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thechronic · Apr 10, 2003, 02:54 AM

Not sure if I should even ask it here...so please dont get pissed. Id love to make a small partition on my Ibook linux ready with mandrake 9.1 ppc. Anyone know if this will work at all, im notr very familiar with linux, but know other distros like debian work. Thanks guys

leffo · Apr 10, 2003, 03:45 AM

Mandrake PPC, Debian PPC, Yellowdog; they all play well with the iBook.

stew · Apr 10, 2003, 06:19 AM

Gentoo runs on PPC too, and SUSE has a PPC version out too.

thechronic · Mar 12, 2004, 02:35 PM

Look into mandrake and the modem. I dont remember what version of mandrake ppc I used, but I had a problem with the modem, the rest worked great

Edit: Just realized how old this was...my bad. 1st thread in my search, lol

El~Zapo · Mar 12, 2004, 06:16 PM

Is there any possibility of running Windows applications through Linux on an iBook? Or would it better to just use Virtual PC?

Lateralus · Mar 12, 2004, 08:06 PM

Buying a Mac to run Linux to emulate and run Windows applications... Why even buy a Mac in the first place?

El~Zapo · Mar 12, 2004, 08:25 PM

There's a couple of Windows apps I need to run, and if they ran better through emulation in Linux than through Virtual PC in OS X I might consider dual booting. Although they are simple apps it probably wouldn't make much difference.

wataru · Mar 12, 2004, 09:19 PM

If you're thinking of WINE, then that's not really emulation, and no, it wouldn't work on PPC anyway.

If you want Windows on PPC, I think VirtualPC is by far your best bet.

ChasingApple · Mar 12, 2004, 11:23 PM

How about Mandrake 10? Did they release a PPC version of it?

sniffer · Mar 13, 2004, 01:31 PM

Hmm. How about Linux on iBook and power consumption, would that be an issue? I might need a Linux partition for school use some day in the future.. (It's kind of obligated)

gioele · Mar 13, 2004, 04:43 PM

What do you have: a G3 or a G4 iBook?

G3 iBooks are fully working with every distro that supports PPC out of there.
I suggest you Gentoo or Mandrake.
G4 iBooks iBook are not well supported right now: the video card is able to display only text (no XFree), the sound card is choppy and Airport Extreme can't be used.

gioele · Mar 13, 2004, 04:53 PM

Originally posted by sniffer:
Hmm. How about Linux on iBook and power consumption, would that be an issue?

All power functions are supported:
Battery indicators, CPU slowdown to save energy, brightness dimming, sleep when little power is left and on lid-close.

Originally posted by sniffer:I might need a Linux partition for school use some day in the future.. (It's kind of obligated)

I don't see a real need, just launch Console.app and you'll get access to a fully-featured BSD system. And if you teachers thinks that UNIX/Open Source/Free software is only Linux... then... they should take a very good look around...

stew · Mar 13, 2004, 11:58 PM

Originally posted by gioele:
I don't see a real need, just launch Console.app and you'll get access to a fully-featured BSD system. And if you teachers thinks that UNIX/Open Source/Free software is only Linux... then... they should take a very good look around...

Well, it's Unix, but it's not Linux and the differences can be felt. The MachO vs ELF issue is making trouble every now and then when you try to compile non-trivial (using numerous libraries) Linux source code on OS X. Some of Linux' features, like ALSA or fbdev are not available in OS X.

Lateralus · Mar 14, 2004, 12:28 AM

Originally posted by ChasingApple:
How about Mandrake 10? Did they release a PPC version of it?

Not yet. I'd imagine it is in the works though.

gioele · Mar 15, 2004, 02:15 PM

Originally posted by stew:
Well, it's Unix, but it's not Linux and the differences can be felt. The MachO vs ELF issue is making trouble every now and then when you try to compile non-trivial (using numerous libraries) Linux source code on OS X. Some of Linux' features, like ALSA or fbdev are not available in OS X.

This is true. Stll I can't see why a teacher should require Linux. Is he really teaching his students about Linux details/implementation as ALSA?

A CS (I suppose) professor should teach methods, ideas, unimplemented priciples...

From an educational point of view, I fail to see how Linux is more interesting than MacOSX.
Except when you're comparing O.S. internals like "Linux does this in this way, OpenBSD does that, SawMill those"...

ginoledesma · Mar 15, 2004, 07:56 PM

I agree. I don't see why it has to be just Linux when other Unix-variants like *BSD will do. They should be pretty much talking about Operatnig Systems in general, and while Linux is a great kernel, I don't see why students should have to be using it when they won't be tinkering with it directly (or any Linux-specific stuff).

In our university, most people are now just using Knoppix, a live CD version of Linux so you needn't install it on your hard disk. That way, students don't have to feel the great inconvenience of having to modify their computers/habits just for a term's worth of "using Linux."

As for me, Mac OS X is more than capable.

Most GNU stuff I rely on are available via Fink anyhow, and programming assignments "dictate" ANSI-C compliance for compatibility with *BSD, Linux, and Solaris.

sniffer · Mar 15, 2004, 08:09 PM

Agree with you gioele. But we have this semester down the road where everyone should use Linux as a part of the education to learn more about how systems are built from the ground and up. Linux is a good tool for this purpose. Luckily I feel quite comfortable using Mac OS X the rest of the time despite being in minority 'cuz it saves me for the hazle with dual boot configurations. Also Linux/*nix have a stronger position then MS in the classes and in general at my school. They hardly know what a Mac is, but so far my choice of platform haven't been a issue.

Thanks for your answer about power consumption btw.