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Apple Businesses Software Linux

Yellow Dog Linux 2.2 Released 37

Posted by pudge from the free-as-in-cheeseburger-today dept.
Gatton writes "Terra Soft has released version 2.2 of their Linux distribution for Apple hardware known as Yellow Dog. According to the website, a few of the features are: Red Hat 7.2-based system, 'ext3' graphical migration program, XFree86 4.2.0, KDE 2.2.2, Gnome 1.4 w/Nautilus & Evolution, improved modem & printer support, improved support for nVidia GeForce2 MX & ATI Radeon--including ADC digital. No ISOs, only SRPMs on the ftp site at the moment. Presumably it will be available for download soon." I bought two previous versions of YDL, but this time I am just going to download it, as I don't use it enough to warrant buying it, now that I primarily use Mac OS X as my "other" OS. And, darnit, I want to download it now.
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Yellow Dog Linux 2.2 Released More

Yellow Dog Linux 2.2 Released

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  • The opposite here (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @12:13PM (#3234579) Journal
    I bought two previous versions of YDL, but this time I am just going to download it, as I don't use it enough to warrant buying it, now that I primarily use Mac OS X as my "other" OS. And, darnit, I want to download it now.

    My practice is to download ISOs and, if they work, to buy the next one. (With Linux, unlike in the MacOS world, you don't really *expect* things to work -- they're free and you take your chances.) I owe Yellow Dog one (2.1 worked on my Radeon TiBook after Mandrake, SuSE and Debian all failed). Besides, their mailing list is good and yup is nice once you get it reset properly. Definitely a "buy" for me.

    Mandrake went back to a download for my PC after 8.1, and 8.2 doesn't make me want to spend money on 8.3 either.

  • Well as a former employee I'm amazed to see that they are still able to make releases. But we won't go into that! ;o

    If you're tired of downloading, RedHat base, etc. you ought to look into Debian. I've been running it on my iBook for well over a year now without any troubles. And with apt-get you really only install once and then just upgrade packages until your hardware stops functioning.

    Anyways grudges aside I think it's cool that YDL is still kicking. I worked poured a lot of energy into the new installer and from what I hear it's quite mature now.

    peace,
    core
    • If you're tired of downloading, RedHat base, etc. you ought to look into Debian. I've been running it on my iBook for well over a year now without any troubles. And with apt-get you really only install once and then just upgrade packages until your hardware stops functioning.

      I don't know if you'll read this, but maybe someone else can answer. I'm willing to try Debian, but my general complaint with Linux on PPC is that nothing works. You have to install and then tweak, upgrade kernel, etc. if you want sound, modem, airport, etc to work.

      When you suggest Debian, are you saying that it DOES work, or that it CAN BE MADE to work. Because that makes a big difference.

      • Well as you'll hear a lot in the PPC*nix world. It works for me. But then again I haven't installed it in over a year. I just apt-get update. And I really don't know what installation method you will be using, what hardware you have or your experience. For that matter I don't know if the Debian installation method you choose will just *poof* work. I do know that once you make it work you won't ever have to reinstall to upgrade your system. In my case it has WORKED for over a year. I have everything working, modem, ethernet, cdrom (doesn't play music), USB... I even have sound!

        As far as X goes it's been working great as well. So if you want to give it a shot. Jump on irc.openprojects.net #debianppc or #mklinux and ask all the questions you have. Most of the developers are there. If you're looking for a Linux distro that you never have to "tweak, upgrade kernel, etc" after installation and every now and then (ie security fixes) you're dreaming. :))

        peace,
        core
  • Maybe I'm a clueless newbie when it comes to Unix/Linux/BSD related stuff, but why would anyone use Yellow Dog Linux when you have Mac OS X, and its fully supported developer environment, tools, and user base that is greater than all flavours of Linux combined?
    • I have a Blue and White G3 at home. Have you tried to run OS X on hardware that old? It may look purty, but it is painfully slow. I run SuSE 7.3 with Windowmaker as my desktop. It runs fast, does everything that OS X does, and has a similar look and feel. I recently removed OS X from my hard drive.

    • Hardware support. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Does OS X work on PowerMac 7300, 7500, 8400, 9600? Does OS X work on beige G3s? There are many, I repeat, MANY Macintoshes out there that Linux gives worthy life to.

      I use Yellow Dog 2.1 and have been VERY impressed. It is a mature, well-thought-out distro. My 7300/200 with Linux usually seems just as fast as my old G4/400 with OS X for day-to-day tasks.
      • You forgot the 8600 which is what I'm running right now with YDL 2.1. YDL is not real fast but runs respectful on this machine. I'd hate to see OS X on it.

        OS X is very nice on this Quicksilver G4. I'm the only support for the Macs at this college (no one else wants it). I now have a new G4, rev D iMAC and an 8600/300 at home for testing on a semi-permanent basis. I think they want to dump the 8600's so the one could be permanent and get a couple more.

        OS X runs great on the G4, decent on the iMAC and not even going to try on the 8600's.

    • Because either:

      a) you don't have a Mac capable of running Mac OS X because it's too old/slow/whatever.

      b) you're a GPL zealot and just can't stand running something that isn't GPL. Though I imagine there are not that many Mac users who are GPL zealots.

    • Re:I don't get it. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      We're running something like 30 sites off a 180mhz 604e based machine. It's running a faster SCSI drive (and controller) than what's "built in" but otherwise it's stock. OS X won't even install on this machine. I don't think OS X Server will install on this (and it's $800).

      I've got a better question - why would you run a server on OS X? Linux is always going to be faster (no Aqua overhead). I'm running OS X on my laptop (Ti 550 ) and it's great but I wouldn't want it on my server. Netinfo has been a bit of a pain (probably because I'm not familiar with it) and Apple's documentation is lacking.

    • Maybe I'm a clueless newbie when it comes to Unix/Linux/BSD related stuff, but why would anyone use Yellow Dog Linux when you have Mac OS X, and its fully supported developer environment, tools, and user base that is greater than all flavours of Linux combined?

      For one reason, Mac OS X is really slow. Linux runs FAR faster on my iBook. Makes OS X look positively pokey.

      The bad news is basically nothing works under Linux. I tried Yellow Dog 2.1. After the install, I had no sound, no airport, and their "YUP" update tool plain doesn't work.

      Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but given that they only have to make sure it works on 4 computers, I expect things to "just work".

    • Servers (Score:1)

      by Mozo ( 22007 )
      If you're running a web server, and you're familiar with setting it up in the Linux world, you'll get better performance and/or can use cheaper/older hardware using Linux.

      For consumer desktop use, I'm with you. The unix command line (and the fine job of porting unix tools that's going on) means I won't be looking to install linux on my main box.

      On the old 180mhz one, now... linux is still tempting, depending on what I want to do with it. If it's just serving info (to the web or to my iBook via AirPort), linux is a definite consideration.
    • For my part, through long trial and error I have come to understand how to configure Linux servers and make them work. I am a MacOS user since 1984 and have been using MacOSX. I would like to be able to get apache running and configured, viewcvs up and running and configured, cervisia up and running, etc.

      The configuration tools, build scripts, install scripts, etc. for Linux are mature and fairly easy to use. RPM is easy to use and generally reliable. I know how to configure the internet daemons, understand what I need to know about the boot process, etc. I got the desired viewcvs stuff working on my Linux box at home in only a short time and would like to get it configured at work.

      By comparison, I have not had good luck getting all this stuff up and running on OSX. I am not familiar with BSD at all (it is full of gratuitous differences. The ports to OSX are not mature and the tools are not yet very robust.

      Unfortunately, YDL has not been very useful for me. I bought a full package of version 2.0 a year or so ago, including a 3-button mouse and a t-shirt, but never did install it on my TiBook. I can't download 2.2, so I'm trying the 2.0 installs on an iMac at the office. So far the process has been a disaster. "yup" does not work, the installer siezes up on me every time I try to use it, I get endless package dependency errors, forcibly installing (with --nodepends) packages locks up the system, X was not properly installed, etc. etc. etc.

      I might give Mandrake or Suse a shot. I'd like to have Linux on a Mac here at work and I am most familiar with the Red Hat distro. I will try to build some fresh install CDs at home and try again tomorrow but so far YDL is not cutting it. I _could_ screw around endlessly trying to build things from source but things ought to be easier than this by now.
      • So, YDL 2.2 is still MIA: I've got a cable modem and attempted download from all the mirrors to my RH 7.1 PC @ home. Bad results all weekend. There are SRPMs only, and the download failed each time; unlike downloading a big ISO file, I can't get Konqueror to pick up where it left off.

        Managed to download YDL 2.1 and install it; it is reasonably good, although there are a lot of errata against this build and I also have not been able to download the directory full of update RPMs, get yup to work, etc. Dual boot with MacOS is not working, apparently since I installed YDL before installing MacOS. Unsure how to get dual boot up and running; simplest might be just to reinstall. Video performance is terrible when dragging windows; this is probably an unaccelerated X driver. The default fonts for Konqueror are almost unreadable; web pages show terrible aliasing.

        Also managed to download and burn Mandrake 8.2b2: the installer is very nice, but would not recognize the second CD, although it was named as requested and mounts and appears fine on my PCs and Mac. This leads to missing RPM errors down the line. The installer is nice. It also looks like it supports network install, which is a big plus for me. The bootloader installer identified MacOS 9 and gives me a nice dual boot scenario. However, after configuring the default account and booting, I get a blank blue screen. Not crashed, but not a very good default install.

        Attempted to find a reasonable build of Suse for PowerPC that I could download and install on the iMac... gave up (you are in a maze of twisty little broken mirrored directories, all different).

        I did a little shopping to see if any of my local shops (CompUSA, Borders, Best Buy, etc.) here in Ann Arbor carried any recent Mac-compatible Linux install packages. None.

        So far, the verdict is... (drum roll)... they ALL kind of suck! They don't meet the standard of quality set by the Red Hat installers.

        Of course, RED HAT doesn't make it easy to get free ISOs any more, and they only provide security updates via their up-to-date mechanism on their subscription basis for paying customers now. I'm not sure what will happen if I attempt to update my (paid-for) 7.1 to 7.2, but I have a feeling I won't be able to continue to get free security updates.

        So far... not impressed with Linux in the Brave New World. Familiarity may not be a good enough reason for me to stick with attempting to get it going on my Mac.
  • I did see that it was released but decided to dl 2.1 and wait for 2.2 iso's. It seems to be a pretty good distro for what I've seen in the last couple days.

    I was trying Mandrake cooker but my machine is an Old World machine and Mandrake is still working on the support for these machines. The cooker is working well on a couple of New World boxes here.

  • Well I've installed red hat and corel on a few pc's in my day, but for the life of me I'm unable ot ever get any distro to run on my ppc mac g4 dp 533. I'm really interested in running YDL 2.2 when the iso's are available however. However the yaboot crap continues ot give me trouble. I have 3 hard drives. One has OSX one is a storage drive for dv and audio scratch, and the final small one is half partitioned with mac os9 and the other half is left empty for linux to tool with. Any hints on how to get yaboot to essentially ive me all of these options? None of the readmes anywhere have been of much help. I'd really appreciate some point in the right direction. I'm also deathly afriad i'll screw sometinhg up and be unable ot boot mac osx anymore or something. Yeah slightly/totally off topic my bad.
    • Im in a similar situation as you. 2 drives, 4 partitions though. One for X, one for 9, one for scratch and one for Linux. Yaboot is useless. normally i boot to X so when i want to boot to YDL i just hold shift at boot which forces it to locate all bootable volumes. its a pain in the ass yes, but it works for me.

      Unfortunately i have not yet been able to set up a distrob well. YDL 2.0 was fine, but no audio CD. And mandrake was a disaster. Hopefully this summer when schools out ill have a chance to spend more time with it.
  • I got my YDL 2.2 CDs today and tried to install it on my brand new Power Mac G4. As it installed the packages, it spit out three errors of different sorts ("/proc doesn't exist, perhaps it isn't mounted?" and a couple of missing file messages). The errors didn't stop it, so I figured I'd have to do some hand-tweaking after it installed. After installing the packages, it was time for the last critical step: installing the bootloader... The installer barfs out an error message and gives up. Hmm, I've got a fully installed system, I just can't boot it! After fighting with this for a few hours, I've got two options 1) spend a few days poking around on their mailing lists or 2) fork over money to get installation support.

    I hoped this would go as smoothly as all the RedHat installs I've done (at least when using modern hardware), but I guess I need to plan for it to take days instead of hours to install it.

    • Update: Terra Soft is cool (Score:2, Informative)

      by Klox ( 29985 )
      I just wanted to update my little rant:

      The day after I posted this message, one of their support guys e-mailed me and, after a couple of e-mails, I was up and running. They are definately cool. No downloading ISOs for me: they deserve my money.

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