Terra Soft Offers Linux-booting iPods, FW Drives

Kai Staats of Terra Soft writes "We are pleased to now offer support for bootable iPods and FireWire drives, enabling a highly portable Linux on PowerPC environment." Note that this is about booting a Macintosh into Linux, not running Linux on the iPod.

Comments

Just hardware, no apple OS.

[ClickWir]

Torvald's response came quickly and succinctly. "My main machine these days is a dual 2GHz G5 (aka PowerPC 970) - it's physically a regular Apple Mac, although it obviously only runs Linux, so I don't think you can call it a Mac any more ;)" he said.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[KZigurs]

Wise remark. Like it or not - apple hw, without max os x isn't a mac.

It's just another linux machine with that horrible X thing on it. :P

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[JabberWokky]

Wine does not work on a non-intel system. It doesn't handle different opcodes, only a different API. There are solutions for running Windows on PPC, both closed and open source, but Wine is not one of them.

--
Evan

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[elleomea]

You can make use of WINE in conjunction with QEMU to achieve execution of x86 Windows binaries on a PPC.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[RevAaron]

Wise remark. Like it or not - apple hw, without max os x isn't a mac.

It's just another linux machine with that horrible X thing on it. :P

Like it or not, but that isn't the case.

Recently, I've been considering buying a new laptop. I last had an iBook G3/500, recently bequethed to my girlfriend, with me using a PDA/handheld as my main computer for the last year or so. So, thinking about getting another full laptop, I've been shopping around. But since I've had my fill of OS X, I was looking at PCs too, since I'd probably be fine on a PC running Windows or Linux. But I keep coming back to the Macs. With the quality of hardware, the size/weight factor it's hard to find a notebook of comparable price, one that isn't a big piece of junk.

Saying that a Mac without OS X isn't a Mac just isn't true. There's more to a Mac than software. Most folks who think so have never used a Mac, not for any long period of time. Similarily, a PC running OS X isn't a Mac. Maybe an x86 machine produced by Apple could make it as one, though.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[lowrydr310]

Is there anything better about running Linux on a PowerPC based system as opposed to an x86 system? Do people really go out and spend big bucks on Apple hardware just to run Linux?

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[northcat]

Yes, and that's exactly why WINE Is Not an Emulator. But whenever you say that on slashdot, the language nazis wake up and start giving lectures about why WINE is an emulator. FFS, the WINE developers *themselves* say that WINE is not an emulator.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[nickos]

Linux has always been designed for the x86 platform first and then ported to other platforms later. That said, PowerPC has a much nicer architecture than x86 (heck, almost anything is better than x86 - the only thing in the x86's favour is that commodity PCs use it). Also, if you're looking at running Linux on a laptop, PPC based machines tend to have a better battery life for their level of performance...

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[grahamlee]

Wine does not work on a non-intel system.

Mind if I call bullshit?

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[DrXym]

Well yes, it is bullshit. Darwine allows you to compile Win32 source and link against Winelib. It does not allow you to run x86 binaries on the PPC. Maybe it will some day but not yet.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[HuguesT]

Wintel hardware is like US TV. More than a hundred channels, and nothing on.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[grahamlee]

You appear to have left your NT4/PPC install media at home ;-). Darwine can run Win32/PPC binaries.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[1u3hr]

unless you're running Mac OS X on it, don't call it a Mac. Because it most definitely is not.

"A Mac[intosh]" is a piece of hardware. "Mac OS[X]" is software. If you buy an iMac or Mac mini, and boot to Yellow Dog, you don't have "a Yellow Dog", you have "a Mac running Yellow Dog".

There are several Mac OS emulators (mostly for OS7) I can run on my PC, even full screen, (not to mention the PearPC for OSX). I still have a PC, not a Mac.

Perhaps instead of just stating it as a fact, you could explain why the above is wrong.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[wealthychef]

It's just another linux machine with that horrible X thing on it. :P

Troll-bait aside, as a Mac user running OS X at work and at home, I use X11 all the time. The only problem with OS X's windowing system, Aqua, is that it does not support remote windows. With "that horrible X thing," I can and routinely do open graphical windows spawned by applications on other machines running totally different operating systems. It is the only technology out there that does that that I have ever heard of. Even between macs, try opening iTunes on your home machine from your work machine. X11 is a useful application, not horrible at all.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[0racle]

Macintosh is the hardware. For a good while the OS didn't have a name even, it was just the OS for the Macintosh, and then simply refered to as the Mac's OS and finally formally the MacOS.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[grahamlee]

for the pedantics

Pedants. I couldn't resist, sorry. :-)

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[swimmar132]

Can you get 5+ hours on the Pentium M laptops?

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[renoX]

Link?
The only part were I read him criticize PowerPC is MMU's handling which I don't really consider that it is part of the assembly language..

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[Alien Being]

"apple hw, without max os x isn't a mac."

So all the macs they sold with MacOS 1-9 have turned into pumpkins?

Allow me to reverse troll. The 1984 machines were real macs, crash prone and overpriced. OS X is just another unix machine that favors eye candy over functionality.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[i wanted another nam]

That's a good thing, since they stopped calling it titanium when they started calling it aluminum.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[CritterNYC]

Wow, that's pretty good.

And eleven hours is amazing. How do you get that?

That laptop you mentioned is double the cost of an iBook though.

That Sony VGN-T150 is quite a different animal than anything Apple offers. It uses an Ultra Low Voltage Penitum M running at 1.1GHz. That's how it gets 6 to 11 hours of battery life with the extended-life battery.

The closest you could get with an Apple would be the 12-inch Powerbook with a Super Drive at $1700. The Sony runs between $1900 and $2000. But it's only 3.1 lbs compared to the Powerbook's 4.6 lbs and the battery life it gets is quite amazing. (even compared to the Powerbook's "up to 5 hours")

Of course, we're really comparing apples to oranges here (no pun intended) as these are very different machines for different needs.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[Crazy Eight]

"Troll"?!

Edit: Well, that's how I began this post before the parent got remodded with a bit of, uh... moderation.

IIRC, the ULV Pentium-M consumes 7 Watts and has a higher IPC than the G4. At 1.1 GHz it will outperform the G4 in computation and power consumption. The benchmarks I've seen rank flagship Dothans alongside A64 4000+ with an Achilles Heel only on applications that bottleneck on memory bandwith before anything else. They do this with a TDP of 25 Watts. The PM has already sounded a death knell for Transmeta (if it isn't dead already) and will kill off the P4 once Intel decides it can retire that beast quietly.

Everything I've been able to gather from official specs and anecdotal reports makes the grandparent's claim about battery life shaky at best.

Apple laptops are excellent. I'm posting this from one right now. But let's not kid ourselves into thinking they're hand crafted by geniuses too sublime for pedestrian consumers unworthy of membership in Apple's Magic Circle. They're built by the same ODM that makes lappies for IBM.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[boots@work]

Again, so what? A G5 probably won't boot a five year old Linux distribution either. My new i386 laptop probably wouldn't boot a three-year-old copy of either windows or linux, because of its crazy hardware.

My point is that the mere fact that a system started out on platform X says nothing about how well or poorly it will now support platform Y.

Windows NT originally started out on an intel risc machine (i860). Sun started on m68k and is now on ultrasparc. HP-UX started on PA-RISC and is now primarily on ia64. PalmOS started on motorola m68881(?) and is now on ARM. Staying on the same set of processors over ten years is the exception.

Re:Just hardware, no apple OS.

[Jesus_666]

Upgrade! Knock over a lick-her store or something, if you need the cash.

I've heard that there is something called a "job". I might try that first, but thanks for the tip.

...of course, a job in a lick-her store would be ideal.

You lose....

[Daytona955i]

You must not be very good at the game of bullshit...

From the Darwine FAQ:
Is the Darwin/Mac OS X release of Wine currently able to run Windows executable (.exe)?

No. We are currently working on integrating an x86 emulator in wine in order to run Win32 exe on a PowerPC Box. But on Darwin-x86 a Win32 .exe should run within wine.

Also let's clear up a few things:
Darwin != OS X
Wine != Darwine

Darwin is the open source part of OS X and has been ported to the x86 platform. Darwine is a port of wine to darwin. Darwine will run windows binaries on a x86 system but not a PPC system. Got that?

last to get ports

[SethJohnson]

It's cool that you brought up the port issue. I'll expound on my frustration with linux on PPC...

I ran a webserver on PPC linux (SuSE) for a few years. The SuSE folks did a good job porting all the standard linux apps and packages over from x86. But as I sought to customize my server with special CGI packages that did stuff like photo galleries and log analysis, I would run into roadblocks because necessary libs weren't available in PPC rpms. Sure, I could try to compile them myself, but in most attempts at this, I'd run into all kinds of compile errors for which I have no knowledge of how to troubleshoot.

Eventually I scrapped my PPC server and switched to an old dual Celeron x86 box running Mandrake. It was very nice to have everything readily available for my distro.

At the point that this server dies, I intend to replace it with my antiquated B/W G3 450mhz box. I see more development focusing on Mac OS X PPC than linux PPC as I think there is a significantly larger userbase on Mac OS X than linux PPC. So, unlike mr Torvaldis, I'll probably run my system (server) off Mac OS X at that point. My desktop will remain Mac OS X.

Re:last to get ports

[iamacat]

I hate to say it, but try Gentoo. The initial setup is crazy, but this is the end of dependency problems. You get up-to-date versions of every library, not something distro maintainers neglected for a while. Then in your system configuration file you can disable support for unwanted components, like java or kde, which reduces number of dependencies or potential problems to begin with. Finally, configure can adopt a package to a far wider range of systems, versions and presence/absence of specific software than a binary package can handle.

If you don't specifically need Linux kernel, fink might be an easier option. You get access to the same packages as gentoo without, but setup on top of OSX is trivial. You can still run your server without UI if you want. Edit /etc/ttys and replace loginwindow with getty.

You're speaking of Apple hardware.

[TheLittleJetson]

Saying that a Mac without OS X isn't a Mac just isn't true. There's more to a Mac than software.

Linus' claim is correct. A Mac without OS X is not truly a Mac, as it doesn't offer the full Mac experience. However, that doesn't mean that Apple's hardware is run-of-the-mill. It's quite superb, as you've pointed out, and there are other non-mac examples of this (iPods, Airport Base Stations [I think the express is a really cool product], we've even got a few LaserWriters still in use at my work).

I think this is one of the legitimate reasons why you SHOULD run Linux on a Mac. He's fricken Linus, man! It's hard to do what he does (work on Linux) without using Linux. He's made the choice for real, practical reasons. It frustrates me that several in the slashdot crowd want to run Linux on Apple hardware because they think there's some lame/n00b stigma attached to OS X. I've said it plenty of times before, and I'll say it again: OS X run's the majority of unixoid apps just fine. It's the best-fit for Apple hardware; the level of integration between hardware/software is going to be very difficult to reproduce with Linux, especially on a notebook. Don't make the switch unless you have stuff that needs to be done under Linux that simply CAN NOT be done under OS X...

Huh?

[SmokeHalo]

iPods with Front Wheel Drive?

Re:Huh?

[eobanb]

Oh yeah? Mine's got a body kit and type R sticker.

Re:Huh?

[NanoGator]

"Yeah, but they run Linux."

So... I'm guessing we can't get that with an automatic transmission, then.

Ah, but...

[PornMaster]

Is this how Linus boots his Mac?

Re:Ah, but...

[winkydink]

No, that would be a separate article. Anything Linus does is a separate article.

Honest journalism

[GrouchoMarx]

At least for a change they're not trying to pretend this is a real article instead of a commercial. They're being very obvious that it's an unpaid advertisement. That's an improvement for Slashdot of late.

Sad.

Re:Honest journalism

[Atzanteol]

Company 'foo' offers new product isn't news? Okay, no more "Apple farts, smells like roses" articles, "Intel releases newest chip" articles, or any new products what-so-ever...

Do you really want to be stuck with stories only about "I got my X to run Linux!" articles and "How do I search the internet" ask slashdot posts?

Woah!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Terra Soft Solutions(R), Inc., the leading developer of integrated PowerPC Linux solutions"

Woah! Leading developer of integrated PowerPC Linux solutions. That's impressive! I wonder if there is a second place?

Re:Woah!

[Jozer99]

What about IBM? After all, they are one of the worlds largest companies. Also, they are the leading developer of PowerPC, seeing as they are the designers and one of the only manufacturers of such chips. Don't they use that Linux thingie there too?

Honest Question

[American AC in Paris]

I honestly wish Terra Soft the best of luck with this venture, but I can't help but wonder how large market is going to be.

Setting aside the "because I can" and "because it's Linux" arguments, what is the benefit of running YDL instead of OS X on one's Mac?

Re:Honest Question

[HiThere]

Gimp works fine under OS X. True, it's an X Window application, but it still works fine...and it tries to hide it's root from naive users.

OTOH, I have a Mac portable that I intend to get properly configured one of these days. (I need to clear a space near an internet connection that has enough headroom to open the case, and get MOL properly set up. Currently it's either Linux OR Mac, I can't boot into Linux and then open a Mac window for a game.)

And THAT's the reason that I have OSX installed. Games and other special features (like airport). But give me the KDE desktop anytime. I find it far superior to the Mac. (Well, it *IS* what I use on my main computer, so perhaps it's just what I'm used to.)

Re:Honest Question

[humina]

Unfortunately the lack of an airport driver is the main reason I have not gone with Linux on my Mac. I prefer a 100% open source operating system instead of apple's open source darwin/closed source aqua. That and I can't check homestarrunner.com cause there's no open source flash viewer and macromedia won't release ppc closed source compatible version.

Re:Honest Question

[javaxman]

Setting aside the "because I can" and "because it's Linux" arguments, what is the benefit of running YDL instead of OS X on one's Mac?

Setting aside those two arguments ( which are fairly compeling, but we'll set them aside since you say so ) there is only one scenario I can think of where I'd run Linux on *my* Mac, but it's entirely likely. I currently use a Mac at home. What if, next month, I get a gig programming in a Linux environment? Am I going to go out and buy a whole new machine, or am I going to install Linux on my existing hardware?

If I can install Linux on my existing hardware, I'm going to. But I'm not going to want to boot my machine that way all the time, because OS X has a good number of apps that I use ( for non-work purposes ) which don't exist ( really ) under Linux, and I'm not sure the wife and 3-year-old are ready to make the switch ot Linux.

So doing the external-hard-drive thing would be neat. And using something as tiny as an iPod to carry my entire Linux world around between home and work? Even cooler.

Instead of buying a new mobo for my outdated PC that's been sitting idle for years now, I can buy an iPod, and maybe even write it off! Super-cool.

As for the market? It's probably not huge, but does it need to be? I thought OSS was about having options, not about having the biggest install base...

Uh, yeah, sure...

[digitalamish]

In a nutshell they turned an iPod into an external hard drive. Then the Macs will treat it as such and boot to it. Basically they turned a $200+ device* into a $29 USB key.

*unless you get a free one!

Re:Uh, yeah, sure...

[Quixote]

*unless you get a free one!

You can get a free iPod ? Really ?? Where???

Re:Uh, yeah, sure...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hippo Linux, the worlds premiere bloatware distro. Their "enhanced" version of Emacs takes up 8 gigs by itself.

Re:Uh, yeah, sure...

[hackstraw]

*unless you get a free one!

Thats easy. Just click on my foe list. about 90% of them are willing to give you a free iPod after they get one first and you pay money (their version of free, not mine) and register for a bunch of spam and other marketing ploys (again, their version of free not mine), and then you are the low man in the pyramid and you have to then sucker others to be the new low people.

Yes, people, if you have a free anything in your sig that is not free, I will foe you and filter you just like I do with my email. I do not like nor do I support spam.

Re:Uh, yeah, sure...

[SeanAhern]

Some people may be missing the point. This is more than just a way to hold a bootable Linux distribution. This is all of your home, third party applications, databases, everything. Rather than merely keeping some of your documents with you (as many do with small USB drives), this contains everything, simply everything you need to do work on your computer. It is your computer, in essence. On my laptop (running Fedora Core), my home directory weighs in at about 16 gigabytes.

Re:Uh, yeah, sure...

[Bilestoad]

Phrase it still another way - what kind of idiot pays that much money for a slow external 60GB hard drive?

Re:What was the CPM, Taco?

[superpulpsicle]

No kidding, they got to make the ads less obvious. Like change the title to M$ employee and SCO employee loves iPods running linux on campus.

Re:Great!

[northcat]

It's called "joke". Look it up in the dictionary.

Re:Availability?

[Chirs]

Technically, under the GPL they only have to make the code available to their customers, not anyone else.

However, they cannot keep their customers from redistributing the code...

Chris

Re:My kid's lemonade stand needs more traffic

[DrLZRDMN]

If it runs Linux.

Linus says

[jaymzter]

Crap! Wouldn't you know it, right after I just installed Yellow Dog too >:(

Don't host from an ipod

[acomj]

There is a lesson here.. The quick slashdotting apears to indicate raid works better than an ipod for running your server.

Maybe a highly portable Mac

[MBraynard]

My flatmates powerbook blew out the harddrive. In order to do it on the cheap and still make the machine useful, he is running OSX from his Ipod.

Re:Availability?

[pete-classic]

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

So, they only have to give it to "members" or whomever they provide binaries to.

-Peter

So it's commercial. Deal with it.

[93 Escort Wagon]

Sheesh, guys, just because it's a commercial announcement doesn't mean it's not "stuff that matters". This might be useful - or at least interesting - to some of the folks here that actually work for a living.

Personally I'd rather see more of this on Slashdot and less of the "New Star Wars III fanfict trailer released!".

Old world macs don't support OS X (officially)

[johnny cashed]

Of course, Old world macs aren't firewire bootable either. But YDL is very fast on old world macs compared to OS X via Xpostfacto on old world hardware. (which is still good if not aged hardware) I'm currently running OS X on a G3 upgraded Powercomputing clone (thanks to Xpostfacto). at 420Mhz, it is slow compared to YDL on a Beige G3 266. So it is either OS 9 or YDL on old hardware. It is getting harder to get modern web browser features on OS 9.

Patents!

[Anonymous Custard]

You know how you can take a normal thing, like reading, and patent it by appending "on the internet"?

Can I patent normal things, but append "when done by Linus"?

Surely that will lead me to profit.

Re:Patents!

[Dizzle]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that only gets you as far as ?????...

not the only firewire trick with the firmware

[moosesocks]

the firmware loaded onto macs nowindays is quite impressive in that it can do all sorts of things with firewire. booting off of a firewire device is one of the more tame 'tricks' it can do.

OpenFirmware can also make your mac pretend that it's a firewire hard drive. Connect the mac to another machine (another mac or a PC that can read HFS+ partitions), and boot up the machine while holding down the T key. Before the OS loads, the computer enters target disk mode, and every hard drive attached to that computer appears as a normal firewire device to the other computer.

I don't see why this wouldn't work with an ext3 or ReiserFS partition... it's a VERY useful trick for restoring a trashed system (which in all honsety rarely happens in Mac OS, but is rather common on Windows and Linux if you're compiling your own kernels and such)

Re:Who in their right mind...

[bomb_number_20]

troll...

Maybe some people don't like OS X. It is possible, you know. I run deb on my dual 1.8Ghz G5.

In some ways, OS X is the worst of both worlds.

It's FreeBSD... but, well, it's not FreeBSD. It has linux ports... but, well, it's not really linux either.

Another analogy: OS X is to *nix what tofu is to meat.

It looks great- but is missing some fundamental stuff that 'just works' under linux. The end result is that I have a great looking operating system that doesn't really run much that I like or do what i want it to do. Here are some quick examples off the top of my head:

* Finding a free FLAC player takes some work (MacAmp) whereas, under linux I have several choices.

* Apple's Java is seriously broken and I don't really have much of a choice. Under linux, I can use IBMs Java.

* Multiple Desktops would be nice under OS X.

* File browsing with Konquerer is unmatched. Period.

* Lack of decent Office packages under OS X. MS Office? Well, I said decent. Appleworks? sorry. With the exception of Openoffice.org, the rest are overpriced (Mariner Write etc.). Openoffice under OS X simply blows. IIRC, their OS X project was cancelled.

In short, linux is much more usable for me than OS X is. Besides, i just plain like it.

That being said, some downsides to linux on ppc include: broken sound on newer G5s and 3d support non-existent with nothing in sight.

this will kill iPods

[a1291762]

Their hard drives aren't designed for booting OSes from. Too much seeking will fry them.

Portabality!!!!

[djroute66]

Who in their right mind would run a generic Linux instead of OS X?

Maybe because they want a portable workstation. Basically, take the iPod to Workstation-1 and work from there. Then take it home plug it in to your Workstation and keep all your settings, files, etc.

Would it be better if it was a Mac-X booting iPod?

When Will the "Make it Boot Linux" Madness Stop?

[windowpain]

I left a ham sandwich on my desk today and forgot about it. When I got back three geeks were working to make it boot Linux.

External Firewire Drives Too!

[ryan_fung]

From TFA:
"Terra Soft has created a hybrid Yellow Dog Linux v4.0.1 #1 Install CD that incorporates the changes required to install to an iPod or FireWire drive from the graphical installer. This hybrid is immediately available through YDL.net Enhanced accounts at www.ydl.net."

Now I can play around with Linux on PPC without touching my current setup! Great!

Now the problem becomes: how long before the new ISOs become available to the public?

Re:Portability to the max

[chef_raekwon]

hate to rain on your parade, but you could have just picked up a laptop drive, plugged it into an external USB container, and had the same ability 2 years ago. maybe longer.

Bad idea...

[andymullins]

Does anyone else think this is a bad idea? iPods are intended for short bursts of hard drive activity, and will likely overheat if used for anything more strenuous. Do this at your own risk!

Re:Bad idea...

[CarrionBird]

Mine gets quite hot after extended periods of HDD mode. I'd have to mod it for some ventilation before I tried it as a main drive.