YellowDog Linux 4.0 Ships

Andreas writes "Apple users could be glad to know that YellowDog Linux 4.0 is shipping. As always, Terrasoft, YDL producer, is selling PowerMacs with YDL pre-installed. Soon we could see ISOs available for free downloads, as in the past."

Comments

Nice Cautious Optimism

[NitsujTPU]

Apple users could be glad
Soon we could see ISOs

Ahh, the certainty and conviction of your faith in both Terrasoft and the community of Linux enthusiasts using Mac platform is both reassuring and heartwarming.

Re:Nice Cautious Optimism

[BrookHarty]

It is kinda neat, booting into linux and launching OSX on maconlinux. But it wears off when you want to play a game.

I'm the other way around now, since I need to run applications, I stopped running linux, I just use cygwin. And under OSX I run darwinports/fink. Not always perfect, but sure beats rebooting into another OS or running a vmware window. I use to be hardcore linux, but with OS's and gnu native (or near native), I dont see the need to boot into Linux. If I could just replace AQUA with icewm, I'd be in heaven.

Also, now a Little off topic, but the one game everyone seems to be getting back into works on linux(x86),osx and xp. Warcraft Frozen Thorn. I guess since most major OS's can play it, no excuse for someone not being able to play it.

Re:Nice Cautious Optimism

[NitsujTPU]

What about Aqua makes you want to replace it with icewm?

I use Linux as my primary OS, but everyone seems to go to Mac because they like Aqua, not to mention the millions of Aqua knock-off themes available for almost every window manager.

Re:Nice Cautious Optimism

[tsa]

I like my iMac with OSX, but Aqua is an even worse interface than the Windows interface if you ask me. It is almost not configurable, which is a pity because OSX would be even more enjoyable with a good window manager. Which brings me to the question: does anyone know a usable substitute for Aqua?

Re:Nice Cautious Optimism

[BrookHarty]

What about Aqua makes you want to replace it with icewm?

Basically, I've been using computers for over 20 years, and Apples gui is just different enough, if I dont pay attention it gets me. It doesnt do what I want, key combos, pulldown menus, window orders, cut/paste, just enough to be a little different.

KDE/Gnome/IceWM/*step and Windows are about same on key combos. IceWM is my preferred as I can configure it, and I like the low profile task bar. Icon with text. I dont have to move my mouse over the aqua bar over each icon to figure out which one I want.

I want things to be visual and quick to choose. If I have to slow down or have think about how things work, its annoying. Reflex for using the same key combos for years, change is good, but too much change and you have to re-learn your normal work pattern.

It would be different if I was only using 1 OS at a time, I want things to be a little more standard. One of the reasons I use KDE applications so much under OSX. Konsole is great for a tabbed term program. Now if I could get a Tabbed Putty for XP.

If I had to say the perfect desktop for getting work done, is IceWM with konsole tabbed terms and tabbed mozilla. Quick, fast, and I can dont have to hunt for which terminal window to work on. And a program bar(dock/etc) that doesnt take up much room is exactly what I need.

I wont go into visual, OSX is by far the most nice looking GUI, just not my perfect choice, but then, my list of windows annoyances is large also. (Number 1 with a bullet is Pop up windows while in the middle of typing...)

Re:Nice Cautious Optimism

[lakeesis]

a quasi-substitute for a window manager, that would at least let you fiddle with the color/texture scheme of aqua is Shapeshifter. it's a nice little app, and many of the themes at least play with the shapes and textures underlying the interface. not a total solution, but it adds at least some more flavor to the view.

Re:Nice Cautious Optimism

[crackshoe]

on my 700 mhz g3 ibook, i was looking into using icewm instead, simply because aqua sucks memory and proc cycles like a... well, it certainly pulls a golfball through a garden hose. instead, i started using yellowdog, with moderate success.

Re:Nice Cautious Optimism

[saintlupus]

What about Aqua makes you want to replace it with icewm?

Keyboard shortcuts. I can't speak for anyone else, but one of the main reasons that I run Linux on my old Powerbook instead of OS X is that I hate using a trackpad, and I prefer to use keyboard shortcuts for as much as possible. Windowmaker is a hell of a lot more amenable to being used that way.

(That and the fact that my Powerbook is a G3/400 -- probably just on the hairy edge of usability for OS X, but nice and quick with Debian.)

--saint

ISOs

[Otter]

ISO's will be available for download in about two weeks, and have been available on YDL.net for a month.

The Terrasoft link is borked.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Terrasoft link is borked. There's an extra space in it.

This might sound negative

[Anonymous Coward]

but I don't ever see it addressed on other mac sites. Anyone notice that YDL is rather sluggish?. I find using just about any gui option in it is noticeably slower than on any of the other PPC distros (that's comparing it to the ones I've used, SuSE, Mandrake, Gentoo and Debian). It's frustrating as it's otherwise very well put together in comparison, but the speed really makes a difference and I haven't been able to find just where it's losing snappiness.

The Passion of the Converted.

[saintlupus]

Speaking as a former YDL user, I would recommend that everyone interested in Linux on PPC check out Debian as well. I've found it to be a lot more upgradeable, as well as a lot more stable than YDL ever was for me.

(Both of them, of course, are light years ahead of LinuxPPC, may it rest in peace. Yikes, that one was bad.)

--saint

Re:The Passion of the Converted.

[wizbit]

Agreed, but holy crap, did it take a long time to get running. The kernel that ships with the Debian installer image (a 2.4-based one) had a kernel panic just from inserting my wifi PC card on the old wallstreet g3 I was installing it on. Same deal when booting. I had to manually adjust the memory allocation in the pcmcia config from the debian installer.

And this problem is symptomatic; if you're going to run Debian on a Mac, try to get it on a newworld machine so you're not left tooling with BootX or (god forbid) Quik. There's very little documentation for oldworld machines and it seems like most people who went the Linux-on-Mac-hardware route stuck with vanilla distros like Yellowdog. I tried YD but hated yum; and now that everything (finally) works, I'm happy as a pig in shit with my Wallstreet laptop running Debian.

Re:The Passion of the Converted.

[QuantumSpritz]

Gentoo is nice on the PPC - as almost everything is compiled from source anyway, it means that the lack of PPC binaries almost becomes moot. Also, it's a lot faster to incorporate bleeding-edge hardware support. And the forums are nice. I use it, if you couldn't tell.

Re:this is not a troll.

[MikeXpop]

Yellow Dog Linux is specifically designed for the mac, whereas Ubuntu is for x86 and PPC. I've never used Ubuntu, so I can't say for sure, but I know YDL works seamlessly on all non-breaking-edge macs (AKA, when the G5 came out they had to run it on Jet Engine mode). I know with some linux distros (*cough*mandrake*cough*) sound buttons, screen brightness buttons, and even the eject button don't work out of the box.

Also, Yellow Dog Linux is Red Hat based whereas Ubuntu is Debian based. That's important to note.

That's all I can say without having tried Ubuntu. It really depends on what you want to do. Most people I know who use YDL use it on pre-G3 hardware that OS X doesn't support.

An honest question.

[nege]

Please dont flame me for this: but why would an OS X user want to install a linux distro? OS X already has a UNIX base, and will run almost any linux app anyway. You can even run X windows...so why do we want linux on OS X again?

Re:An honest question.

[wandazulu]

I have an original clamshell iBook with 64meg of ram...far too small in terms of resources, I found, for OS X. Linux (specifically YDL 3) ran acceptably on it and am able to do a lot more with it than what I could do under OS 9 (ironically, a lot of stuff that winds up running on OS X). Gnome doesn't run *great* on it, but it's acceptable. Plus with YDL it was easy to configure the Airport card in it, so I can sit anywhere and use it.

I think you'll find most people run Linux on older macs to revive and get some more use out of older hardware...I wish I hadn't thrown out my 68k-based Mac so I could try NetBSD on it.

I could also see where someone might have a very specific need to run in 64-bit *now*, instead of waiting for Tiger next year; then a G5-specific Linux kernel like YDL 4 would fit the bill.

Re:An honest question.

[twistedcubic]

Please dont flame me for this: but why would an OS X user want to install a linux distro?

Free upgrades!

Re:An honest question.

[MrHanky]

I answered this question here, but since that time I've been able to upgrade my Mac again, to 320 MB RAM. So it's quite able to run Panther (with the help of XPostFacto). So far, I haven't bothered reinstalling it. I have no reason to. What are the pros of running OS X? You can run Photoshop and Office. I don't need them. You have a nice GUI for configuring your network. I don't need that.

The cons of OS X is that as a unix, it's just not as well integrated as Debian. And Fink is neither well integrated in the OS, nor of very high quality. It is apt-get, but, like Yellow Dog, it doesn't do it as well as Debian. The packages are rarely updated, and some are just broken. So personally, I can just as well turn the question around, and ask rhetorically: Why would I reinstall OS X when all it does (for me!), is the same as Debian, but worse?

It's just that OS X, while nice, isn't the best solution for everyone. I'm a competent Debian user, and OS X gives me little that I don't have in Linux. So I guess the answer to your question would have to be: An OS X user would want to install Linux to see if it suits him or her better than OS X.

Firewire booting anyone?

[CODiNE]

During the YDL 3.0 days I was in touch with their support people, who personally told me that firewire booting would be fully supported in YDL 4.0

Can anyone verify that this has been completed?

Of course I mean without partitioning the internal disk and setting up some funky bootloader... the ability to plug it in and boot externally from any ole Mac. If it does that I would be willing to pay for it, otherwise... no can do.

-Don.

Reply: Virtualization

[MachineShedFred]

I have been waiting for YDL 4 to become available for a bit now, as I have a G5 and would like to run Mac-on-Linux to virtualize some of the things I do here at work. Here are some of the tasks that I do that would be great on MOL:

Mac OS 9 administration - tools that only work with OS 9. I have a Blue and White G3 on my desk for the three times a month I have to do this. I would rather have a VM and get that ugly thing off my desk.

Mac OS X Server administration - it would be nice to have a VM that is always set up with a constant list of servers in Server Admin, Server Monitor, and Apple Remote Desktop. Today, I don't get this because of...

Application deployment automation - I do on the Mac what many people do with MSI or InstallShield on Windows. I figure out how to get applications onto 60+ Macs without having to visit each one, or even look at the installation procedure. Tools like FileWave, Radmind, and NetOctopus are great for this kind of thing, but in order to test the deployment, I prefer to have a clean machine, rather than one that I rip out the installed components, and maybe miss a few. VMs are wonderful for this.

For these reasons, I have tried almost every PPC Linux distro out there to find one that I don't hate which will make me more efficient in my job, making me happier, and thus raising the quality of life of everyone I work with.

See! Linux does make a positive contribution!