A Live Linux ISO for the Mac?

An anonymous reader asks: "My iBook is the strongest of my laptops, but it's not running my favorite OS. Knoppix and the various other live ISOs are nice for x86 machines, but (though OS X is nice, and I'm not disparaging it) it would be nice to have all the apps that come with KDE and GNOME, and to have them all available through a nice fluxbox or windowmaker desktop). I've seen smart people nearly cry trying to install Debian on their Macs, but then I've seen smart people nearly cry trying to install Debian in the first place. Knoppix has certainly made it easier to put Debian on x86 machines, but does such a thing exist for Macs? Mac OS X is a very pretty thing, and Apple has supported some great free software projects through it, it's just that on an older iBook (and older iMacs, even more so), a low-key GNU/Linux desktop moves more responsively, and has everything I need. If I could easily run a nice GNU system on them, old iMacs would be worth a lot more to me.".

Re:Yellow Dog Linux.

[RevAaron]

The poster isn't asking about Linux in general on Mac hardware- read it again. The poster is asking about a *live* distro for the Mac. If you don't know what a live CD distro is, it's the kind where you toss in a CD, and it boots a full Linux install. Sets up a RAM disk, perhaps a folder on your Mac OS HFS+ or Windows harddrive and is a usable system without having to do an install. Examples are Knoppix- like he mentioned, or DemoLinux.

Debian is probably worth the pain....

[trouser]

I'm running YDL on my 500Mhz iBook . Easy to install, easy to configure, all up quite good. Hardware support is fine. I haven't got the modem working yet but I believe others have.

But Debian's package management is absolutely superb. The Debian install is a little tricky and I believe there are a few quirks to the iBook setup. It'll probably take a few days before you have all the hardware working properly.

Ease of installation is probably somewhat overrated. Ideally you only install the operating system once. Day to day use of the installed OS and particularly package managaement, upgrades etc are much more important, and in my opinion Debian is the clear winner here.

Re:Debian has come a long way.

[dunderwo]

if a live CD came out that made installing linux as easy as installing MacOS X then it would draw some negative attention from Apple I think.

That would be old, pre-Jobs Apple thinking, which did give them a tendency to arbitrarily clamp down on people modifying their (then) relatively closed platform, even when said clamp-down interfered with the company's interests. I don't really see that happening now. An easy, CD-bootable Linux distro would be another reason for people in a specific market to buy an iBook--in other words, it would be good for Apple. Even if they were concerned about the installed base of the Mac OS on Macintosh computers, I'd say that they have very little to worry about at the moment.

OS X on a G3

[MrTangent]

I'm running OS 10.2.6 on my G3 and it runs pretty damned well, all things considered. Granted I have 1 gigabyte of SDRAM and fairly fast 7200 rpm ATA/133 drives but I'm impressed with the speed on my "lowly" 400 mhz G3 Power Mac tower. I think OS X can run adequately on any 300mhz+ G3 (iMac, iBook or Power Mac). Granted you don't want to play graphics-intensive games on it, but you wouldn't be interested in Linux (or to an extent Macs) if you wanted to play games anyway.

In summation, has the original poster even tried to run OS X on the iBook? I'd give it whirl before dismissing it as a possibility.

Re:Debian is probably worth the pain....

[BrokenHalo]

Ideally you only install the operating system once

OK, but none of us live in an ideal world. The closest we can get is a world where we get everything installed and running, and then think "hey! I should have put this/that/theother on its own partition!".

It's by tearing down and re-building what we've done that we learn how Linux (or any OS, for that matter) works.