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Mandriva Businesses Apple

First Beta Of Mandrake Linux 8.2 For PPC 44

Posted by pudge from the but-i-run-linux-on-virtualpc dept.
belbo writes "On Friday, an article on MandrakeForum announced the immediate availability of the first beta of Mandrake Linux 8.2 for PPC. Apart from the features of the upcoming 8.2 release for i586, this beta offers network installation via AirPort, an AppleScript wrapper for passing parameters to BootX, a patched 2.4.17 kernel, support for 1394, support for Radeon/Riva cards (via XFree 4.2) and more." Great news. I run Yellow Dog Linux for PPC boxes, but am still waiting for a good Linux for PPC release that does everything well, and out of the box. Maybe this is the one?
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First Beta Of Mandrake Linux 8.2 For PPC More

First Beta Of Mandrake Linux 8.2 For PPC

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  • My only experience with linux on the ppc was.. linuxppc, a few years ago. That distro, howeever, is very much a redhat for ppc rather than a distro unto itself. Has anyone out there in slashdot land installed and used debain-ppc? How does it compare to ydl and linuxppc?
    • I'm running Debian on an old Performa 6400/200 just as a web server for my subdivision and it's totally what you'd expect, ie, if you can get it up and running, it's great (esp. apt-get, as debian fans know well)

      My only problem is that I could never get the linux partition bootable (and didn't leave myself a small mac partition) because of the absolute misery that is open firmware, so when I reboot, I have to hook up a zip drive that has a mac partition and bootx (set to boot linux after a 10 sec wait)

      BTW, I had a lot of help from a hard-core debian fan, so I can't speak intelligently to how easy/difficult it would be to set up from scratch. I'll say this though -- all we did was get the first of the cd's from linuxiso.com [linuxiso.com] and installed enough of that to get apt-get happy, and haven't looked back.

    • I just installed Debian PPC 8.0 last weekend on my TiBook and it works like a charm. As a linux newbie who wants to learn a new system it's great. I also tried to install YDL 2.1 and Suse but couldn't get either to install. LinuxPPC hasn't had an upgrade in quite some time. To all those wondering why to choose Linux, all this poor student can say is free applications (as in free beer).

  • Cool! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @01:58PM (#3071387) Journal
    I spent a couple of weeks trying to get any Linux up on a Radeon TiBook. Mandrake, Debian and SuSe all failed at various points. Yellow Dog got to where I at least had a functioning system and could then upgrade the kernel and XFRee to get a usable -- hell, a terrific system. Audio CD playing still requires hacking, though, arts and ESD don't work and it looks like the modem won't be usable for a while.

    It sounds like the new Mandrake is intended to be TiBook-ready. If anyone tries it on a laptop soon enough to post, I'd be very interested to hear how the installation went and what kind of multimedia support you got.

    • "... installs over Airport..."

      Wow! Do I even need to insert the CD into a machine or can I just set it within range of my Airport hub and then reboot.

  • I downloaded it last night and burned this morning. I have a 333 iMAC and a 867 G4 w/ Gf2 mx to try this out on. I've had some problems with MD8.0 and have played a bit with the cooker. I've been working on some integration with OSX at work so I've spent most of my time in OSX lately.
  • How does this top OS X? Sure its Linux, but that's it....

    I don't get it...

    • How does this top OS X? Sure its Linux, but that's it....


      I've had the same thoughts. I think the reason that I like running Linux (GNOME) better is the configurability. I guess maybe I'm fickle, but it seems like I am changing my GTK+ theme once a week, with my window manager and background. I just can't do that with Mac OS. I can't get it so that I feel completely comfortable. I am guessing though, in the future, there will be Mac OS UI tweeks that will make it better for me to use...

    • I ask the same question. The only things I can come up with are:

      1. For use on older hardware that doesn't run OS X (or runs it poorly)

      2. It tickles one's political fancy to run a "rebel" free operating system.

      3. You're some kind of freaky super-geek that actually needs something found only in Linux.

      The only reason I myself would use any Linux distribution on a Macintosh would be reason number one stated above. Number two doesn't appeal to me enough to do it. Number three is definetly not me and I suspect that 99.999% of the rest of the world would join me in that regard.

      I think it's interesting that OS X actually delivers a great deal of the Linux benefits already. UNIX command line, rock-solid stability...hell, the core of the OS is even open source! There are areas where OS X doesn't deliver what Linux does - but I think those are small prices to pay for a great GUI and the tons of commercial quality applications that come from being a mainstream platform.

      My $0.02
    • How does this top OS X? Sure its Linux, but that's it....

      For one thing, OS X seriously lags on the 500mzh iBook (which Apple is selling right now) even with 640 MB RAM. I can't comment on whether Linux will lag too, but at least the option to run something more lightweight is there.

      • Have you updated it? I have a G4 400 with 512 RAM and I have no problems.

        But I have heard a few people say it was slow on the G3's. I have OS X running on a G3 500 iMac with 128 RAM... it's quick but the video card is lot better than an ibook's.

        • Have you updated it?

          Of course, got all the latest updates, right up to 10.1.3. It LAGS. Resizing, switching between windows, etc... it all sucks.

          Frankly, that video card in the iBook (Rage Mobility/128) is a LOT better than most PC laptops. Those PC laptops sure do a find job of moving and resizing windows, so that should tell you something...

          It's not the G3, either. Window operations work fine in both OS 9 and LinuxPPC. Only OS X can catch the blame here.

    • Well, there's support for applications that aren't yet supported on osx, and perhaps they want an OS thats entirely open source.
  • when i installed ydl on my g4 400 it crashed on the first attempt. The second worked however. once up and running in dual boot i found that i was using it just for the fact of trying linux out. The cd audio still dosent work, gnome cannot upgrade for some reason, yup has never worked ,its a big mess. I am currently building a peecee to run linux and BeOS r5 on. i see no point to seriously running linux on ppc hardware, its more trouble than its worth, not to mention expensive. Btw where can i find that hack for my cd drive for audio.

  • Yeah, cool, but- (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Tuesday February 26, 2002 @04:27PM (#3072727) Homepage
    I have to say that I'm impressed with what Mandrake has done. I've always believed that they're the best "desktop" Linux distro I've used - plenty of software, simple to use (like setting up a NAT - takes 5 minutes under Mandrake, took me 2 weeks under Redhat).

    But after having had my Mac for 2 weeks, and basically unplugged my Linux box after I threw samba, imap, postfix, DarwinX, Gimp, etc on the Mac box, I have to ask if I'm all that interested in the Mandrake Linux now.

    Well...not really. Perhaps if I was going to run G4 box as a pure server, then I'd consider that idea, but otherwise, I have everything I need. (And even then, I'd have to consider just what kind of server I was running that I'd want to switch from OS X).

    But I think it's great that Mandrake is doing this anyway - there's always people who simply want to run Linux on whatever platforms they want, and if nothing else, it keeps Mac (and everybody else) on their toes to keep innovating.

  • SuSE PPC? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Paul Burney ( 560340 )
    No one on this forum has yet mentioned SuSE PPC as an alternative Linux for mac hardware. I was very disappointed with LinuxPPC when I first tried it, (and mkLinux, but that was way back).

    I installed the first SuSE beta and have been using their distros ever since. The best things about it are the detailed printed documentation, the professional quality of the distro, great installation tech support and the bundled software (6 CD's worth).

    It's also nice using a distro that is used on PC's. I don't feel like I'm using a stepchild OS. I'm sure this new mandrake will help reduce the stigma of running linux on PPC as well.

    That said, however, with OS X 10.1, I very rarely find myself booting off of my linux partition. I miss the multiple workspaces, but I really like being able to use BBEdit and Office without starting up MOL.

    • SuSE was the first distro of PPC linux that actually installed flawlessly on my imac SV SE (in text mode, of course!). They have more software than I will ever need. My only dislike about it is the whole SuSEconfig business. Its kinda like apple hiding all the fun stuff from the user.

      BTW, did you say Office? ;^)

  • Why Linux? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by PrimeWaveZ ( 513534 )
    Sure, Linux is just another "free" option, but so is Darwin.

    When I was running an old PowerBook 3400, I loaded LinuxPPC onto a Jaz 2GB disk and booted from that a few times just to say "Yeah, I had a UNIX-like OS running on it." Aside from that, it was just a toy.

    Right now, there isn't a whole lot that Linux for PowerPC can do that OS X cannot do. Maybe these Linuxes can run on a wider variety of machines (read: non-G3 new-world ROM boxen), but aside from that, I really don't see any benefits.

    Still, it is nice to see that companies still believe in and support the PowerPC archetecture as a whole and don't mind devoting resources to it.
  • look at all the options you have for desktops/windowmanagers... sure OSX has a nice one but it's a "one size fits all" deal,... Linux gives you choice.

    beyond that just look at the thousands of apps available for Linux, how many Mac apps still need to run in classic mode?

    AND there's MacOnLinux, letting you bring up "classic mode" on your Linux desktop, I don't know if MacOnLinux lets you run OSX inside it but I wouldn't doubt it.

    in summary, Linux has all linux has PLUS all the apps Mac has, running under the Linux OS. sounds like a winner to me.

    keep the os9 partition around for watching Quicktime video's and running mac apps but you don't dual boot, it just runs inside Linux.

    I'm getting a mac soon, and will put this Mandrake 8.2 on it.

    • Bragging about running OS 9 inside of MOL on Linux is like bragging about running OS 9 in "Classic Mode" in OSX. It's still running OS 9, which by most accounts, stinks.

      Besides, the robustness (in utility and interface) of OS X applications is far beyond most anything any Linux app running in any Window Manager could offer. Also, most of the important "terminal" applications have an OS X version for use, which eliminates any usefulness of Linux in that regard.

      Personally, I use Classic for Photoshop, GoLive, and HotSyncing to AvantGo. Once I get those three taken care of, it is bye bye OS 9 once and for all. Two of the three are coming soon. I look forward to an announcement from AvantGo regarding their support of OS X.
    • And besides, if you don't want to use OS X's interface with the Finder and all, just download and run Darwin with XFree or something. It's a free version of everything running "under the hood" of OS X.
  • I recently bought myself a Pismo G3/400, and coming from serveral years running Linux, I want to install at least one distro and dual boot.
    I really do not know if I'm ever gonna use it enough to justify the disk space (wastage) on my 18Gb HD, but I just want to check it out.( I'm really impressed with MacosX , but that's another topic altogether ;-)

    I've thought of running the Mandrake Beta (I've been using Mandrake on every x86 I installed ) but when I bought the Powerbook, I bought it with the purpose of wanting to use every feature a laptop has to offer ( DVD - Sleep - Airport - Dualhead ... ) out of the box, and I have decided I'm going for YellowDog because the support for the features I mentioned above seems there. I have no need to play beta tester on my powerbook ;-)

    Also a big issue is the fact that Ximian supports YDL 2.1 through their RedCarpet, and because I'm not going to waste diskspace on installing every Desktop Option , and I love Gnome over KDE.

    To conclude I would like to see if someone has installed Linux and made his /home a HFS partition to enable Data Sharing with MacosX ?
    And did you notice performance issues , or is it ( or not ) wise to to this ?
    • To conclude I would like to see if someone has installed Linux and made his /home a HFS partition to enable Data Sharing with MacosX ?
      And did you notice performance issues , or is it ( or not ) wise to to this ?

      I still haven't installed Linux on my new iBook (I'm waiting for Mandrake final) but if you are considering to share a partition you should check some things first.
      HFS+ does not support case sensitivity so maybe you are better off converting it to UFS
      I'm not sure does the latest kernel support UFS.
      If there is support for UFS you could have some practical problems. For example you should definetely keep your User ID and Group ID in sync between OS' so you don't have any files in your /home with strange ownership. If your UID in OSX is 501 make it exactly the same in Linux. I had no problems sharing ext2fs home partition between FreeBSD and Linux, this should be very similar
  • Which, if any of the PPC distributions will pickup and configure the internal Airport card in an iBook at install time. How about sound. Anyone?
    • Don't know about the airport-at-boot but the latest Linux kernels (with benh's patches) all have excellent support for my iBook2. Sound works, DVD works, network works, but I don't have airport (however, there's a kernel driver for it, and it's not even marked "EXPERIMENTAL" so I guess it probably works well too).

      It's so much more responsive than OS X that it's not even funny. I wonder if anyone else notices this on their G3s? That's the one reason I find myself in Linux more now.

      just to let you know... I use Debian on the iBook.

      -clee
      • It's so much more responsive than OS X that it's not even funny.

        Last night I installed Yellow Dog 2.1. It's so much faster than OS X on my iBook (500mhz, 640 MB RAM) that if I can get the Airport card working, there's no way I'll ever use OS X again.

        It amazes me that a bunch of open source dudes can make an OS that runs faster than Apple's own - seriously Apple should take a lesson from this. They should be ashamed of OS X.

    • Mandrake 8.2, currently in Beta as this article explains, claims to support airport.
  • Thats pretty cool, actually.
    Having had not-so-pleasant experiences with SUSE 7.1 and DebianPPC on my Old-World Mac - which is collecting dust right now because my G4 and the iBook aperform way better, this seems like the perfect excuse to reactivate my "first mac".
    AND its one of the few possibilities to get an up-to-date distro for PPC for free (beer-wise), as SUSE is not offering current versions of their distro for download.

    And this goes out to the "why-linux-when-you've-got os-x-running-dept.":
    Right. But OS X will *not* run on this old machine.
    (Actually a Tanzania-Board based Mac which had a 160 MHz 603e CPU - now running with a 240 MHz G3 Processor Card).

    I today think I`m leaving work pretty early ;)

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