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iBook boots Linux
robat writes "
You might be interested in the fact that an iBook booted Linux.
" Another machine brought into the fold. The first set of patches with a binary kernel are online already.
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MMX is not limited to graphics, either. For instance, one of the RAID drivers in the linux kernel uses MMX instructions for speed. MMX, 3DNow, and SSE are all SIMD units, just like AltiVec, which is what I said. AltiVec has some interesting features in it, yes, but for general purpose computing it provides little to no benefit. For 3D, yes. For large matrix manipulation, yes. But for booting your computer, no.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
This is untrue. AltiVec only helps when you are dealing with several pieces of data that you want to do the same operation on. It would not help to figure out the subnet rule, as you're not dealing with that many instructions using the same operation (two ANDs with 0xFFFFFF00 and a subtract, on PPC, iirc, this can be done with 5 instructions total which is less than the setup overhead for the AltiVec Unit). Malloc doesn't involve that many repetitive calculations, either. And a lot of the instructions have dependencies... which would prohibit the use of SIMD. 3D Vector math is also rather trivial... algorithms for finding intersecting lines in 3D are rather trivial and would not benefit from AltiVec.
Where AltiVec helps are when you want to do things like: I have 300,000 points in 3D, and I want to rotate them about a point. I'm going to be running the same damn operation on every point, and no point affects the other one. So I can run the same instruction on multiple pieces of data at the same time... load up, say, 4 32bit FP numbers and 4 more 32 bit angles, and run A*sin(B) or something.
Actually, your missile problem could be done with fixed point on a 1Mhz 8 bit PIC microcontroller with time to spare -- I know, I just did that sort of thing in lab.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
People don't understand this very well. It is _NOT_ 3dNow or MMX. What we are talking about is a fairly large number of absolutely huge registers. If I'm not mistaken it'd also be possible to use them somewhat more inefficiently as ordinary registers, or as _sets_ of ordinary registers. :) now that I mention it, I have to seriously wonder whether Linux does its stuff by requiring a bit more space to work, and being beautifully unsophisticated about both disk and memory! ;)
The very first thing that comes to mind is not anything graphics related, but simply block moves. MacOS makes heavy use of double indirection, 'handles' to blocks that are moved by the Memory Manager. This API is widely used by applications and changes to the system's implementation would speed up most applications across the board, so long as they used Memory Manager calls. Asking the MacOS to allocate memory in a situation where it has to compact the application zone and move 60M of relocatable blocks could become quite radically faster if it could be done 128 bytes at a time. I think that sums it up, don't you?
I hope linux geeks know what relocatable blocks are. Maybe that is something only systems hackers have to know about, or not even then. It's basically a way of defragging and optimising memory like you defrag and optimize disk
Trust is nice but I think many more people are going to like versions of Microsoft Office and Photoshop that run on top of a BSD based OS.
Which, I'm sure, are guaranteed to ported perfectly...
Of course, I'm extremely interested in seeing Office/Photoshop on a BSD based machine. It could completely rule. It might not. It's all vapor right now.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Well, this is my first Mac, and I'm a Linux geek. .. err.. nevermind
:)
:)
Let's see... it's joining a family of:
a NeXT running NeXTStep 4.2
2 Alphas running Linux
2 relatively modern x86s running Linux
a PDP-11 running RSX-11
a Newton that I'm going to give to one of my
sisters for college (running NewtonOS 2.1)
2 ancient x86s (pre386) running CP/M and DOS
a Nintendo64 running
Anyhow, why the iBook? Well, I got an eMate some
time ago to replace a laptop that died, and it
was really great (long battery life), but it
was too slow. It didn't keep up with my typing,
and I wanted a machine I could compile stuff on,
run Perl, and have nice networking built-in.
So... I looked at all the laptops I could get
a good price on, and the iBook pretty much
ended up at the head of the list. It's fast,
it's fairly cheap, it has a nice display, it has
built-in 100Mbps ethernet, and I thought it would
run OSX until Linux got ported.
Alas, OSX doesn't run on the iBook yet, so I'm
dealing with MacOS currently (Thank goodness
someone ported vim to MacOS). I've written a
Unixlike shell in Perl to help me manage files
(well, am writing, rather), but at least I can
play Bolo
Anyhow, once Linux understands the iBook's
ethernet hardware, I'll be very very quickly
running Linux on it. One of the nicest things
about Linux is you can be hardware agnostic
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
One word: wow.
A toilet that runs Linux! And, didn't someone say that Linux doesn't work well in embedded systems? This'll show them.
Justin
Mu. P.S. The address you see is real. =)
I tried using the development kernel on my iBook, and it works surprisingly great, despite the missing network/modem support, etc. Linux flies on it, although that might have to do with how I have 160 MB of memory on it.
Here's the thing that really freaked me out though, when I booted it up: the dmesg output reports 598.02 BogoMIPS. My Dell PII-400 only reports around 390, and I'm getting 598 from a 300 MHz Mac. Even the 400 MHz Alphas I use only report 360.
I have two speculations - either a) the iBook is a serious powerhouse crippled by a bloated MacOS, or b) the G3 has some optimization in it that throws off the numbers.
Can anyone shed some light on this? I know BogoMIPS isn't an absolute indicator of performance, but how does one account for a 200 point difference from a machine 100 MHz slower? If the G3'S really are this fast, I will never buy another x86 box again.
I better put on the asbestos suit for this one.
Since everyone out here is bashing the iBook, let me play devils advocate and say why I bought one.
1) Everything is integrated. I have no need to go out and buy PC cards for modem & network, it's all built into the same box at one price.
2) AirPort. You gotta love the AirPort. CompUSA was giving away free AirPort cards w/ iBooks the weekend I bought mine, so that made it even better.
3) Strength. As a college student, I already have enough junk to carry around with me, much less a bulky laptop bag. Since the iBook's case is so strong, I can just shove it in my backpack along with my books and not worry about it getting hurt. Plus, since the battery lasts so long, I don't even need to carry around a power adapter.
4) Price. I picked up an iBook and a 128 MB memory module for less than $2000. A comparable x86 laptop would cost much more. And since I knew I'd run Linux on it, no matter whether I bought Apple or x86, the cheaper one wins.
5) Design. This really is a great-looking notebook (at least the blue one is... the orange is pretty ugly).
6) No M$ tax. I refuse to give Microsoft any more money, and if I buy an x86 machine from a reputable manufacturer, I'd probably end up buying a machine subject to the M$ tax.
I bought a Dell Inspiron 7000 over the summer and sent it back a week later. It weighed 10 pounds, but felt flimsy and fragile. The iBook is nothing like that - it feels like a tank.
Yellow Dog Linux runs great on it despite the lack of support for a lot of the hardware. I can't wait until it's fully supported...
this phenomena is not exclusive to Open Source. The thing is Mr. Herrenschmidt didn't just buy an iBook and think "could i get it to work", but rather, LinuxPPC GAVE him one. Why? He is the primary author and maintainer of BootX, which made booting Linux on macs with bad OF possible, like powerbooks. He has also worked very hard on the PMU drivers, making it possible to sleep the WallStreets (pbG3), of which i have one and am greatful.
This is a tribute to the productivity of the Linux initiative, i think, and not purely an open source thing.
Lycestra
A few years ago, I said if the price of PowerPC comes down to 10% of a comparable Wintel's price, I'll opt for a PowerPC and install linux, and now it has. You can get a brand new iMac for $779. You can start with www.macinfind.com, www.deals-mac.com, www.absolutemac.com, and of course, www.google.com.
I know, it sounds like a shameless plug but I thought it'll be useful to some.
Hasdi
Trust.
Trust is nice but I think many more people are going to like versions of Microsoft Office and Photoshop that run on top of a BSD based OS.
They shafted Mac owners who should have been able to upgrade a G3 to a G4. Through a crippling OS upgade no less.
I wish people here would get over the misleading headlines on some of the stories here. The FACT of the matter is that there are already two companies that have workarounds for Apple's firmware G4 cripple, with more coming.
See http://www.powerlogix.com/ for more details.
What I am interested in knowing is why anyone who had Mac OS X would have any interest in running Linux anyway. Soon after release people will start porting the open source stuff to Mac OS X, plus they will have Carbon plus all the legacy Mac apps. What does Linux offer? Just the open source stuff. The cost of OS X will be irrelevent because of the bundling that will go on.
So just what is the benefit of running Linux on a Mac after Mac OS X is out, anyway???
The thought that Apple's software interests(OSX) are causing specifications to be hidden about their hardware products(mmm...G4...) is mildly disturbing, to say the least.
What a load of crap. Just because Apple hasn't released the Technotes on the G4 hardware yet doesn't mean they won't. Nor does it have anything to do with OS X - all the G3s, iMac and iBook tech notes are out - these machines are just as likely to run OS X as the G4s.
Complaining about Microsoft becomes much more disturbing when you realize what any number of other software companies would do in their place...
What pipe were you smoking when you came up with that one? Apple is not a software company. Apple is in fact, a hardware company. If they were a software company they wouldn't care about clones and in fact would encourage them. But they can't because almost all their revenues and profits come from selling - hardware.
is there even an altivec-enhanced version of mac os x server out yet?
I am not sure what an Altivec enhanced version of Mac OS X server would do any differently than a non-enhaced version.
How much code that would benefit from a vector processor is there in an OS anyway?
there isn't an altivec-enhanced gcc out yet, is there? why not? isn't apple using egcs for mac os x?
See my first comment.
now we just have to wait for G4 support to show up
There were a number of posting here a couple of weeks ago indicating that Linux was up and running on the G4 Macs.
As far as applications that take advantage of Altivec, (Photoshop, Halo, Quicktime) I imagine that they are being compiled with either a Motorola or Metrowerks compiler. If gcc/egcs support for Alitvec is going to come from someplace I imagine it would come from Motorola rather than Apple. AFAIK Apple hasn't done any compiler writing in a while.
It would be interesting to ask Moto if they have a gcc/ecgs compiler that supports Alitvec.
I just got a raise so I'm looking at picking one up for Christmas (g4 maybe). I haven't used a mac for a long time, but they're pretty. I don't use MacOs much (slight support), but it's easy and pretty. Just another tool for different work.
+&x
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Ac cording to Hason Haas of LinuxPPC Apple was helping the Linux PowerPC folks on getting Linux working.
Please don't automatically assume that Apple is on the wrong side on this.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
That the current MacOS IS really inefficent in it's use of the processor. There's a lot of baggage even in OS 9, that slows down the system compared to what a PPC *CAN* do.
Remember, that IBM overclocked a PPC to 1 gig, a good year or so ago.
OS X is supposed to change all this by placing the finder on top of a BSD Unix system.
You might check out the stats for SETI @home. There's a guy on an plder Mac there, running a developer release of Rhapsody, who churns out data units about six hours faster than MacOS. Also note the times of the various *BSD implementations. They pretty much ALL smoke bth MacOS AND windoze.
Also worth noting ae the "CPU Types" statistics. Here, PPC finishs data blocks about 8 hours faster than x86. It's important to note, tho, that this includes IBM's AIX PPC workstations which, accouding to the OS Stats page, finishes data units about twice as fast as MacOS. So it stands to reason that the MacOS IS holding the PPC back in the CPU stats area.
Now, I know that SETI @home is not the best test for benchmarking a CPU out there. But face it, any benchmark one could choose (Byte, spec, Photoshop, Q3 Test Framerate, etc.) is going to piss off SOMEONE, and promptly be declared invalid by users of the system that loses.
But what I think the SETI @home numbers DO demonstrate is that the PPC really IS an excellent chip, that DOES smoke its opponents. It, in most cases, is being slowed down by an outdated and inefficent operating ststem (although it performs quite well even after overcoming the overhead of the MacOS).
I know from first hand expierence that my G3's performance is quite righteous running LinuxPPC. I don't have any benchmarks, but it just *feels* twice as fast when running in its Linux partion vs. the MacOS partition. Granted, that's not at all scientific, but what the hell....
So, yeah, if you want an awesome Linux box, PPC IS a REALLY good choice. And since IBM's released the MB specs, you won't even HAVE to go with Apple in the near future. I plan to tho, I'm keeping my hopes up that they'll do a good job of integrating the MacOS GUI with BSD UNIX in OS X. I've had a chance to play with both Darwin, and OS X Server, and somehow, I think they WILL get it right.
But only time will tell.
john
Imagine all the people...
I agree with you, itachi.
And on another note... The speed and useability of MacOS and Wintel systems are pretty comparable now, each platform had advantages over the other but for a lot of people, either platform would be suitable. Because of that, there has to be some other way for companies to distinguish their products from others... and the nest way to do that is through the style. I consider myself to be a pretty technical guy but I also appreciate stylish-looking computers. I get sick of sitting at my desk and staring at a beige box that looks like every other computer ever made.
I'll confess to being a Mac Guy... but I have owned a couple of PCs in the past. Also, I have a 450 Mhx PIII from HP as well as an HP C3000 Workstation on my desk at the office. At home I've got a B&W G3 and a Wallstreet model PowerBook. The last PC i owned was a "home built" system with a cool-looking case and one of those Black & green Acer monitors- primarily becuase it was interesting to look at and caused people to comment when they saw it.
I'm glad that Apple has moved to these radical new machine designs.
Now, to comment on this thread, so that this comment will not be completely off-topic.... I think that the guy who got Linux to boot on an iBook should be commended. He took the time to work through all of the technical details and spent his time programming to solve a problem- and he got it to work.
Apple has not released the specs for all their computers.
The G4 PowerMac specifications are conspicuously absent.
- Apple Hardware Developer Documentation
- Apple Spec Database
You can see for yourself. These are very good resources.
It uses a ATI Rage Mobility chip. You can get more info about it at: http://www.ati.com/ca_us/showcase/mobil ity/
AltiVec helps a very few things. It ends up that a lot of the instructions are like a lot of other SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) instrcutions that have abbreviations we know and love... MMX, 3DNow, SSE... as it tuns out, it can help some things, such as graphical processing, but isn't so useful for general-purpose stuff.
So, AltiVec might be able to improve a certain 3D render or a certain photoshop transform by xxx%, but as far as doing a compile or booting your operating system AltiVec (and MMX and 3DNow and SSE) don't help that much.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
What I am interested in knowing is why anyone who had Mac OS X would have any interest in running Linux anyway. Soon after release people will start porting the open source stuff to Mac OS X, plus they will have Carbon plus all the legacy Mac apps. What does Linux offer? Just the open source stuff. The cost of OS X will be irrelevent because of the bundling that will go on.
.MOV was encoded in, they weren't exactly being too friendly. Or do you disagree?
So just what is the benefit of running Linux on a Mac after Mac OS X is out, anyway???
Trust.
I'll be blunt, I don't know how much I trust OSX to be a mature and fully functional Unix. It might rule. It might not. For the same reason I've become fascinated with *BSD, I've got alot of respect for Linux on the Mac platform.
Having recently taken SparcLinux off of a bunch of cheap IPC's and put on Solaris 2.7, I can tell you that while it's impressive that Sun's latest OS works on ANCIENT hardware, it doesn't work all that fast. Linux did.
Anyway, I look forward to Beowulf clusters w/ G4's, and I don't think Beowulf works cross-platform.
What a load of crap. Just because Apple hasn't released the Technotes on the G4 hardware yet doesn't mean they won't. Nor does it have anything to do with OS X - all the G3s, iMac and iBook tech notes are out - these machines are just as likely to run OS X as the G4s.
I stand corrected, then. I based my assumption on the fact that the iBook coder talked heavily of having to reverse engineer entire chunks of the iBook architecture.
(Yup, every once in a while some guy on Slashdot actually admits he fucked up. It happens.)
Complaining about Microsoft becomes much more disturbing when you realize what any number of other software companies would do in their place...
What pipe were you smoking when you came up with that one? Apple is not a software company. Apple is in fact, a hardware company. If they were a software company they wouldn't care about clones and in fact would encourage them. But they can't because almost all their revenues and profits come from selling - hardware.
That doesn't change the fact that if information is withheld from Linux developers but delivered to OSX people, Apple is ignoring the needs and desires of customers. I was unaware about the tech spec releases for the older macs--therefore, yup, I was wrong when I implied that Apple did alot of this.
Of course, when Apple banned MpegTV from supporting the codec that the Star Wars
I won't bother to explain iMacs to you, but I will explain why I will probably purchase an iBook as soon as the airport stuff ships.
(NOTE: I am a big Mac fan, though I try to be open-minded about stuff. Be forewarned.)
First of all, it's very stylish. Now, I know a lot of people either don't like how it looks or don't care, but I like it. A lot. It's a far cry from those ugly boxes that PCs (even the notebooks) come in. Now, I'm not going to spend sixteen hundred bucks just because it looks cool, but it's a definate plus.
The design also goes far beyond looks. First, it has a nifty handle. Now this may sound like a marketing gimmick, but the handle is really, really nice. It's most definately not cheap (quality-wise, not price), and it's very solid and feels useful. It makes it very easy to carry around. Also, the things opens and closes without a latch, just a very well-designed spring. It feels right. It also looks like you could really bang it around without damaging it. The curves make for better support, and the material is solid. There's also a large amount of space between the outside and the components inside (except, obviously, for the CD-ROM drive and such things).
As far as price goes, it seems reasonable to me. It may be somewhat more expensive than a PC portable with the same features, but the iBook makes up for thta in some ways. First of all, the battery life is far beyond what you'll find on a PC. I'm sure Apple is being optimistic with 6 hours, but reports from early purchasers say it goes 4-5 hours without recharging. Also, the screen on it is really a beauty to look at. A bit small, perhaps, but it is definately of very high quality.
The final, and probably most important reason, is that the machine just feels perfect. I don't know how to explain it, but I got to handle it at the local Sears, and it's just right.
Another reason for an iBook: I wouldn't run Windows to save my soul, and Linux just isn't friendly enough for my tastes yet. Nothing against Linux, but I just can't stand to use it for too long, and I don't have the patience to learn.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Can somebody explain to me why these things are so damn popular?
Not everybody needs 20 GB of hard disk space, a 15" LCD, a CPU that requires 3 fans, asbestos pants and a fuel cell to keep going more than 20 minutes. Not to mention the hassle of dealing with Winwhatever or GeekOS-es like Linux.
These things are competitively priced with hardware you would get from other major vendors, have plenty of horsepower for what most people use a computer for, have interesting styling, and are much easier to setup and use than the Wintel equivalents. They also have some very nice features that you won't find anywhere else, like a 6 hour battery life, and the Airport.
The fact that most slashdotters don't 'get it' as far as the iBook and iMac is concerned is no surprise. These machines aren't intended for the slashdot market.
What amazes me is how chauvanistic the response here is. Many people here can't seem to grasp the idea that because a computer doesn't statisfy their needs, it can't POSSIBLY be a good choice for anyone else, either.
The iMac and iBook are popular for the simple reason that they fit the needs of a lot of people. And don't listen to that BS about only Mac loyalists buying these things. Something over 50% of iMac buyers are first time Apple owners. I would expect for the iBook that percentage would even be higher.
Will I buy one? No. They don't fit my needs. But I am in the asbestos pants crowd. I'm one of the people who doesn't mind doing a Linux install on a state-of the art laptop, and all that implies - hacked X-Server+twiddling VGA modes in LILO.conf to get framebuffers to work, no sound support, kludging my way around BIOS and CardBus/PCMCIA compatability problems, etc. But is Jill the English major going to do this? No. She is going to buy an iBook.
To me, this is an prime example of how open-source tends to work. Somebody with the hacking ability says to him/herself, "I wonder if I can get this to work on an iBook" and then does it, posting his work so that others can help out if they want to.
Super, and keep up the good work.
Around my college, and likewise with many other people who liken themselves to be 'IT' professionals and are too snooty to use a mac, I'd love to carry one of those around with LinuxPPC installed.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd really get a kick out of people snickering, maybe even laughing at me until they came over and saw KDE running in X. (Or even better, came over and saw the linux CLI on the screen. I can imagine it, "whoah, is that a screensaver?")
Sad thing is that many folks are completly set against Apple & Macintoshes in general, that they forget that they can be a very useful computing system. Ask most who does computer graphics or animation for a living, and if they're not using Be (they could EASILY overtake Macintosh if they pushed their OS to software developers more), they're using a Mac.
...And I'd much rather have Mac OS X on my computer than Windows.
I just don't get what is so great about an iBook. It's an overpriced, underperforming, oversized, heavy laptop that looks like a toilet seat.
/. post I read said "so when will it run Linux?". If someone built Babbage's Analytical Engine, the first comment on /. will be "so when will it run Linux" followed shortly by "FreeBSD would make it more secure."
I played with one yesterday at a CompUSA, so perhaps I can help answer this with a short review. I guess the best way is point by point:
- Overpriced. Not that I can see. I have been pricing comparably spec-ed consumer laptops lately. Most fall between US$1300 and US$2000, so the iBook is right in the middle at $1600. Also, it has some unique and appealing features: a tough rounded case, latchless clamshell lid, built-in handle, open port cover (no more broken or snagged covers), easy access to upgrading memory via the liftoff keyboard, and the AirPort wireless LAN option.
- Underperforming. This one is harder to judge. It depends on what you plan to use it for and whose performance measurements you use. One quick criticism is that Apple should ship these things with a minimum of 64MB of RAM. Subjectively, it was quick and responsive. Bugdom (Mac only 3D game) looked and felt smoother than on a 233Mhz desktop G3 with a RAGE ORION card. Various applications launched quickly. I noticed no glitches or hiccups when simultaneously running several quicktime movies. The sound from its single speaker stunk. Ergonomically, the combination of the active matrix LCD plus the white screen border and light case cover made the screen seem even brighter and crisper than a regular active matrix screen. The trackpad is the best, bar none, I have ever used. The keyboard was a comfortable size. The keys seemed a bit small in size and had a short clicky throw that I thought could feel better. My wife, who is a Unix sysadmin that regularly uses a Dell laptop 15+ hours per day for her job, said the keyboard felt normal to her.
- Oversized & Heavy. It did seem large compared to other laptops I have used. It was not near any others, so I could not do a direct size comparison. It is heavy. As a consequence, I think they need to reshape the handle to make it easier to get a good palm grip versus a finger grip. Smaller hands probably can easily palm grip the handle, though. Unlike other laptops I have used, the iBook feels sturdy. Close the case, flip up the handle and it feels like you could batter down a door with it. The springloaded latchless closing works well and feels solid. The rounded case feels very comfortable when holding in both hands. The case is lightly textured and is easy to hold without slipping. When closed, it has a frisbee-esque feel to it. The salesman literally lunged when I mimed a frisbee throw motion with it.
- Looks like a toilet seat. Maybe it does on TV. In person, it looked like a truncated teardrop. I think this is a personal taste issue for most people. Besides who owns a two tone, aqua on white toilet seat?
- Why run Linux on iBook. Because you can. The Universe is infinitely perverse. Seriously, if you run both MacOS and Linux why buy two seperate laptops? I remember when the iBook was first announced. The first
- Can someone explain why they are so popular. Because it is fun. Because its simple. Because they like the colors. Because it sets you apart from the rest of the pack. Because it is a conversation piece. Because it does the jobs people want done. Because it is different.
A last bit. I went to look at the iBook because both my USMC daughter and soon to be high school graduate son both called me long distance ON THE SAME DAY to beg for their own iBooks. After looking at one for 20 minutes, my unix-guru wife turned to me and said "I want one too!". Sigh.
I hope that helps.
IV
"These laws they're passing won't even compile anymore, let alone execute." - anon
Those who complain about Microsoft keeping their OS specifications close to their chest, thus making their partners commit all sorts of beautiful First Wave anti-trust-be-damned actions:
MS ties their OS and their Applications together. Apple ties the OS and the Hardware together, which if you really think about it is really quite a bit more exclusionary than MS could even dream about. Linux has long since become enough of a force that companies that choose not to open their specifications to it have long since implicitly ignored the needs of their customers.
I'm a former Apple IIgs user, so the concept of me wanting a Mac is...a foreign concept. LinuxPPC is the first thing that's ever made me interested in owning a Mac again. The thought that Apple's software interests(OSX) are causing specifications to be hidden about their hardware products(mmm...G4...) is mildly disturbing, to say the least.
Of course, the whole CHRP(Common Hardware Reference Platform) fiasco does make all of this at least mildly expected. Complaining about Microsoft becomes much more disturbing when you realize what any number of other software companies would do in their place...
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
It had to happen at some point. Someone, somewhere, trying to do something neat, got linux running on an iBook. Someone else submits the story to /. Then the /. anti-Mac bias kicks in, and rather than having a of discussion about the technical achievement, or people wondering if this might provide some insight into solving their problem with a funky piece of hardware, we have people talking trash about a computer that they have never used. It would be nice if once, we could have an Apple article posted to /. without the trash talk and dismissal of someone's hard work as garbage. The gent who got Linux running on an iBook has quite clearly done his reasearch and put a lot of effort into this. I, for one, think it is commendable.
Having gotten that out of the way, I think it's pretty slick. I'd much rather have an iBook (blue, the tangerine looks awful) that is dual boot than a PC laptop of the same price, regardless of the OS(s) on the PC. It's all about style, and let's face it, there isn't a single major laptop manufacturer out there with interesting industrial design, except for IBM and Apple. Now both IBM and Apple don't necessarily make the perfect laptop at any given point in time, but they make very slick laptops that are interestingly designed, and they both have a pretty solid track record for that. The clincher is that there's no way that you can find a ThinkPad that competes with the iBook for the same price. Though the stubby-eraser dealie is still a nicer design than a pad, imho.
itachi, who still wants an iBook running Linux