[NDBounce]

Forgive my newbie-ness in this area.

I am thinking of upgrading my iBook (rev A, 300Mhz, 288RAM, 12.1GB HD). When I do this, I think I may like to convert my iBook in to a Linux box if that is possible. I do a lot of web development, and have never really used linux and would like to use this as a machine to 1) test my websites on and 2) Play with and learn a little about Linux.

I found a couple of sites that talk about Linux on the PPC. And I was wondering if people here can tell me:

1) Is there a useable flavor of Linux that will work on my iBook (I don't need to keep any data that is currently on the iBook as it will be transfered to my new machine). If so, which one would you recommend for an inexperienced user who just plans to use it as a play toy.

2) I've heard that Linux is a free OS, but I cannot find anything to support this theory, nor have I found a place where I can obtain it for free. Have I been misinformed, or am I just looking in the wrong places (if the latter is the case, can someone point me in the correct direction).

3) I've also been told that Panther (which I have not played with other than at my local Apple Store) has X11 built in to it...this in iteself means nothing to me, but I am told that as a result, I can run linux apps directly from Panther. Is this true? If so does it mean that I can download a Linux web browser to use for testing my webpages on Linux?

Thanks for the assistance,

O
B unce!

[si_lance]

1) I recommend Yellowdog Linux
2) download the isos and burn the cds from here:
ftp://ftp.yellowdoglinux.com/pub/yellowdog/iso
3) yes, it has X11 support, but you can't just download Linux binary stuff you have to install something like Fink and recompile from source.

I highly recommend Yellowdog because it is very much like Redhat Linux, which is pretty much the defacto standard for Linux. The install is simple, and there are a lot of guides.

Good luck to you. I love Linux, but OS X is definitely growing on me as well. As long as I'm not using an OS from the darkside.

[Sven G]

Another good Linux distro is Mandrake 9.1 PPC (download link on the same page), of which there is also an interesting demo/tutorial (on installation, etc.) and a FAQ.

BTW, it looks like this (click on the image below):



Anyway, as you hinted at, you can run a wide range of UNIX/Linux software on your iBook by installing/keeping OS X (Panther is better, of course), and then using Apple's X11, with Fink or DarwinPorts to install X11- and command-line-based software (Fink is much more mature, at this stage, and also has precompiled binary packages, with a more evolved package management system)...

[cdhostage]

I am running 10.2.8 on my 15Al and I can't get the thing to start up on the first install disk. I've got the iso's, burned them to CD-Rs, and all I'm supposed to do is startup, put the CD in the drive and hold 'c', right? Just like installing OS X fresh?

[si_lance]

Originally posted by cdhostage:
I am running 10.2.8 on my 15Al and I can't get the thing to start up on the first install disk. I've got the iso's, burned them to CD-Rs, and all I'm supposed to do is startup, put the CD in the drive and hold 'c', right? Just like installing OS X fresh?

If the distro you're trying to installs disk 1 is bootable, then you're going about it right.

[si_lance]

Originally posted by Sven G:

BTW, it looks like this (click on the image below):

That is a little misleading. A Linux distro only "looks" like the window manager it is running. In this case it's running KDE. I could make almost any distro look like that image (except for the little mandrake icons).

He is very correct about Fink though.

Your goal is to see how your sites look on "Linux browsers", but there are very few Linux-only browsers. Sure there are some that come only with a window manager. Since we're talking about KDE, Konquerer comes to mind. All in all, most of the ported browsers like Mozilla, will behave similiarly, and should follow the same rules as their ported cousin. This is not true of IE though, that POS does not act at all the same as it's win32 cousin. The Mac version should be in a version all it's own. As a web designer, I hate to say this, but your audience is pretty much a captive one, they run like 90% IE x.x, and the next 5% is like Mozilla, and then the last 5% use the more exotic browsers. Trying to view/setup those last 5% could become very tricky. This is just my opinion of course. Currently I use Camino (Mozilla for OS X), and it's pretty standards compliant. Haven't had any real issues except when it comes to poorly written framed sites. Good luck to you.

BTW, that last paragraph was NOT intended to deter you from using Linux. Learning Linux is a boon to ANY computer user.

[si_lance]

Just when I use Konquerer as an example, they go and do this

[johnMG]

2) I've heard that Linux is a free OS, but I cannot find anything to support this theory, nor have I found a place where I can obtain it for free. Have I been misinformed, or am I just looking in the wrong places (if the latter is the case, can someone point me in the correct direction).


Computer software is compiled into runnable binary machine language form from "source code" -- the code that programmers type in and save as text files so some other program can compile them into binaries.

GNU/Linux is "free" in the sense that the license of many of its components (kernel, libraries, etc.) requires that the source code always be available -- even if some large company takes it and adds cool features, they still have to release the source code. Generally, "free software" == GPL'd software (where "GPL" is the name of the GNU software license: "general public license").

Most folks make the distinction between free as in gratis software, and free as in libre (the source code will always be available to anyone).

Regarding installing Linux on your iBook, you might also have a look at Debian. Here's a page of related information that I put together a while ago:
http://users.bestweb.net/~john3g/ppc.../ppc_help.html

[johnMG]

Also, you asked about X11 on OS X: it's not "part of" Panther. When you install Panther, you get the choice of installing X11 if you like. I think that does *not* come with the X11 development kit -- you may need to download that separately from Apple's site if you want to compile X11 software.

My experiences: GNU/Linux is great if you're a real tinkerer. It will suck up a *lot* of your time getting things working the way you want and understanding what's going on. I'm married with kids, and have a professional life that's turning away from IT, so I just ran out of time and started using Mac OS X. I just works -- but you knew that. However, I still donate to the FSF regularly -- it's good for IT (and software developers everywhere) to support Free software any way you can.

Oh, more about GNU, the FSF, and the GPL here: http://www.fsf.org/

[si_lance]

+1