Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

5 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.

  2. Screw G5 or X86.... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd like to see somebody come up with a dual-cpu monstrosity using hyperconnect or such, and link a G5 and an X86 together.

    Even slicker is to use the old neXt packed binaries and compile for both X86 AND G5. I figure Jobs came up with it, why not use it ;-)

    And why do this? Best of both worlds. There's a lot of software that is only MS NT X86 binary structure.. this beast could run it.

    oh, and this beast could bootstrap all those X86-only pci cards that you cant use in the Mac.

    --
  3. Re:Redundant by MoneyT · · Score: 4, Informative

    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