.
My G4 tower is still my editing station. It has undergone numerous upgrades from the day it arrived as a stock G4/400, but professional editing needs are a bit out of the norm.
My main computer is my G4 Titanium laptop.
The only real reason I have to get anything new is techno lust. And the thought that I can keep going with my older hardware with a pared down linux system is very comforting.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
... unless it was a rigged demo :)
:)
I saw this at OSCON; at the Red Hat booth, though they were giving away DVDs of the X86 version of FC2, their demo laptop was actually a 15" powerbook.
I asked "Does suspend work?" and I think a wave of solid gloating hit me as he pressed the power button and the machine quietly dropped to sleep.
I counted between 7 and 8 mississippi as (after another button push) it woke up, which is close enough to my iBook (under OS X) that I definitely count it as "working"
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I notice you don't provide a link for such a machine. Also my point is being diluted with this nitpicking, i'm simply saying that for the hardware to be priced as it is, it can be because there isn't an exact match anywhere else. Look how much Apple price their monitors, they can do this because nobody else offers a 30inch screen and nobody else offers a monitor with firewire!
Plus this zealotry you speak of is a typical excuse to shy away from a real response, its tiring to see it because it shows there isn't anything contructive coming from such a person as yourself.
Jonathanjk.com
Do I have to Google EVERYTHING for you? Here's a Link for you. There it is, Firewire 800 in a PC, available pre-installed. And look at that, it's $1600. Available with a 30" LCD monitor if you want. It's one of a dozen manufacturers that do it. My point is that you CAN get a PC with or without Firewire 800...go to your local corner computer shop and they'll build you one with a 30" LCD and Firewire 800, too. Blind zealotry that the other poster spoke of is not an excuse, it's a fact. You helpfully ignore that a PC can be gotten with any amount or lack of equipment you want...and Apples are Apples, no more, no less. I don't dis any Apple product or user...but when you make statements like Firewire 800 not being available on a PC, you shoot yourself in the fruit.
I don't know why there is so much importance on my example of firewire 800. Apple has had other innovations which cannot be found on the windows side, one of them being plainly obvious. However you are correct on your point for firewire 800 being available for pc's.
Jonathanjk.com
For instance, I'm very comfortable with virtual desktops in Gnome 2.6 and miss them terribly when I'm on a Windows
Well miss them no longer! From the Microsoft XP Power Toys Website you can download DeskMan which wil give you 4 virtual desktops and a cool composite screen not even available on Linux (AFAIK). Just install it, right click on the toolbar in the context menu Toolbars->Desktop Manager and there you go. Different backgrounds for each and key bindings too! All from your friends at Microsoft so that I don't think it qualifies as a "hack". (also I found some really cool PowerToys for my TabletPC).
I'm not saying this to apologise for Windows but for those who want their virtual desktops.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
Now if only we can get AirPort Extreme Card drivers, we'll be all set.
I'm not well informed on the issue, but I've heard it has something to do with the chipset manufacturer not releasing any specs or drivers for the product in question.
I haven't seen much third party reverse engineering to create a driver for this card; perhaps because of fear of DMCA stuff.
http://pixelcort.com/
Loaded with cash and debt-free to be more precise.
...this rumor will never die.
You don't prefer anything to Yellow Dog.
You don't, and have never, ran YDL.
You're a liar and a troll.
(And please learn about the $150 million in non-voting shares that aren't owned anymore.)
I primarily run OS X these days, but I've lived with Yellow Dog on an older iBook and it was a great experience. Nobody is even close to Terrasoft's Mac hardware support, particularly on laptops. My iBook YDL 3.0 install was even better behaved on PPC than its parent, Red Hat 8, was on x86. Airport and power control works right out of the box.
I'm with you on iTunes. But guess what? It will be supported by Codeweavers in the full release of Crossover Office 3.1.
The primary reasons for running YDL on Apple hardware are the same as running Linux on any platform: free or inexpensive software and freedom from Corporate hegemony. OS X totally rocks. But it ain't cheap, and you'll sink big dollars approximating the functionality of Linux' totally free Open Office, GIMP, and so on. The boxed edition of YDL is quite reasonably priced, and comes with the riches of Open Source software we all take for granted.
In a commercial setting, Mac hardware is elegant and durable. More importantly, Terrasoft is an authorized Apple reseller. That means great support, making PPC Linux a viable alternative for mission-critical installations.
I'm not sure YDL's claim to be lighter than OS X is justified these days. OS X has been running pretty well since Jaguar (even on older G3s), and the big two desktops are ... well ... pretty big. But with Linux on PPC, you can pick and choose window managers and programs to get the most out of your hardware. Can't really do that on OS X.
Finally, a lot of people simply *like* their Linux desktop environments. KDE folks get used to the way KDE works, and the same could be said for Gnome or Windowmaker or whatever. Familiarity breeds efficiency.
I have money in OS X software, so I run Panther on all my Apple gear. But Linux is a great call for a lot of PPC users. And it will scream on a dual G5 when Terrasoft releases their 64-bit native suite.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Also, both Windows and Linux x86 can be run on OS X under BOCHS (slow), and QEmu (quick). QEmu has the added benefit of both being a hardware and pure-cpu level emulator for a wide range of (target and host) systems.
I don't understand the opinion "why use Linux when one can run most of the linux apps in Mac OS X". Sure it's night and day from Pre-OSX but my experience is that most FLOSS applications (especially those with a GUI) work a lot worse on Mac OS X than on Linux (and to me that's logical, of course more development time goes into the linux versions than the mac ports).
Mainstream FLOSS applications like Firefox, dcgui and X-Chat performs a lot worse (slower, less stable, etc.) on Mac OS X than Linux. Atleast that is my experience.
And if one wants to run Photoshop and other commercial applications; use Mac-on-Linux.
On the other hand I understand that lots of people like Mac OS X, it's a well designed OS.
After about 40 seconds (on a dual-1.8GHz G5 machine), you get to the Yellow Dog welcome screen where you can log in as a user, reboot, choose the desktop environment, and the like. For what it's worth, OSX boots in a very impressive 15 seconds on the same machine.
Time to get out more...
Some devices you name may require drivers, and if those drivers are supplied then these devices will "just work." As always, buyers should check whether Mac OS X support is available for a given device before spending the money.
Apple has done a lot of the work of building the underlying subsystems that make writing new drivers much simpler. Check out the various "driver families" supplied in IOKit.
And frankly there are many many devices that work on OSX without requiring a third-party driver. For example, most cameras require no add-on driver for full functionality in iPhoto / iMovie.
-- thinkyhead software and media