Slashdot Mirror
New Patches Let iMac G5 Boot Linux
An anonymous reader writes "Apple enthusiasts and Linux geeks allied and the result is the announcement of a set of patches (still in test stage) that allows iMac G5 owners to (at least) boot Linux on their toys."
Symbolic victory? Linux runs on the all other Mac hardware, it just needed kernel tweaks to run on this. Hardly a real victory.
If you hate Aqua, don't use it. Apple includes x11 with the OS so take a few seconds to install your window manager of choice and you'll feel right at home.
Ummm... No. First off, those "x86-only" PCI cards depend on PC-BIOS. Apple and Sun use Open Firmware. It doesn't have anything to do with the instruction set of the CPU.
.app bundles are quite able to support multiple architectures. Not sure exactly what you want done. If your hypothetical hybrid system was built, and all apps were built and tuned for both X86 and PPC, then I suppose the OS could randomly run your program on whichever CPU was more idle at the moment, but that seems like such a silly complication that I can't imagine anybody doing it in the real world...
Second, if there was a hybrid G5-P4 or whatever, if it wasn't running Windows, it wouldn't run Windows apps, except through something like WINE. WINE is great, but not so great that I would bet the farm on it, especially in an exotic hybrid box, where most of your users will want to run fairly intense apps like SoftImage and such, or 3D games.
As for "packed binaries" - the current Mac OS X
And, by hyperconnect, I can only assume you mean HyperTransport?
well.. but isn't that like saying that if netbsd is ported to some platform there's absolutely no point in porting linux to it.
maybe.. just maybe.. some people prefer linux to os x.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Word docs, etc. open just fine with double-clicking on my Mac.
Look for an app called Start OpenOffice.org that comes with the Mac package. It works great.
The group behind this is legit. They are a bunch of linux vendors and consulting firms designing standards for binary compatability across linux distributions. So in other words: a) This standard has nothing to do with any sort of open source software b) It is deliberately specific to Linux and not designed to be part of the open systems / posix.
What was the last time you used OO on a mac?
Yes, you have to have X11 installed, but all those other steps are long gone. No need for fink, no need to explicitly start X11 etc etc. Double clicking a document to open it also works just fine.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
You can run X11 in two different modes on MacOS X - full-screen or rootless. If you run it full-screen, you can switch from X11 to Aqua and back with a simple keyboard or mouse command. I surf with Safari and use iTunes and the Apple DVD player, but all my work is done purely on the X11 side, which just looks like Linux unless you look quite deeply.
If you run X11 rootless, X11 and Aqua share a single sceen, and applications are running side by side. Apple even gives you a special window manager to make things look and integrate nicely (I'm using blackbox, though ;-).
In my experience, XFree installed via the Fink is more stable and just as fast as X11 from the Panther CDs. But my usage pattern may be atypical.
BTW, when I got my Powerbook in late 2002, I fully planned to install Linux. I still did not get around to it - OS-X with X11 and Fink is UNIX enough for all my needs (and I've been a UNIX guy since SunOS 3.2).
Stephan
run openssl speed on a dual G5 vs. a single Xeon - the Xeon will be multiple times as fast
In all fairness, openssl has many hand written assembler routines for x86.
As far as I've read, Linux can be run on iBooks but the hardware support is seriously lacking, which disables some important functions like power saving...
This now works with a patch from BenH, probably going into 2.6.11 (not a typo).
I doubt that Apple has yet documents available on controlling G5's fan system, enabling driver writing?
It works since a long time.
blah