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How to Install Debian on Mac mini
wikinerd writes "After the hype about Mac mini, a Linux consultant wrote a detailed guide on how to install Debian on Mac mini. The whole procedure takes about an hour, but you will need to erase the hard disk and learn to live without the AirPort Extreme, since it's unsupported. The guide also explains how you can dual-boot with Mac OS X and Debian and gives you ideas on how to set up your partitions."
Yes, but can you install Windows on it?
Honestly, who wants to run Linux on a MAC when they are able to run MacOS-X on it. Doesn't make much sense to me.
I guess that's neat and all, but why wouldn't I just install X11 for whatever apps I run that need it, and run everything through OS X?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Introduction
Apple's Mac Mini is something which a lot of Linux users have been waiting for: An inexpensive, readily available PowerPC system in a small, quiet and attractive chassis.
Debian is very popular on Intel i386 compatible systems. Due to the open source nature of the Linux kernel and the Debian operating system, it is possible to build the same software to run on the PowerPC processor found inside the Mac Mini. It's simple to swap your big, noisy old PC for the slim, svelte Mac Mini, and this page aims to show you how to do just this.
Personally, I bought the Mac Mini as a replacement for my girlfriend's aging 1GHz Pentium-III system. Thanks to the portability of Debian and its advanced package management tools, making her new Mac look like her old PC took only an hour or so.
Hardware
The hardware specification is somewhat less than stellar by 2005 standards, but still perfectly adequate. One can choose between a 1.25GHz or 1.42GHz PowerPC G4, both running with 512K on-chip L2 cache and a 166MHz "MaxBus" front side bus. This is markedly less powerful than contemporary Intel or AMD x86 systems, but for the overwhelming majority of tasks this is more than enough processing ability. If you need more power, you can always stack a few more Minis on top;-)
The advantage of the G4 used in the Mac Mini is that it produces very little heat relative to an x86 processor with comparable computational power, making it ideal for the small space inside the Mac Mini. The G4 used dissipates around 21W at 1.42GHz, and 18.3W at 1.25GHz.
The other hardware in the box is also mature and reliable (or, if you're a glass-half-empty person, cheap and slow). The Mac Mini has an RV280 GPU ("Radeon 9200") with 32MB of dedicated DDR SDRAM. The RV280 doesn't have fancy features such as hardware geometry or lighting transformation, but it's more than adequate for people who aren't interested in playing the latest 3D games. The 3D hardware it does possess is supported by XFree86, which is excellent news.
The system has a single DIMM socket which takes standard PC2700 modules, although it is slightly tricky to gain access to it. The largest available upgrade at present is a 1GB module, but I believe that the Mac Mini will also be certified for use with 2GB modules when they enter production. For the average Linux user, 1GB will be more than adequate. The 256MB Apple supply is far too little for MacOSX.
For heat and noise reasons, Apple have chosen to use a 2.5" (laptop-size) hard drive in the Mac Mini, making end-user upgrades fiddly and expensive. The 40GB or 80GB hard drive supplied is unlikely to be large enough for everyone. Apple appears to be shipping a mix of 4200rpm and 5400rpm units in the 40GB size, but currently all 80GB units are 4200rpm. The 5400rpm drives are apparently faster, presumably due to their shorter head seek times. My unit has an 80GB Toshiba MK8025GAS.
The Mac Mini uses Apple's "Intrepid" north bridge. It appears to be a very compact derivative of the eMac's motherboard design. This diagram illustrates the hardware in the Mac Mini as exactly as I can. Note that the MaxBus and SDRAM are clocked at 166MHz, and the internal optical drive is configured as a slave device on the same ATA-100 bus used by the hard drive. This is a cost-saving measure on Apple's part, as the Intrepid chipset has a second ATA channel that could be used for the optical drive.
The Airport card and Bluetooth modules are mounted on an optional mezzanine card. If your system did not come with either of these options, the mezzanine card will not be present. I am told that the modem is not present on models sold into the educational market.
Noise
It's quiet -- very quiet. But not silent. The only noise is the barely audible hum from the hard disk. Thanks to the fluid dynamic bearings, this isn't the annoying high-pitched whine that older 2.5" disks produced. I'm very pernickety about noise, and I find it quite acceptable.
i'm sure many geeks will find this interesting, but does this have any practical uses?, i mean seriously, who would buy a mac mini just to put on debian?
:).
you could make a mini-itx computer for much less, and put debian on that, not to mention it'll be much more fun
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
And iMovie, and iDVD and iTunes and Photoshop and Poser and Bryce and Vue D'Esprit and... wait... why do I want to do this again?
If you really wanted a Debian machine, then if you spend the amount you would on a Mac Mini on x86 hardware, then you can almost get a top of the range box, certainly a 1gb ram, 80gb hdd, 2.8ghz machine is possible with the cost the Mac Mini is at.
So why would you use the same OS, on what is essentially older, and far less impressive hardware, when for the same price you get the same OS, and FAR better hardware?
Please fill me in.
The "because-you-can" department is in overdrive today.
Do Not Eat iPod Shuffle
Install linux, lose functionality.
Why wasn't Yellow Dog linux used, atleast? Fine, install linux on everything available but atleast use the right damn tool for the job.
Hey, man, so when can I install Windows 3.1 on my new Sony Vaio that came with XP? Sorta the same deal, isn't it?
Wow, bad wireless support in a Linux Distro? What next? No major vendor games?
You can build a decent and small Debian box for the same money, and MacOS X in a small package is the main reason for buying the Mini in the first place.
I just ordered a PowerBook. I'm going to run MacOS X on it. If I wanted a laptop running Debian, I already have one. I want something with absolutely perfect support for all the hardware on the machine, but which doesn't hold me back like Windows does. MacOS X is the answer, and I bought a PowerBook to run it.
If I got a Mini, it, too, would run MacOS X. I already have Debian boxes, and I didn't pay $500 just to spend an hour undermining half the benefits of having the machine in the first place.
It's nice to see all the excitement about the Mac Mini, and it is a cool box that is cheap but without cheap parts. But let's remember that a Mac Mini is basically just a Mac in a new box. If you can install Debian onto a Mac Mini, you can do it for any Mac.
The main bonus of Debian has always seemed to me to apt.
I have OSX. I have apt. I just installed fink, and got apt with it. I installed Apple's X11 and I run GNOME in full-screen mode. I like the way it runs with Aqua. The desktop is the same in both. I use LyX a lot, but don't like the Aqua QT version so I use the X11 version with GNOME it works better, but when I click "View DVI" it switches back to Aqua and opens TeXShop because I like that program.
I love that kind of interoperability. I get the best of both worlds. I can apt-get install stuff, and still get nice OSX software running alongside it.
If I did want debian on my powerbook I would install Ubuntu. I has a great install process, has a clean desktop even my parents could use, and runs well. But I wouldn't give up my Airport Extreme card for it.
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=138027&t hreshold=-1&commentsort=0&tid=163&mode=thread&cid= 11549140
its cool
I can think of a reason right off the top of my head why you might want to install Debian on a Mac. There are plenty of people making comments that this is stupid, but guess what? I like Macs, and I really want a Powerbook, but I'd like Linux on it in addition to OS X for two reasons.
1) I like Linux, and I like to switch it up sometimes - maybe on Tuesdays I dont feel like running OS X
2) When I'm working in an all Linux environment, it's often more convenient to have a full Linux OS to test on, work with, and interface with the rest of the system. YES, OS X has BSD under there, but that's not Linux, as any BSD fan will be quick to point out, and there _is_ a difference between being able to fun some linux apps on your OS, and actually having Linux on your machine.
-Jay
The procedure looks rather similar to installing Linux on an ibook/powerbook: nothing difficult, nice hardware, but not everything is supported (a problem with most laptops anyway, but I wish hardware makers would be more cooperative).
:-)
I've been using Debian GNU/Linux on my ibook for two years and I love it (except for the buggy motherboards, but Apple finally fixed that). OSX is perhaps Unix, but it doesn't give me the freedom that Debian GNU/Linux does, nor does it have apt-get
Wouldn't it be like installing Debian on another Mac? Installing Linux on any box with new hardware will require a bit tinkering but, IMHO, it doesn't warrent a story.
*Shakes head, walks away*
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
currently there is no intrepid audio support.
...
i can live without bluetooth and the apple modem support, but no audio
This is why I run MSDOS! No bloat and blindingly fast! And by the way, who needs anti-aliased font!?!?!?! That just consumes extremely valuable CPU and memory resources!!!!!
Well, for starters: how much do you know about the Mac hardware? Apparently, very little.
Slackware, officially, only supports x86 processors.
The Mac dosen't use an x86 processor.
Debian, on the other hand, does produce a PowerPC Linux distro.
Yellow Dog Linux, based on Fedora Core, also supports Mini Mac already, although they don't support Airport Extreme (yet) either.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
X11 is a windowing server, nothing more. What Apple is probably talking about is the fact that a lot of graphical *nix apps use X11 library routines to facilitate their graphical interface, and Aqua does not support these calls. Although the presence of X11 on OSX does make porting apps over to OSX easier(e.g. OpenOffice), it is still (usually) nontrivial.
Either way, it does _NOT_ mean that X11 makes OSX binary-compatible with the other *NIX'es.
Can you 'emerge' stuff on debian?
Is the Mezzanine connector in the Mac Mini the same as the one in rev. A-B iMacs?
People who cares about having a 100% open source operative system, instead only a part?
I wonder why my sparc linux box has a 180 day uptime, then.
The people at Ubuntu start with Debian and package it for end users. I have Ubuntu on 2 of my 3 Macs (but both are dual boot) and except for having to install IBM's PowerPC Java SDK, it was just about ready to go.
Why run Linux on a Mac? I find that Linux has less to distract me from work. I like to boot OS X to edit video, etc., but for writing (OpenOffice.org) and programming (Eclipse for Java, Python, and C++) there is less fluff on Linux to distract me from my work.
Just what can you do on Debian PPC that you can't do on OSX ?
Why not use one? Why do you need to find reasons to use one? Haven't you seen a picture of it?
I wouldn't mind ditching my towercase for a Mac Mini, if I knew that all the software I run would work on it.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Coffee shops? I would have thought they came out of their 'nature' stores chomping granola wearing sandles and getting into their VW Bugs :p
Does anyone have any benchmark regarding this toy compared to a normal PC? It would be nice to see what the real ratio quality/price is.
Can anyone explain to me how Slashdot Karma works?
and sadly enough I have a professor who only browses the web in Lynx.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Anyone experimented with running these systems as cluster systems or disposable servers? Would be pretty cool to stack these up.
Do not expect the 802.11g wireless ("Airport Extreme") to work. The Apple Airport Extreme module uses a PCI 802.11g chipset from Broadcom, and there is no open-source driver for this hardware
Well I guess that wouldn't work for me, then.
So why not just make a user for "pure-x11" and make metacity+gnome(or whatever) the default wm/de for that user. You could then log both users in at once, and have get a excuse for using that extremely cool looking user-switching between the two.
Why dont you use apples X server, use fink to apt-get kde, use quartzwm instead of kde...
... why not just try with an mbox then?
Debian is neat and all, but why replace OSX if you already have it? I mean if you don't have a mac, then by all means put debian or some other Linux distro on your box. But if you have a mac, why not go with OSX panther, and soon Tiger?
Why would someone not install Linux?
Same reasons some people use Windows:
Clueless + no class
- A set of Debian CDs: 5,-
- "Making her new Mac look like her old PC": Priceless!
I had Yellow Do on my 333 Bronze G3 for about an hour, it was rather painful..
OSX, wont even let me boot for the installer.. So Im stuck with OS9... Somewhat outdated, but it does fly...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Maybe this story should be called "How to make your Mac Mini less useful." I'm all for open source, but at times people go too far, to the point where they would have a less useful open-source run piece of equipment than a "closed-source" one that was very useful.
I would be surprised if linux wouldn't run great on G5s too. IBM has quite a lot of people working in the powerpc port of linux - and IBM is who makes G5s.
Yes. Bill Gates once owned and saved Apple.
Apple was starving and found a 900-lb. gorilla at the door. The gorilla was carrying bags of groceries and acting real chummy. Apple let the gorilla in. Apple was smiling and the gorilla was smiling. They both had a feast.
Everybody knows what will happen next. The old joke about the 900-lb. gorilla rings true: What will the gorilla do? Anything it wants to.
"Airport Extreme" is really just the Apple name for a broadcom chip. Broadcom does not provide documentation for their chip, the OS X driver is binary only.
It sounds like this box could be ideal for a low-power low-noise low-size gateway system. I'm actually considering that for this, but my main problem is that it only has 1 ethernet port... guess I could use an usb-ethernet plug.. Anyone any idea? Or any idea where I could get a really small low-power low-noise system (preferably in Belgium)?
Nobody said anything about binary compatability. You see, there are these things called "compilers" that allow you to turn "source code" into binaries. If the software in question wasn't written by a moron (lots of linux-centric software is) then it will compile just fine on OSX.
Perhaps questions about why someone would want to install software on a computer, is an attempt to start up one of those stupid jokes. 1) In Soviet Russia, Mac installs Debian on YOU! 2) Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Mini Macs. 3) ??? 4) Profit!
But seriously, since when did asking why (as opposed to how) someone would do something unusual with their computer, switch from being a source of shame and embarrassment, to being a source of pride such that people trip over each other trying to get the First Post so everyone can see what a luser they are? Fuckwits.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
From the article:
A few odd problems I've discovered:
* If I plug the firewire port into the firewire port on my PC, it seems to interfere with the PC's power supply. It's like holding down the "reset" button on the PC. This makes it impossible to use "firewire target disk mode" on the Mac Mini.
However, I'll wager that if he used a 4 pin Firewire cable and it would have worked fine. The 6 pin cable supplys power as well as data, and both the PC and the mini are supplying power. It's probably a ground loop.
that uses a win32 driver, so only wortks under Linux/x86, not Linux/PPC
If you don't want to waste money on expensive stuff, you aren't buying a mac anyways. And putting linux on it isn't cheap, you already paid for OSX and all that software anyhow. If you don't want any of that stuff, you would be better off buying a miniITX machine that is faster, has more memory, and costs less.
Hey fuck you smartass, it's not "coffee" it's a "latte". Know the difference? Coffee is for Windows users. ;-)
Why the hell would you want to do that? Isn't that what the old Dell clunkers are for?
Um, Apple deliberately killed off OS9 bootability years ago. You know, something about getting rid of support for that old obsolete OS in favor of the OS they're putting 100% of their effort into for the last three years or so... if you want to keep using your old (and I would assume, since it's so old) unsupported software, keep using your old machine. Nobody's stopping you. However, If you'd like to join the 21st century with it's promises of proper memory management, system stability, and all that, and all the cool new non-ADB/SCSI klunky old hardware, please enjoy your new system.
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Does anyone know if you can safely install Debian on a G5 yet? The G5's require the operating system to run the fans to keep it from melting itself, and I hadn't heard of any distro other than Yellow Dog claiming to provide that (also, no information about this that I could find on debian.org).
--realinvalidname
I can buy an iMac mini and thansform it into a toaster if I want to. Does Apple care? No! Thay a glad to make a sale. Why should apple fanatics care what I do with my property?
It is like saying that it is forbidden to put Linux or BSD on a i386 compatible machine because 'it is designed for windows'
Some poster said that the hardware platform for Linux is intel, which is wrong, linux can work on many platforms.
Apple fanatics, face it, you cannot dictate what people should do with their macs, they do whaterver they please.
Making Mac OS 9 work on every new system requires Apple to spend money to hire people to continually upgrade it so that it works with the new hardware. Apple is understandably unwilling to do this.
Making Debian work on every new system requires effort on the part of Debian developers, with whom Apple has no association. This is completely free for Apple.
So, what's your problem?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
You can disable Aqua from even starting up with OS X and just jive with Darwin.
One of these days, more people might care about Linux on Apple PPC hardware, but today is not that day.
My list of OS X annoyances is here. I'm sure everyone has their own list, and if it's longer that the Linux list why stick with OS X and annoy yourself every time you use your computer?
Beep beep.
As the slashdot blurb even states, the Mac Mini uses a proprietary wireless driver that does not work with Linux at all. So it does make a difference if you intend to use wireless connectivity with your SFF PC, you should not buy a Mac Mini to run Linux no matter how cool you think it looks.
501 Not Implemented
It's just that most people who have used OS X and like it for being a *NIX and ease of use think it's absurd to choose the inconveniences of Linux over OS X. Like the lack of AirPort Express.
If that's what you like, more power to you, but don't expect those who like OS X to care too much.
sadly enough I have a professor who only browses the web in Lynx.
Was he arrested for it?
Yes. we must eliminate mac zealots from the gene pool. But, given their sexual dispositions, just leaving them alone should do the trick.
Right now.. I am out of a computer... I am having to use my uncles... what a shame a geek without a computer... anyway... recently my mother got a mac... I helped her set it up.. showed her how to use it.. and man.. I must say.. it has come a long way since the days of the IIsi and System 7... I was impressed... then they release the mac mini... nice.. I have a monitor sitting around... I have a keyboard and mouse.. but no computer... I am tired of windows... I have had my fill.. my uncles computer is always having problems.. and I am always fixing them.. it is slow.. buggy... doesn't want to shut down right half the time... yes.. it is running ME... anyway... I would love to get more familure with Linux... but I don't want to live in Linux... what I like about this article is the instructions on duel booting... why not? keep the full capabilities of Panther and beable to learn more about linux... that sounds good to me... I am tired of the people that are sitting her saying why? not everyone on this site is kernal hacker... not everyone on this site thinks that the x86 is the best thing in the world... its good for those out there that have a mac and want to learn more about linux...
The average person does not have a clue as to the dangers of Windows security threat with Spyware and viruses, but Windows is not the only OS with problems, they all do or will have some security problem at some time, it's a matter of how much you are willing to risk day-to-day.
Anti-virus software is only as good as the update, which occurs AFTER the virus has spread...
There have been numerous tests which show the vunerabilities of Linux... Linux has a fanatical following that any Mac user would envy.
For every claim there is, somewhere, a counterclaim.
here's just a couple reports:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/s
http://www.theregister.co.
Linux cost of ownership::
http://archive.infoworld.com/reports
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/08/29/34F
I found some spyware and adware info here:
http://www.techdictionary.com/spywareinfo/
I downloaded a freeware program from download.com and got adware with it!!!
Why ask stupid questions on Slashdot? Why not go outside and do something interesting? I mean if you don't have a life, then by all means ask stupid questions on Slashdot. But if you have a life, why not stop wasting it?
Plus you don't get anything like the amount of built in software with your Shuttle + Windows, compared to a Mac Mini. To get the same features as iLife 05 and iWork 05 on the Shuttle would add several hundred more $$'s to the retail price.
I bought a Mac mini the day it came out because it was the lowest price for a OS X dongle I've seen, and I needed something quiet. The old fanless G3/450 iMac is the loudest machine in the house because it has one of those Maxtor drives that goes "weerrrerrrowwwwwwEEEERERROOWrrrrreeeoor".
I installed dual-boot Debian testing the day I got the mini, however. (debian-ppc lost my success report mail from weeks ago, so I can't cite precedence over this guy.)
Why install Linux on an OS X dongle?
Because it's probably the cheapest new non-x86 machine you can buy. I care about the portability of my software to other architectures, and I can check them on the mini. Also, it's big-endian.
At some point I'm going to buy a nice Athlon 64 box and run it in pure AMD64 mode. That will give me a sizeof(void *) != sizeof(int) box, and mostly a non-i386 machine. (It's still little-endian, though.) Between the mini and the Athlon 64, I figure I've covered most of the common portability problems, without spending too much money on hardware I can't use for something else like OS X or Halflife 2.
I have to say, I personally wouldn't replace Mac OS X with Linux. On the rare occasions where a piece of Linux software really is the best tool for the job (eg. GIMP, Ethereal) it's usually easy enough to get it up and running under Apple's X11. For me, running Linux would be no advantage.
I'm not running my Mac as a server, though. If I were buying a Mac Mini to be a server, I'd be seriously considering running Gentoo on it. Not that there's anything particularly wrong with Mac OS X client as a server OS, but I do think that Gentoo is easier to administer and keep up-to-date.
My final thought is, that there's always a place for the idealist in this world. Sure, they'll be ridiculed (read the comments here, and many other stories on Slashdot), but face it -- your beloved Linux wouldn't exist if it weren't for the idealism of a few people. The sorts of people who would run Linux on a Mac Mini now are the sorts of people who are contributing patches to, or making donations to, your favorite open-source software projects. They're the ones who are ensuring that in three or four years' time when the Mac Mini can't run Mac OS X Ocelot acceptably, that you can install Linux flawlessly and get another few years use out of the machine. Why they do those things doesn't really matter. "Because I can" is as good a reason as any.
Windows users are very aware of spyware and viruses and live in complete dread of them.
And freedom from the Borg.
I bought a 17" Powerbook. While I'm fairly happy with it, they are a bit hacker-unfriendly in some respects.
The UJ-825 "SuperDrive" in mine is RPC-2 with a vengeance, for example. It won't even read the raw data from an out-of-region DVD, making even VNC useless, and it doesn't look like any firmware hacks will be forthcoming.
Also, because Broadcom will not release specs on the Airport Extreme, no "monitor mode" is available, so passive wardriving is impossible without using a 3rd-party wireless card.
Maybe someone smarter than me will eventually reverse engineer and fix these problems, but it's not looking too good so far. IMO, Apple needs to get back to it's hacker-friendly roots.
PK: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
Gentoo does support PowerPC however, and I think that's the one I'm going to install on my girlfriend's powerbook whenever she gets it (Or whenever powerbook G5's come out).
No SSH server
Open up the System Preferences app. On the "Internet & Network" row, click the "Sharing" icon. Look down the Services list for "Remote Login" and enable it. Done !
Autoupdate keeps on telling me I need 40mb of updates for an iPod and I don't own one.
Highlight the update when it appears in the list, then goto the Update menu option and choose "ignore update".
Image and font rendering isn't as good as pango/xorg
You have sky high standards mate. Image & font rendering are stunning on Mac OS X, and from the few pango'd screenshots I can find I can't see any difference
Expose is nice but more of a gimick than a useful feature
Huh? You're joking. Try using Mac OS X for some real work and get your screen a bit busy. Multiple terminal app windows, a brower or two, mail, etc and you'll soon discover just how useful it is. Especially if you map the Hot Corners of the screen to the different functions. Parking my mouse pointer in my Top Left corner exposes all app windows in the same group. Top Right exposes everything. Bottom Right exposes the Desktop, and Bottom Left turns on the screen saver.
I'll give you the point about the DVD Region locking. Discovered that pain in the ass when I went to the USA recently and grabbed a DVD in the airport to keep me amused on the flight back. Only allows you to switch Regions 4 times before you're stuck. Boo hiss
Don't you think you're being just a touch nit picky with the rest though?
"What is absurd is that people would buy a Mac Mini to run Linux. Why not just buy a Shuttle XPC instead? By not using OS X, you negate the main factor behind buying a Mac in the first place - and in so doing significantly reduce its value when compared with equivilently priced PC hardware."
lanoo,
Let the machine become a platform.
Let people play with it.
tweak it mod it use it.
Let them buy it to burn it bang it on a rock and videotape it.
let it evoke.
let it grow.
We don't expect customer service to help us much afterward.
Take Novell Groupwise, Sun's OpenOffice, Gaim's ( well you know ), and Firefox, etc.. etc.. etc.. who the hell would want anything else ... bite me apple and Microsoft , and IBM ( china ) too. DEBIAN rules !
No offense, but that makes it sound like you care more about ideology than about functionality. Which is cool if that's your thing, but for me, I'm not thinking about idealism when I need to get work done on a UNIX system. I just need something that actually works.
Not yet
I've heard he also wears the shirt to mid-terms and finals
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
You only get to claim your mom is your girlfriend until such time as you attend the first grade. After that, it's just weird.
If you're familiar with linux, it's a hell of a lot better for most server things than OS X. And it's free. Yes, netatalk isn't as good as Apple's own filesharing implimentation, but it works well enough.
:P
If you don't need a GUI, you don't need OS X (with few exceptions). Debian, in my experience, makes a vastly better server than OS X on the same hardware.
Hey great idea man,
For my next trick I'm gonna rip open the case and throw it away so I can remount the mobo in an old server case. Thay way I can install a larger hard drive and this old noisy PSU so I can install GEM offa my old Atari ST1024 and maybe Win 3.1 to finish up. Hell that'll show them MAC weeners watta real 'puter should look like,
That's gonna be such a radical cool thing to do with my old mans new MAC Mini.
Oh and by the way, that's an awesome bong you got here man, awesome.
" Honestly, who wants to run Linux on a MAC when they are able to run MacOS-X on it. Doesn't make much sense to me."
Yes, better to run Linux on less expensive, better performing PC hardware.
On his Mac Mini before installing Fedora...
- Because Unix, for me, means very rarely having to reboot to install a security upgrade. MacOSX isn't very Unixy in that regard
- Because I have to do lots of stuff to make my iPod work under OSX, due to some silly iTunes DRM thing, whereas GTKPod just works. Also the tag editor in GTKPod (just click the text to edit) is simpler than iTunes (right click context menu).
- All my work is in OpenOffice and JOffice isn't very good.
on one side we have fanatical fans that have little reason or understanding behind their choice of HW and OS and on the other side... its the same damn thing.
Personally, I can't STAND linux. And the Penguinistas are really getting on my nerves. I believe it is a great OS, but soley on the point that it is free. Yes, and it gets better every day... but that's part of the problem... every single day, the damn thing changes... and from my experience, it breaks itself at regular intervals.
Many Apple users are annoying too... fanatical, but really a bunch of winers. Apple is proprietary, but it is an entity that tries very hard to take care of its customers (iPod batteries notwithstanding). If you want the HW but don't like the GUI, don't use it, you can run KDE if you want (I'm sure there are others). If you can afford it, and don't mind the GUI, what you get is excellent HW, excellent support, and a machine with software that works nearly flawlessly. I am really impressed with how Apple has turned itself around, and just when Microsoft started falling on its face... who knew this would happen?
As for the 64-bit processing questions... I just don't get it... besides games, I think, what is the average or lower educational user going to do with applications that can access more than 2GB of memory? Who can afford more than 2GB of memory? The Mini won't even hold more than a GB (though I hope someday someone makes a 2GB stick that will work in it).
This post, Debian on Mini, was bound to happen. And it is neat, I guess, for the 'science' of doing something the manufacturers never intended. I think linux on the iPod is neat, too. But that's it. Its neato mosquito, man, but... almost entirely worthless, other than having the experience of doing an install that might be tricky.
I can't wait to see the /. post where some genius finally gets linux to install on his cat... now that would be impressive, and turn something totally useless into something that might be incredibly useful.
The Admin and the Engineer
With Linux/BSD, the mouse is totally optional.
Another thing is maybe he just wants a small, cheap PPC box, and doesn't like OS/X.
Either way, $500 isn't too bad, though the disk drive is kinda slow. Too slow for me at least.
with no audio your screwed if you want to build a PVR out of one of these bad boys!
I see. So her old PC had no wireless, no sound, and flaky video?
It looks like if you have ANY linux complaints, by your own standards, OS X wins. I'm pretty stupid, too, but, man, I feel bad for you. At least my stupidity doesn't annoy me.
I bought the Mac Mini as a replacement for my girlfriend's aging 1GHz Pentium-III system.
yeah.. those shitty old 1ghz p3 machines can't run ANYTHING anymore...
Note: This sig contains nine S's, nine I's and five O's which... means absolutely nothing.
I've bought a Mac Mini about a week ago and it came with both OS X and OS 9 installation CDs.
Also you can install OS 9 from inside OS X and have it set up in such a way that when you're working inside OS X and attempt to run OS 9 app it will start OS 9 until you finish using the app - all without having to reboot and allowing you to switch between OS X and OS 9 apps on the fly.
The more I read the reactions of the recently converted Mac OS X users the more I like Apple. Not because of the OS itself, which is nice in the extent that it is NeXTStep based. No. Because in a clean sweep it has clarified the waters and draged the apparently significant ammount of "pragmatics" away from the GNU/Linux and BSD fields.
Reading the above comments by OSX users is funny as hell! "We can use Photoshop!", "We can use Word!", "We can use iWhatever!". The only important thing is "getting work done with the best tool!". Basicaly all they say applies to Windows, but being made by Apple makes it acceptable. The concept of freedom in the development and use of software is just a sidekick, something that can be convenient but not at all necessary.
Thanks a lot Apple! OSX has attracted -- like a bright light attracts flies -- the Windows rejects looking for a company to worship that rided the free Unices bandwagon for years, but always whinning about the need for pragmatism and pissing in the ideals that made it all possible.
Good ridance, and "think different!".
What does 2GB of RAM have to do with anything? 32 bit architectures are limited to 4 GB (without ugly and performance destroying hacks), not 2. Right now there's not alot of use for that much memory on the desktop, but it will be there within a couple years. The reason everyone is horny for AMD64 machines is that the architecture is significantly better than i386, context switches are less expensive, the CPUs have more registers, and it has a proper noexec bit implimentation.
Read, and laugh. It's funny. :)
100% functionality vs 100% open source. You pick open source, I pick functionality.
Well, I pick open source because it gives me the functionality I want and need, something OS X does not do.
I lost the ability to what, modify and recompile my programs. I still have access to all/most of the same programs, due to BSD+Fink, though.
I was trying to use Fink for a couple of years and finally gave up: it's too much hassle. Ditto for all the proprietary stuff Apple has put into OS X.
For people who want a UNIX or Linux system, OS X simply is not a good replacement.
I purchased a Mac Mini and am dual booting Fedora Core 3 with OSX, though I probably will reclaim the OSX space.
Instructions on how to do this are
here
What's ICQ? What's Ogg Vorbis
When did you get Internet access? ICQ is one of the oldest instant messaging services. Dating back to 1998. Ogg Vorbis is "a completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology with all the benefits of Open Source." http://www.vorbis.com/faq.psp
They have UI Guidelines and have conducted usability studies.
While that may be true, there is no evidence of it.
When have you used GNU/Linux with any graphical UI? And what was the distribution? I think you haven't seen any modern desktops. In past 15 years I have used all kinds of operating systems Windows, OS/2, GNU/Linux distributions, Solaris, Irix, Mac Os classic and Mac Os X. They all habe usable GUI's but on my humble opinion Os X is one of the strangest of them all. Integrating software totally into operatings systems own GUI messes things up I think. Why can't programs have their own menu's? And how usable it is that you don't close the program by closing all it's windows, but by going trough active programs and killing the application?
The point is that something that's possible but difficult might as well be impossible for all practical purposes. Because long before figuring out how to do it on Linux, a reasonable person will give up and go do it easily on Mac OS X.
But still they would read some tutorial and learn from that how to do it. In Linux you might even learn what happends underneath the pretty surface. I have given Linux cources to unemployed and elderly people. They have learned to use GNOME desktop quickly and have installed Linux on their PC's. All of them used Mandrake or SUSE. Both of them have logical program menus, with best choise of free software. Mandrake has even menu "I wan to.." which has different topics. Clicking somethings like ".. burn music on cd" would start the right program with easy userinterface for you. I just installed latest SUSE and I was really impressed of the installation programs usability. Other Linux distributions should learn from it.
To the contrary, the example you pointed to of a killer app appears to be an atrocity, worse by a million miles than the very worst Mac OS X application ever written.
On what ground can you say that? Lets see Firefox, Evolution and OpenOffice are more feature rich and easier to use than their counter parts on MAC OS X. You got Internet Explorer, your fancy Mail.app and Microsoft Office! Into how many different kind of mail and groupware can your Mail.app connect? In 21st century it's not practical to have isolated programs that can talk to other programs on the same computer. But not with the corporate mainframe that has GroupWare and user management. Can you just drag and drop those into your system?
so why bother installing Debian?
Curiously, gays have more "market share" than Apple does.
Otherwise, this comment is undeserving of a response.
*BSD is dead, look I erased it and put this pile of steaming OS called Linux on there!
Rejected by a mac zealot were you?
Wrong guy. Futhermore ....your former boy friend and fellow mac user says he dumped you.
Heck, if you want to measure the filesystems an OS can deal with by the formatting utilities it includes, Apple's taken a GIANT step backwards with OS X. Can't use Disk Utility to format for A/UX, linux, ProDOS, etc. :-|
Apparently you either haven't heard the horror stories about UFS, or you're one of The Few The Proud The Etc. who've had good experience with it.
Apt is handy. And a hell of a lot easier to use than software update, ime- with debian, any gui app you have is updated through apt. No going to Adobe's site to download updates, going to Macromedia's site to download updates, no downloading Quicksilver and copying it to the Appllications folder every single week, etc. It makes the environment quite a bit more transparent.
Especially when it comes to hardware. Debian makes beige macs and blue g3s (machines that SUCK for OS X) useable, and more importantly- the system isn't strapped to the PPC.... which enables us (my workplace) to spend a heck of a lot less on server hardware. And if you're running it on PPC, you're not stuck with PCI cards and hardware with OS X drivers available- you can run anything that has a linux driver- a good example would be Debian Stable shipping with drivers for common Realtek ethernet chipsets- something that's a driver install on either OS 9 OR OS X. A driver you have to _download_.
Server-wise, I'm a lot more comfortable with linux than I am with OS X. I can get around it, but I just _don't_ like using it headless. The GUI's the entire point of the OS, and if I'm not going to be using it, I'll run something that takes advantage of the features I DO want. The box in the closet could be a pentium three, a Sparc, an SGI or a PPC, but if it's got debian installed, it doesn't matter. (compare SGI, solaris, and Apple command line environments... bleh.)
Some people ask why a Mac Mini owner would install Debian on it. Of course MacOS-X is a great OS, but it isn't a community-supported project. It is something you buy, not something you build by yourself (although it contains a good amount of opensource in it). Debian on the other hand is _your_ OS, something you wrote by yourself and you can feel proud for it. That's why I would install Debian if I had a Mac Mini.
I know a guy who installed a lawnmower engine in a BMW once.
He was almost as irrelevant as this guy.
What's so special about Linux?
Um, ASOT? Have you ever used it? You can take a Linux box out of the box, plug it in, and be on the Internet doing whatever you want to do in about five minutes. You don't have to dick around with settings, or fiddle with security stuff. There's a proper firewall turned on by default, and the web browser that comes with it doesn't suck.
It comes with great personal productivity software: Thunderbird, Evo, OpenOffice, and in many cases, Totem / MPlayer. Some applications that are kinda sorta similar to those are available for Mac OSX, but the Mac versions have three huge problems: first, you have to download them. Second, the OSX versions are less maintained. Third, you have to use a billion different tyools to keep your apps up to date, rather than just one.
Then, of course, you can play a lot more games on Linux on a PC than you can with OSX - either native (usually the same games as most Mac Ports - Doom 3, UT 2004, etc), or through Cedega. Want Halflife 2? You got it.
Then, of course, there's GTKPod. Personally, when I buy an iPod, and upgrade my computer, I can't imagine being told I should delete all my songs to use it.
Given that Linux does so much, it is, yes, a pretty absurd concept for me that people might want to throw all that functionality away and use an operating system that makes you feel like it's 1984 all over again.
They probably didn't "think different."
As usual , Gentoo has an excelent documentation , but for the mini , here a guy gives a lot of nice information about installing gentoo on the mini
"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." -- Linus
I've never had trouble installing Debian on a Mac using the PPC code set- this is NOT news and NOT difficult- the oonly issue UII've ever had with any Linux distro was in the detection of the graphic card which could leave you in a lerch for certain- Command line hell for a Mac user.. The fact that Airport extreme cards are STILL unsupported stinks.. I've been pining for an older (say 500Mhz TiBook) for Linux use which supports the older Airport card and works flawlessly with the Mac Airport hardware. http://www.petitiononline.com/BCM4301/petition.htm l
Lets petition the drivers be released to the public once and for all!
Mac OS X has a built in emulator called Classic. The CD comes with the Mini and if you buy the Dummies book it tells all about Classic and how to use it. Looks amazing, a Mac Emulation inside OS X.
I have yet to try it on my Mini...
Your Average Joe
Ok
1) Max OS X also has another ace up its sleave. It's called Hide. If you've too many apps on the screen and you want to clear it up a bit, hit the Command-H keys and it hides all the windows for the current live app. They don't go into the minimized portion of the dock, they just vanish. But the app is still running (the black triangle below the app icon in the doc shows this).
Too much trouble for you to hide multiple apps? No problem. Select the app you want to keep and go to the first Menu item for that app on the menu bar. Select Hide Others and every other app on the desktop gets hidden in one fell swoop.
2) Download Desktop Manager. It's a Virtual Desktop app just like any you get on Linux, only better. At 322KB it takes minutes to download, then you click on the
- Cross Fade
- Zoom
- Reveal (a powerpoint like slide effect)
- Slide
- Warp & Fade
- Swap Over (very cool - old screen shrinks into the distance, new screen zooms towards you)
- Cube (also very cool - uses the same "switch user" rotating cube effect to switch screens)
- Warp
Plus
30-15 to Mac OS X
From the article: I decided to have an 8GB partition which I would format as FAT32. This allows me to easily and reliably share files between OSX and Linux, both of which have good FAT32 support but, at the time of writing, poor or incomplete support for each other's native filesystems.
I've just bought a Mac, and have been dual-booting between Debian and Panther. Unlike the author, however, I've just been using a large HFS+ partition to move things about. I was under the impression that recent Linux kernels incorporated the supposedly safe HFS+ driver from here: ArdisTech
Was I mistaken? Are there still valid reasons to not to let Linux write to an HFS+ partition?
Does that mean Firefox is crap? Just asking, by your logic it must be.
There are a few things I don't like about Excel, MathCAD, Firefox, Thunderbird, Xnews, Scilab and Matlab, but I wouldn't describe them as crap, exactly. Essential would be nearer the mark.
So why not?
The gentoo one's still compiling.
and many prefer PPC over Intel/AMD architecture.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
but there are other apps for Linux that do the same thing. Some people like to CHOOSE which apps work best for them. And for programmers, open source applications are much easier to customize than Apple-branded software.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
... and Sonnet is reselling them as their own product at a hefty markup.
When speccing a server for quality parts, you get a broader selection of quality chipsets at good prices with an {IA32|PPC}/linux solution than you do with a PPC/OS X solution.
Thanks to the portability of Debian and its advanced package management tools, making her new Mac look like her old PC took only an hour or so.
that sounds like sacrilige. I hope the old PC was running Debian and the new setup was double boot. But, then the Jobs co writes at least as much scary legal shit as the Gates gang. So maybe he's doing the right thing.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
You mean they killed off OS9 Bootability a year ago. Its really not been that long.
I cant use Connetix Virtual Game Station anymore! Thank god PCSX came out, I was having to use my G3 DV iMac to play Playstation games. Seriously, Classic can't emulate whatever CVGS needs, which is annoying. Of course i purchased my copy of CVGS several years ago when it was legal software.
Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.