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New Patches Let iMac G5 Boot Linux

Posted by timothy on from the limited-functionality dept.

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."

7 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Redundant… by david-bo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is redundant to argue either:

    1. There is no need for linux when you have Mac OS X. With its Unix-underpinnings yoiu can do basically everything on Mac OS X that you can use linux for.

    2. Some people like Apple hardware (even though it might be more expensive compared to x86) but for (e.g.) political reasons prefer to use linux.

    Read my lips. This is redundant. These arguments has been posted thousands of times at Slahsdot's Apple-section.

    Please moderators. Take this into consideration when you moderate. I am tired of people telling the world that 'I can use Photoshop and Word on the same OS/computer as I write shell scripts and run Apache' and I am even more tired of when these postings are moderated insightful.

    They are no more insightful than someone explaining that if you spend the same money you would get a faster computer today compared with a year ago.

    1. Re:Redundant… by javax · · Score: 5, Insightful

      what software are you talking about? Please check DarwinPorts, Fink and GNU-Darwin to see that actually most GNU-style software runs on OS-X just fine.
      Only thing I see at first glance, that OS-X is not conforming to the FHS is, that it mounts external media in /Volumes instead of /media ...

    2. Re:Redundant… by Xyde · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why there needs to be standard is beyond me. Why can't software refer to paths as perhaps, $BIN or $DEV instead of using hardcoded paths. (I assume they use hardcoded paths, which must be the basis of your rant) The only thing you could fault OS X for is not having a case sensitive filesystem by default. If you want one, you can format your disk as case-sensitive HFS+, or as UFS.

    3. Re:Redundant… by Pathwalker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's the opposite way for me - if software is unable to deal with an arbitrary directory layout, it is broken and is unusable for me.

      Software should not care about how you have your filesystem laid out. If it does, this is a bug, and should be fixed.

      If I want locally installed software to go under /lopt/ or under /0b/ or under /sw/ that is my decision.

    4. Re:Redundant… by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If your software can't be installed by dragging and dropping a single package to any folder anywhere, it's broken.

      We're talking about Macs here. Raise your standards.

      --

      I write in my journal
  2. Re:Why? by 59Bassman · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I can tell you one reason that I've messed with Yellow Dog Linux on a G5.

    I've been doing a bit of clustering, and have been using the OSCAR system for building clusters. OSCAR is build using RPM-based distros (primarily RedHat). There are some folks porting OSCAR to Debian, but it's not there yet. Apple's got some pretty good tools that can be used for clustering, but nothing I've been able to get my hands on yet does all the stuff OSCAR does.

    So since YDL is an RPM-based distro, there is a hope that OSCAR could be used with YDL. It doesn't work now, but it would probably be easier to do than try to port everything over to OS X right off the bat.

    Now I will say I didn't like YDL on the G5 AT ALL. I told a co-worker it was like being a kid and taking apart your favorite Tonka truck to "improve" it. I ended up with something different, but I really wanted my old truck back. Also, there are some things that OS X is slower than Linux for (eg - run openssl speed on a dual G5 vs. a single Xeon - the Xeon will be multiple times as fast).

    OS X is a fantastic operating system. The developers package is incredible, Fink rocks, and having X11 inside is cool as heck. I'm saving up to buy a G5 for my next personal machine. However, it's not perfect (no OS is). I can fully understand folks wanting to get a working Linux install running on Apple hardware.

  3. Re:Why? by prockcore · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Other than the obligatory references to climbing mountains because they're there, why would anyone want to run Linux on a G5?

    Because Linux runs circles around OSX in terms of speed. Especially for servers. OSX's file IO and network IO in particular have too much overhead.

    The same holds true for the desktop. Linux is much snappier on the desktop than OSX.