[Ken Jacobs]

I am considering putting Mandrake Linux up on one partition of my iMac HD. I have some simple questions that I need answered first:

1. Will I be able to exchange files between my 10.2.5 partition and the Linux partition?

2. Will restarts using the option key still be available so I can pick the Linux partition as the operating system?

3. Any opinions on Mandrake Linux, stability of code, technical support, etc.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Ken

[Mrjinglesusa]

What iMac do you have? I tried to install on a 17" 800 MHz w/ nVidia Geoforce 4MX video card and the gui installer wouldn't work. Tried w/ text installer and kept getting error message on keyboard layout screen.

[Ken Jacobs]

I have the 15" FP 800MHz iMac.

[n~s]

Hi. I just installed the new Mandrake on my dual-usb iBook. I'm a linux newbie, but here's what I know so far to answer your questions.

1. I have not found a way to exchange files between the two partitions. My OS X drive doesn't show in Mandrake, ditto for the Linux drive in OS X.

This was dissapointing as I gave most of my hard drive space to OS X hoping I could swap files back and forth. Does anyone know a way to do this?

2. My mac now runs yaboot on booting. This is a text OS loader that will let you choose between booting linux, mac, or from CD.

3. Installation was painless. Mandrake has an older tutorial for mac users that will walk you through how to set up your hard drive before installing. I had to boot under a different boot option because of my video card, but the majority of my hardware was detected (even my airport card) and the items that needed tweaking were easy to adjust with the GUI installer.

[utidjian]

Linux distros (out of the box) do not support HFS+ partitions. The usual strategy is to make an additional plain HFS partition in order to swap files between Mac OS X and Linux (both OSes can read/write HFS).

Another strategy is to install Mac OS X on a UFS partition... this is not so desireable... I forget why.

YAS (Yet Another Strategy) is to install the HFS+ patch. Available from http://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-hfsplus

I have not tried this myself yet but I hear that it works. Then you can read/write to the HFS+ partitions from Linux. As with most things Linux... there is always some sort of workaround or solution... some just require more work than others.

[screamingFit]

Originally posted by Mrjinglesusa:
What iMac do you have? I tried to install on a 17" 800 MHz w/ nVidia Geoforce 4MX video card and the gui installer wouldn't work. Tried w/ text installer and kept getting error message on keyboard layout screen.

Funny - got the same thing on a 400Mhz Pismo. I was trying to pass the time waiting for my YDL 3.0 CD's to show up in the mail and thought I'd give it a whirl. I had to type in "install-gui gui-old video=atyfb128" at the boot: screen since I had the older ATI 128 card. It looks like you'll need to use "video=riva" to have the GUI installer use Nvidia drivers.