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Apple Businesses

PPCLinux.Apple.Com 244

Posted by michael from the wake-up-and-smell-the-penguins dept.
imac.usr writes "MacNN mentioned that Apple now has its own Web page describing Linux, the distributions available for PowerPC Macs, and links to them." But can you drag your hard drive to the trash to unmount it?
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PPCLinux.Apple.Com More

PPCLinux.Apple.Com

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  • random interesting (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    let's go ask netcraft.com about this site.

    ppclinux.apple.com
    ppclinux.apple.com is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) (PPC/Linux) on Linux

    i'm not sure if this means anything or not, but it's an interesting detail.. at any rate, this i think is even more interesting:

    www.apple.com is running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on Solaris

    (before anyone starts bitching out apple for not using their own products, keep in mind that you'd have to be an idiot to host a site with traffic as heavy as www.apple.com's on an OS with no memory protection such as OS9. And as for OSX, well, you'd have to be an idiot to host a site with traffic as heavy as www.apple.com's on an operating system that's still beta.)
    piqued, i did a bit more exporation:

    publicsource.apple.com is running Apache/1.3.4 (Unix) on MacOSX
    ftp.apple.com is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) on AIX
    itools.mac.com is running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on BSD/OS
    www.info.apple.com (this is their tech support kinda page..) is running WebSTAR/3.0.2 ID/65940 on MacOS

    so apple really has a nice little diverse group of machines running here. i'm proud of them.

    OK, you can go back to mercilessly attacking apple now for their spelling. I'd check with Queso to see if it gets the same results but i don't have access to a box with it installed at the moment.
    I'm posting as AC because i moderated already in this discussion. Yes, i am pure evil. Who needs karma anyway?

  • Re:Lighten Up Haaz (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This page was obviously not put together by a design committee.

    This page was obviously put together to be a pure functional page.

    Don't assume a YellowDog/Apple conspiracy just because they are listed first.

    My guess is, this page will get redesigned if it gets enough hits and the person who made gets embarassed enough by its minimalism. Perhaps then they will do sophisticated design elements such as alphabetical lists.

  • Re:Hmmmm... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    PPCLinux.Apple.com isn't an Offical Apple page per se, but more of a pet project of an Apple employee (Keyvn Shortell to be exact) who did this on his free time at Apple.

    So don't be too critical of this, it's not really meant to be Apple's "Offical" Linux page, it's more of just a quick page whipped up in 5 minutes in a text editor (note the unorginal quote and the blocky rough penguin).

  • Notably SuSE [suse.com] just released a beta of their 6.3 distribution for PPC. It's for Apple and IBM machines. They also have a release version for Alpha.
    I posted this a week ago and haven't seen it on the page.
    OpenBSD also runs quite nicely on older 68K Macs.

  • About those Aqua-like GTK/WM themes (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is bit off topic...

    I am sure Apple spent a huge amount on money on designing their new Aqua GUI, how do they feel about the many GTK/WM themes that are already availlable for Linux users NOW when the real thing isn't out yet?

    (No offend to any theme authors!)
  • Linux: it isn't just for hackers anymore.
    Just boot it.
    The choice of a GNU generation.
    Obey your penguin.
    Think different. No, really!

    Nine out of ten sysadmins *never* agree... but they all think linux is pretty cool anyhow.

    And, my favorite:

    You would have to eat seventeen bowls of Windows to get the same features found in one bowl of Linux!
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • I wish people would quit feigning ignorance.

    There already are Quicktime players for Linux.
    Apple has not made one yet because it would still be as limited as the existing players.

    The reason for this is that the CODECS must be recompiled for Linux. Talk to Sorensen, et al.

    Anyone that has ever used XAnim knows this, and it's not Apple's responsibility to get these codec vendors' asses in gear [who use multiple file formats including AVI]. It is OUR responsibility, as Linux users, to do so.

    Furthermore, QuickTime is a HUGE API set, larger than the Linux kernel itself. This would have to see significant return on investment - i.e. content creators and multimedia programmers would have to be _flocking_ to Linux in droves for this to be cost effective.

    Most people just want to play .mov files. Which implies that the best solution is to get a pretty player & more codec vendors on the bandwagon - not pestering Apple for something that isn't in their best interest.

  • First Apple helped develop MkLinux, and you were too young to remember. Then Apple started using industry-standard parts (PCI, AGP, SDRAM, USB, etc) and you chided them still for their proprietary black boxes. Then Apple decided to use a time-tested kernel for their new OS, and you poo-poohed it. Then Apple came out with an industrial-strength server OS, and you laughed and went back to your Linux boxen.

    And then Apple _open-sourced_ code and you said "They don't care, they just want our blood, sweat and tears". And then Apple worked with the OSF to try and get their license improved, and still you hated them.

    Now Apple stands on the cusp of releasing a UNIX-compatible OS with the kernel and underlying layer open-sourced and fully runnable as an OS in itself, has "brought itself back from the dead" and posted over 2 years of profitable quarters when the rest of the computer hardware industry has been posting losses. Their machines use well-made, low-power chips that have existed for years before low-power became possible on x86 with the Crusoe. They have not only cracked the consumer market but have continued to expand their market by winning converts from the PC and the computer market as a whole by gaining a leading number of first time buyers.

    And still you troll. Still you viciously attack Apple. But most of you don't know a first thing about the OS, except when you used it for 10 minutes at a local school or what you heard from your friends.

    Most of you think it's kewl to mention egomaniac and Steve Jobs in one sentence, even though you don't know what you're really talking about.

    Some of you have valid grudges against Apple. I have some gripes against them. No company is perfect, obviously. Those of you who have used a Mac for any length of time greater than an hour begin to show some understanding of Apple and its OS and the workings of the beast.

    But the rest of you are sounding like a broken record and will continue to sound like a broken record. Worse yet, most of you are acting like hypocrites - embracing Sun and IBM's open-source efforts even though those company's efforts are probably designed to "cash in" on the benefits of open source as well. What's the difference?

    The difference is most of you grew up being PC people and were taught to hate Apple and the Mac and think they were inferior. People told you things like preemptive multitasking and protected memory made Windows more stable. They rarely told you that most of the code in Windows has neither. You were taught to be computer bigots and to sneer at the pansy Mac users. You equate using a Mac with being one of _those_ artsy-fartsy types.

    Unlike most of you, I work daily on Macs, Windows AND Linux. I have a lot of experience with all three. I like parts of all three (for example, the pervasive copy/paste in Windows context menus), I love the stability of Linux (and Mac OS X DP2 ;) and I appreciate the ease of use of a Macintosh. For design I use a Mac at home and Windows at work and Perl and PHP and PGSQL and MySQL on UNIX for web programming. So _unlike most of you_ I have heavy experience with all three platforms.

    I don't care that you know how to spell Macintrash or Crapple or any of those other 3l337 sayings you can come up with. Get a life and stop hating the Mac because its kewl.

    You can't have a closed mind and truly believe in open source.
  • > the various Linux PPC projects doesn't seem to have too much troubles running on the latest Macs.

    It was a looong time before the G3's were supported. The only reason G4's, iBooks, and iMac DV's work at all right now are through the incredible hacking efforts of Ben Herrenschmidt, who received a donated iBook and G4 from LinuxPPC Inc. Where was Apple there?

    I'm sure Be Inc had more profitable things to do with their time than hack interrupt controllers in MacsBug.
  • I believe most GNU utilities are POSIX correct when POSIXLY_CORRECT or whatever is set. Also, on boot-up, the kernel displays:

    POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX

    which leads me to believe that it's had some testing.

    BTW what's with Slashdot not parsing HTML tags lately? It's pissing me right off.

  • Never type in haste.

    [...]
    Apple is left with 4 choices;

    2. Ignore PPCLinux and hope it goes away. Thus pissing off it's customers who will just go get Alpha or heaven forbid iNTEL.

    to elaborate. If you are running Linux on a Mac you are doing something that could be done on an X86 PC. In fact you are doing less since a lot of proprietary software only runs on X86 Linux.

    3. Start investing resources in PPC Linux. It doesn't really have a reason to do that since without a "no brain required" OS ( like MacOS ) all they are selling is reliable hardware and guess what. Some PCs are almost as reliable at a fraction of the cost. ( Penguin Computing comes to mind ).

    A Mac is not that much different from a PC. At least not from a hardware standpoint. Even the performance of the CPUs isn't impressive enough to make a big difference ( 30% increase in speed for 50% increase in cost ).

    4. Put of a site look like a customer loving corporation.
    4. Put up a site and look like a customer loving corporation. This is what they have done. Don't hate them for it.

  • You think you're so smart, you call "Unix" as the incorrect "UNIX". And "Unix" is not a copyrighted name. Names cannot BE copyrighted. They can be registered marks or service marks or trademarks. And you never criticized Slashdot for not using the trademark symbol after names like Apple and Microsoft.

    In other words, please to be having clueski in the future.
  • Gasp! It isn't their G4 processor. It's a Motorola PPC 7400. The only debate is over other things that Apple made themselves, which are pretty easy to figure out. Be is just bitter that their plan to be purchased by Apple went sour. It's funny how BeOS evangelists never mention this, isn't it?

    (I don't think Apple is hindering the development of Linux on the PPC, and as someone pointed out, they put a lot of work into MkLinux.)
  • I never claimed to be the PPC Guru.. Just from my recent observence, Apple seems to do little these days except utilize what they see fit. Why would it be so hard for them to release the specs for the G3/G4 and allow other operating systems they dont make to use their hardware? I mean come on.. Its decent hardware...
  • I also want to point out something someone below me brought up.. Whats with the throw it up, its good enough look... That must be the crappiest quality image on apple.com..

    The text at the bottom, the disclaimer there, wraps horribly, the page lacks the advanced meta tags, RSAC, and html 4.0 complience that www.apple.com has. Did they just get some intern to do this?

    They could have atleast gone through and checked it for english errors and inconsitancies.. they refer to it as "Linux", but then once near the bottom call it linux (no capital L)..

    This is just my opinion.. feel free to flame me, others have.
  • There have been MANY times Apple has done stupid things.... They are moving toward a more standard design, and allowing more options on their systems. The new G4's are real nice machines.. PCI bus.. all the goodies.. No more substandard apple onboard video.. (not that ATI is the best.. but its a step forward).. The case is easy to work on.. (My 8100 has a little problem where you have to tear it half apart to add ram.. Its real fun..) I really wish Apple would look forward. MacOS is not the best thing since sliced, packaged cheese.. Allow legal competition (as apposed to reverse engineering..)


  • A couple of hackers in Apple worked with the OSF on MkLinux, and Apple dropped all work on it many years ago. Limited hardware support, slow kerneldevelopment, few users (those with NuBus machines are the majority)..."

    It sounds like you have fallen under the common misconseption that Apple doesn't care about the MkLinux project and that it was more of an Mach experiment then anything. While MkLinux is an interesting experiment with Mach running a kernel on top of it (such as Linux) on the PowerPC, you will see that MkLinux has had much of a life past Apple.

    Apple from the start intended to make MkLinux not it's pet project, but just to get it started and introduced to outside developers who would take it from there. They offically announced it in Febuary 96, and started giving out CD-ROMs at the Apple WWDC '96, the big Apple Developer conference. From the start they didn't want to be the company controlling and running MkLinux, from the start they outsourced MkLinux.

    The MkLinux team is working hard at their next version of the MkLinux 1.0, the first non-developer release of MkLinux. The MkLinux project may have lagged a bit behind the rest of the Linux world do a lack of developers, it is quickly catching up with support for newer G3 machines (as well as some really old Nubus Macs), built-in MkLinux support is being added to BootX, an experimental/rough port of Linux 2.2 runs on Mach now, and many more exciting things. MkLinux currently has at least an dozen developers, and by some estimates thousands of users. It's not Linux by any amount (by interest of developers/users), but it's far from a dead project.

    Don't jump to say MkLinux dead, just because Apple isn't pushing the development along. For more info on MkLinux, please take a look at MkLinux.org [mklinux.org]

  • I've mentioned it lots of times.

  • Re:BeOS (Score:1)

    by Ashen ( 6917 )
    Could it be a slashdot poster with a conspiracy theory? :o Any ways, Be has said before if they wanted to reverse engineer some of the hardware they could fully support the G3 and G4. But it would take too long when they would be better off working on the intel version where they will have a larger userbase. Maybe they won't have the best hardware, but having great hardware is worthless if hardly anyone uses your operating system. That's basically the entire reason why they are releasing a free version of R5- to gain a larger userbase. Besides, it's common knowledge that Be was aiming to get bought by Apple to replace the MacOS. No need to say it as if it's some big secret that Be is trying to hide. :P
  • Look at the apple.com, for instance. Eye candy? Perhaps. Look again. Notice any _text_? It's nearly 100% images. Even what should've been sheer plaintext. Ugh. The average Apple user is very unlikely to notice. Apple realizes the Linux crowd is generally more perceptive to such things; it just might be that someone in there consciously made _that_ page much more lynx-friendly than the average apple.com site.

    Uhm, no..... At least the apple.com homepage, when viewed in lynx allows you to select exactly the same links (and the search dialog) that appear in the graphic version. So do most Apple pages. Not iTools, but anyway you probably wouldn't want to use iTools with lynx...

    By the way, I was unable to preview the html tags of this post when using the Extrans (html tags to text) option. Could someone fix this, please?

  • I think they refer to the following error:

    BootX is a Linux booter for MacOS which allows you to boot linux from withing MacOS

    It should be within . I suppose it's only a typo, although we should let them know. Unfortunately, there is no e-mail address to write to...

  • Just because Apple won't hand hold them through desiging their OS, the Be engineers are a bit peeved.

    Talk about total flamebait. Ok, so I'm biting. Shame on me. I'd just like to say that Be was whining about Apple being totally uninterested in helping them run on newer mac hardware. Hey, they can do whatever the hell they want to. As for Be needing help designing thier OS, give me a fucking break. No one could make it that far without knowing anything about OS design.
  • Not updated? If you read the page the first item past the fluff at the top is dated Feb 2000. Thats seems pretty current to me. The links the the hernels that boot iBooks seems new, as they are now being hosted on Apple's servers. Not to flame, but you should read a little before you try and suck up some karma for a comment thats, well, completely wrong. They don't have the Aqua style nav bar, but they do have new content!
  • Has SuSE for PPC gotten out of beta releases yet? I know they were taking names for beta Cd's a while back, and I signed up to give it a try and see how it was different from LPPC but I'm still waiting for the Cd, which leads me to believe that its still in beta. Its a bit more understandable if they didn't list it because its still in beta, but maybe whoever put the page together didn't know about SuSE PPC yet?
  • ... for Linux on PowerPC. As Linux becomes more popular, regular folks are going to buy machines that say "Linux preinstalled". They will probably note this, but not bother to remember whether their computer is of Intel, PowerPC, etc. architecture. When they want, say, the latest version of WordPerfect (which they heard runs on Linux), they'll be pretty puzzled when their G4 machine refuses to run Intel-only binaries.

    We need to wake up software companies to the fact that Linux is not Intel-only! We all moan about how inferior the x86 architecture is to PowerPC and other modern architectures, but if we don't do anything about it, Linux will be tied to the Intel platform, just like Windows is now.

  • But even "Put Away" is a disaster. What does it mean? When appiled to a file, it undoes a previous move operation, but when applied to a disk, it unmounts it.

    To further the confusion, MacOS also includes an "Eject" command, which ejects the disk, but does not unmount it. Which means the MacOS will eventually force you (with a blocking dialog box) to reinsert the disk. Of course at this point, the user is thinking "I already ejected that disk, why do I have to put it back in?!?"

    A good solution would be an Unmount icon on the desktop for drag operations, or just make "Eject" = "Put Away"= Unmount, because the days of multi-floppy systems are long over. Of couse, Apple has heard the complaints, and hasn't fixed it for 15 years.
    --
  • }} they could have picked anything as the "secure attention key"!

    Ctrl+Alt+Delete is recognized by the hardware (which is why it works during the BIOS POST sequence). That supposedly makes it harder to trap the SAK and capture someone's password with a trojan.
    --
  • I stand corrected then. (I actually use MacOS 9 now and then, but dragging to the trash is ingrained for me.)
    --
  • I take it from your statement that Linux on 68K Macs isn't going well. Too bad, because the Quadra 950 is a far better machine than most 486s -- Fast SCSI, supports at least 128MB RAM(maybe more), 24-bit video, etc. (I used to run A/UX on one of these, and it was a rock solid file server.)


    --
  • When the "Copeland" efforts failed, Be was in negotiations with Apple to be purchased.

    Maybe they didn't start the company with the business plan of being purchased by Apple (although, with Gasse there, that's doubtful), but when Apple came to them, they were willing to talk.

    I agree that Apple got a better deal with NeXT, although they probably could have a product to market quicker with Be.

    (PS -- Gasse is responsible for some of the worst decisions that Apple ever made, such as the look-and-feel lawsuits, refusing to license clones, and the insistence that Macs would use proprietary networking. It's a good thing that they didn't bring him back.)
    --
  • Well, I mentioned it

    Anyone else notice that Slashdot has a JimJag [slashdot.org]? Is this the same JimJag that kept A/UX alive for so many years? (If so, Thanks! You certainly made my life easier.)

    As an editorial, A/UX was the greatest thing Apple came out with until OSX Server. If they would have run with that ball, they would have had their 'modern' OS ten years ago.

    --
  • Ever tried to play a Quicktime movie made with the Sorenson codec? Or any of the other new codecs, which xanim doesn't have?

    If Apple truly embraced linux, they'd be throwing some code our way.. in the same sense that IBM is porting JFS to linux.
  • .... what do u expect?? Do you want them to port all their programs to Linux and market linux, and change their OS to linux or open source all their stuff and file for chapter 14?? Apple is a Company.. not a charity.

    I think as a company, apple is already quite generous, and they did port linux to k68 processors.

    If you think their Darwin project is totally profitable FOR apple then just continue to think so. their Darwin projects also include Quicktime Streaming server and some other stuff which you can port to linux or other platforms.

    Look at Corel who are actually making profit out of linux, I don't see they are really giving much to the linux community too.
  • >Actully, BeOS makes use of many GNU tools.
    ?? so .. what .. Many people make use of GNU Tools to develope pograms ...

    >Actully, Apple used to give Be all the
    >pecifications they needed, long before they
    >had planned on buying them. The only reason Apple
    >stopped suppling information
    >was due to the fact that Be was a superior OS to
    >their newly purchased NextStep,
    >and Apple decided to choke the BeOS by cutting off
    >the info....
    1) So does that mean that BeOS is a competiton of MacOS ??
    2) By what I see so far, I don't see BeOS is in anyway superior to Mac OS X. especially it's GUI which was 70% copied from windows. (and windows copied from Nextstep) So ... actually who is superior ?? ..
    3) if their software is really so GREAT, why don't they continue with their Be Box ?? ... maybe Apple already Drop dead by now if they make their own hardware.
    5) if their OS is really so GREAT .. why they still can't "even" fight off windows 95/98 in the x86 world now ??
    4) this news is about Linux, so I don't see any point why we are arguing about BeOS here ^_^"

    >[and if you don't know the
    >person the quote is from, don't argue about BeOS]
    President and Founder of Be, Inc. (^_^ so ....)
    Well, he is obviously not a famous person, but wouldn't hurt to know who he is. (I think)
  • And what would BSD happen to be based on?
  • I've been running MkLinux for almost two years and the project is moving quite well if I do say so myself. Like you said the first release is around the corner.

    So much has been worked into the system in the last year it's amazing! MkLinux supports far more PPC machines than any other PPC distro.

    For an estimate on the amount of MkLinux users check out the MkLinux Counter Project [mach-linux.org].
  • Or how about even pointing to their own previous (mach) linux project mklinux.apple.com [apple.com]. Or the active and more up to date mklinux.org [mklinux.org].

    I'm sure there are several other links they could add as well. But for now I'm pleased that they seem to be starting an informative page about PPC Linux. I'll keep checking back for updates.

    Nice to see Ben getting some credit too. BootX is a terrific utility for switching over to LinuxPPC. No dinking around in Open Firmware, even my Dad can figure it out how to boot Linux now.
  • Apple has been even more proprietary than anybody else.

    More proprietary than Microsoft? I don't THINK so. What does Microsoft have to compare with Darwin?

    but they have released no specs on their G4 processor.

    Nonsense. Apple doesn't even MAKE a G4 processor. That's a Motorola product, from which the specs are quite easy to get.

    Heaven forbid that somebody steal their designs or _GASP!_ run a different OS succesfully on their beloved chip.

    Whine all you want, but the web page says otherwise. Apple has been supporting OS's other than the standard for several years now; the first was AU/X, then there was mklinux, and now various free linux distros.

    Think of all the money Apple would use if people who want the fastest system were not burdned with the kludgy OS9.

    I don't know what you are trying to say here, but the fact of the matter is that there are several OS's other than Mac OS 9 that run on a Mac. These include OS X server and various linux flavors. Maybe you don't want to believe it, but thems the facts.

  • through the incredible hacking efforts of Ben Herrenschmidt, who received a donated iBook and G4 from LinuxPPC Inc. Where was Apple there?

    Maybe you should ask Ben. His site is now hosted by Apple, so they seem to be endorsing his efforts.

    http://ppclinux.apple.com/~benh/

  • Apple has a bunch of pages that are 'pet projects' of certain guys at Apple. There are tons of derelict pages just like this one that haven't been updated in a while, haven't been brought up to the latest design of Apple's site (note that this design is the 2nd to last one, having been made obsolete only a month ago), or have pretty nasty spelling errors.


    Doug

  • You can play some quicktime movies and even run a streaming server on linux right now without the official quicktime. xanim and 'quicktime for linux' have been around for a long time now, try them

    Apple probably focus on linux as a server and not as a threat to OS X Client. Since MkLinux isn't that cool anymore, or perhaps never was ;) these links are the least they can do.
  • The two first alternatives are strange, LinuxPPC has sprung ut off apples MkLinux(in the beginning, they used mklinux packages and just replaced the kernel) so why should apple try to stop or ignore something they started in the first place?

  • Yes!

    http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?hostppclinux.appl e.com

    "ppclinux.apple.com is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) (PPC/Linux) on Linux"

    --
  • The errors:
    "Linux is POSIX certified implementation" : should be "a POSIX certified implementation" and should say what it's an implementation of
    "the source code for the Linux operating systems freely available to everyone": should obviously be "system is freely"
    That's two major errors, in one paragraph. Though I don't see an actual _spelling_ error, these are at least as bad.
  • He forgot the troll, and amazingly enough, gets flamed for NOT trolling.
    I think that was rather ingenious.
  • I find it interesting and surprising that ppclinux.apple.com has the "standard" linux penguin graphic on it for several reasons.

    One, everyone knows that Macs specialize in graphical applications. The quality of that image should be better than that.

    Two, they're a very large, prestigous company. The site looks very amature and slopped together. The penguin GIF is very poor quality, as stated before, and even the color is more lossy than is acceptable with GIFs. On even a cursory glance, one could tell that not much attention was paid to the site's HTML.

    I also find it unprofessional that the link buttons are not the same as one ones on apple.com, which makes the site look somewhat like it is not an official part of Apple's site. (It's apparently sponsored by apple, but there's not a single link from their main site.) Not to label apple as bad - I actually now like Apple quite a bit, due to their spec releases, OS/X, and various other things. I just find that there is hardly any effort put forth in such a simple thing as a web site.

    Then again, look at opensource.creative.com...

    -------
    CAIMLAS

  • A while back I saw the question asked, if Be was still in love with the Mac, why they didn't reverse engineer the work done for LinuxPPC, which does run on the same G3 hardware Be claims they can't figure out.

    The answer, it seems is that Be doesn't want to be forced into GPLing significant portions of BeOS in the name of Mac compatibility.

    So, sure, Be can flame on Apple all they like, but there are/were other alternatives Be did not publically examine or pursue. As such, I think part of the no G3 BeOs is to spite Apple and not give away the store (proprietary source). Just be clear that Apple's not neccessarily being the playground bully in this case.

  • Shitty HTML is accepted on slashdot far more than shitty programming.

    That's kinda shitty.
  • Er... Mklinux was the first Linux implementation on Mac HW (on a Mach kernel)
    Darwin is BSD at top of Mach.

    What else do you need to get the drivers/specs of the HW?

    Be is just whining... the various Linux PPC projects doesn't seem to have too much troubles running on the latest Macs. My guess about be is that they got so much financial and engineering support from Intel that they switched side. I don't blame them. But they didn't whine in the past, and didn't have the specs either, yet BeOS runned on Mac HW.

    JUst my $.02

    Janus
  • If you are serious about not caring about that CHRP machine, I suggest you loan/donate it to a Linux PPC developer.

    If the kernel works correctly and its only a matter of installation, take a look at http://www.crashing.org [crashing.org] and contact the developers.

    If we have a box, we can make sure it works. :)

    --Mark
  • Snack Cake wonders if this is a real Apple page.

    Apple is only bothering with the Aqua style front end on the main consumer pages that draw the bulk of webtourist traffic.

    The PPC page does conform to the style for Apple's TIL pages, it's what's used when you go to software updates. Which is fine by me as it keeps the page rapidly downloadable. It's thanks to the PPC page that I found out that there is a fourth derivation of Linux for PPC, Turbo Linux from Pacific Tech, as well as links to BootX.

    For my viewpoint, I'll simply take it as it is. Something of use mainly to Apple users curious about linux. The page in a way, might be taken as an Apple "seal of approval" for Linux and just might bring a few more Apple users into the fold.
  • <i>MacOS X isn't built ontop of FreeBSD. It's built from a Mach kernel. It has roots in the NeXT OS.</i>
    <p>MacOSX is build on top of the Mach Mikrokernel. Mach only provides the VERY BASICS of the kernel services. everything like networking, filesystems etc. is stolen from FBSD, just like most of the basic libraries....
  • Error: Expecting ")" after: "(in terms of getting all..."

    Mike van Lammeren
  • "Isn't it surprizing how badly I spell ?"

    Actually, it's the grammar I find most surprising.

    "4. Put of a site look like a customer loving corporation."

    Mike van Lammeren
  • The Eject/Put Away issue is because of historical reasons.

    When the early Macs were used with only one floppy, one had to swap the os disk and whatever app disk one was using. Also one could do copies between an Ejected(dimmed on the desktop) disk and a mounted disk. Seems quite a fuss now, but harddrives were a little more expensive in those days.

    There is really no use for it in current Macs - but I assume there is a reason Apple hasn't taken it out.

    BTW, I don't think I've seen a good replacement for the PutAway with regards to removable media. I haven't checked on how OS X handles it.
  • Well, I don't think anyone will be building systems based on CHRP, but IBM has updated that design and released it as the PowerPC Open Architecture (POP). Based on the rumors I have been hearing, you will start to see cheap boxen coming up based on this design.

    Also, Woz never actually left Apple. If you look at his web site (http://www.woz.org) he says that he has always remained on the Apple payroll. At his insistance, he is (and always plans to be) the lowest paid engineer at Apple.
  • Am I the only one who has noticed that the page has apparently gone missing? This coupled with the aforementioned shoddy workmanship of the HTML and imagery, along with a lack of mention elsewhere on the apple's site, suggests to me that this page was just an idea which apple was toying with, rather than an actual offical page of support.

    You know, the Apple/Alternative OS relationship is an interesting one. Apple sells some great hardware, but seems to have concerns that it can only stay in business if it maintains a large base of consumers to purchase its products. To tell you the truth, I can't entirely disagree with that. My G3 has really never needed any new Apple Software because I could always get something free for Linux.

    Apple has a warm relationship with YDL. This is obvious by YDL's many mention in various Apple articles. It has a nice one with Linux/PPC, largely I think because it likes the developement of hardware support that the Linux/PPC effort is doing. And they seem to have a cool one with BeOS.

    I think it is obvious that ppclinux.apple.com was not an official site and I don't think it'll be back.

    The long and short of the situation is that Apple doesn't want to lose its population of desktop users. It cannot survive just selling hardware. The reason it supports YDL is because it's mainly a server system rather than a desktop system. And I think this will stop as OS X becomes more popular. The reasons it helps Linux/PPC developers is because it likes the developement, but I doubt it'll ever advertise Linux/PPC on its site as an alternative OS. And Apple will never like BeOS because it's too close to its own Operating System: A mainly client OS, with a focus on multimedia capabilities.

    This is all really a pity. BeOS is superior to MacOS in many ways. It's the only closed source Operating System I have ever used which matched up to and occasionally even surpassed Linux and BSD. I have no doubt that the creators of BeOS are smart enough to support the G3, but I understand their fear of what Apple might do if they tried. I think Apple will continue to support Linux developers because it knows that there are a lot of people who will find macs more attractive with better Linux support. But I think that sometime soon Apple's going to lose a lot of customers because Linux/PPC is more attractive and better than their own Operating System.

    And I don't really know what to think about that.

    --
    Lagos - White Rabbit of Linux
  • Apple has come out fully embracing Linux

    When? Did I miss their press releases, saying theyll be shipping Linux on G4s now? This does not constitute "fully embracing Linux." This constitutes an acknowledgement of Linux, and accepting it's presence, as opposed to Microsoft, who all but refuses to acknowledge the presence of another operating system, and who has shown no accepting of it's presence ("How to uninstall Linux," MindCraft bechmarks, and the "Linux Myths" page all jump to mind). Yes, it's better, but by no means "fully embracing" Linux.

    Sentence like "But can you drag your hard drive to the trash to unmount it?" just isn't going to win any friend, you know?

    I think that was an attempt at humor.

    Believe it or not, Linux is still the new kid in town

    Yup. Only ten years under the belt.

    Snobbery doesn't win any friend. Please remember that.

    True enough. Sometimes we need a reminder.

  • MkLinux only runs on 1st-generation Power Macintoshes with the NuBus architecture

    That's almost right just a little bit backwards. Newer machines can run MKLinux (I think everything up to the blue G-3's), but nobody with a newer machine would want to run MKLinux since there are better distro's that don't happen to run on the NuBus systems.

  • The page has next to no content - indeed just links to some distros, and some utils that they are hosting. Kinda funny, really.

    However, this does mean that Apple isn't ignoring Linux. Sure, they're not pushing behind it with all their heft (they have heft anymore?), but they're not turning their head, either. This may develop into a usefull page sometime in the future. I'd say just watch it for a bit, see where they go with it, before making any calls on what exactly it means.
  • > No mention that MacOS X is built on top of
    > FreeBSD - "A Unix/Linux-like system"?
    > What is the point of this page if not to
    > cash in on the recent high profile success
    > of Linux?

    The comparison is to explain to non-technical people that the guts of Mac OS X are like Unix and Linux ... duh. How would you explain it to them? By explaining the networking and security model?
  • > I doubt Jobs knows about such things, but they
    > sure are nice to see.

    Steve doesn't use a Mac. He's been using NeXTStep/OpenStep/Mac OS X for over 10 years. Give the guy a break.
  • Apple makes some cool hardware and an OS.

    Some people don't like that OS for the job at hand.

    PPCLinux exists.

    Apple is left with 3 choices;

    1. Try to stop PPCLinux ( fat chance from a technical and legal standpoint ).

    2. Ignore PPCLinux and hope it goes away. Thus pissing off it's customers who will just go get Alpha or heaven forbid iNTEL.

    3. Start investing resources in PPC Linux. It doesn't really have a reason to do that since without a "no brain required" OS ( like MacOS ) all they are selling is reliable hardware and guess what. Some PCs are almost as reliable at a fraction of the cost. ( Penguin Computing comes to mind ).

    4. Put of a site look like a customer loving corporation.

  • <quote>Apple is using this to simply exploit linux. They do very little from what I see to help other operating systems.
    </quote>
    Apple funded or at least provided a good chunk of funding to produce a Linux variant on the Mac called MkLinux. They did this before any of the other companies even thought of jumping on the bandwagon. The project kind of died because the monolithic LinuxPPC port was better for a variety of reasons.

    <quote>
    BeOS does not support the macintosh G4's (G3's also..) because Apple wont help them &/or
    release specs to help them.
    </quote>
    And your point? BeOS is their competition and even more proprietary than Apple. Be would have laughed their asses off if Apple asked for help porting MacOS onto Be hardware. Intel doesn't help TransMeta build fast processers either. That's called business. Now since a bunch of developers could figure out how to get Linux booting on modern Apple machines that means Be is just whining. Sorry, no sympathy. They don't want to support Apple and are using this as a convenient scape goat.
    <quote>
    They opensource parts of their OS X that they want to use in their
    operating system.. how convenient..
    </quote>
    I'm not even sure what you're whining about here. It would be better to Open Source none of it?

    Apple isn't perfect, but they've put in an honest effort on some things and have been improving.
  • Notice that the listing of ports is not in alphabetical order, as it reasonably should be. Rather, TSS is listed first for some reason. LinuxPPC second, and then goes on to Debian which should be listed first if striving for alphabetical order. SuSE's forthcoming version isn't even listed.

    It's no secret that Terra Soft gets preferential treatment by Apple, and it's reflected on this page. This is most unfortunate politics played out on what looks to be an official Apple web site.

    Most sincerely,
  • Especially conspicuous are its specs for utility progs and shells.

    ...and API routines not typically implemented in the kernel.

  • And count. He says '3 reasons', but lists 4. :>

    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • No, just information. Marketting would have come up with a better looking page. Admit it.

    1. If Apple was so worried about Linux, they'd pretend it doesn't exist. As it is, they've embracing the inevitable, to their potential advantage. Why is this wrong? This is the way a company is supposed to work. If it doesn't hurt anyone, big deal.

    2. Apple gains from people buying Macs to run LinuxPPC - the only loss is in OS upgrades and maybe market for 3rd party Mac software. Apple would surely prefer that you bought a Mac for Linux than no Mac at all.



    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • Apple is using this to simply exploit linux. They do very little from what I see to help other operating systems. BeOS does not support the macintosh G4's (G3's also..) because Apple wont help them &/or release specs to help them. They opensource parts of their OS X that they want to use in their operating system.. how convenient.. They have given little to the linux community... but filled their plate with the benefits of the free world.

    Thanks apple!
  • I'll believe that Apple's embracing Linux, when a FULL Quicktime port is released for Linux.

    Note that I didn't say an open source port...
  • You conveniently leave out the fact that, for a long time, a team from Apple developed and maintained the first Linux distribution for the Mac, the Mach-based MkLinux.

    The world isn't black-and-white like you make it out to be. Tough luck.
  • I agree, of course; Apple _is_ very stupid about this kind of thing. I hope that, as more non-Apple PPC systems start to come out, using IBM's CHRP reference designs or whatever, Apple will finally realise that it's no longer viable to remain a proprietary company in an open world. (And then Woz will come back and we'll all be happy again. Amen.)
  • I have run several distros of Linux on this Ol Mac. I am about ready to give yellowDog a try soon. I believe that Apple did give yellowDog some assitance. I appreciated the help they gave to MkLinux. they had to pull their developers back in the fold for OSX, just as they had to decimate the HyperCard project for QuickTime. I don't think they have anything against Linux. I feel they need the good will of the Nix's.

    One thing we should be looking at in the Linux community, is how they have made OSX a one partition UNIX. this would make Linux so much easier for the general user. They use a dynamic swapfile which does away with the need for a separate swap partition. It may not be the fastest way to do it, but speed means nothing if we can't get the general user to try our favorite OS.

    As much as some of you purist dislike the proprietary nature of Apple, they may have found the holy grail, a user friendly UNIX. Take a good look, you are seeing the future of UNIX.

    If you don't like they having anything proprietary, encourage them to open up, show them through your good works the benefits of openess. They are more open to us than Microsoft. Flames have no place in this movement. We are still too small potatoes to be making enemies.

  • Think of all the money Apple would use if people who want the fastest system were not burdned with the kludgy OS9.

    I'm going to assume that you haven't used OS9. I have to assume something, and it's either that, or assume you are an idiot, so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt.

    I have Linux installed on my powerbook. I don't use it much. Part of this is because for some reason booting into Linux makes my powerbook forget it has an extra 128 meg memeory chip for about a week. But more so, MacOS is great. People who don't use macs whine about the lack of pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory, etc. Yeah, I want those things, but even without them, I prefer MacOS over linux for my desktop. Sure, it's not good for development or serving, but that's what I have a Linux Server for...

  • Linux on Mac runs quite well. The problem is open source programmers. It seems any more that to programmers, writing unix apps means writing and testing only on x86 linux. I have problems building some stuff on linux ppc, but of course I have problems building some stuff on Sparc solaris...

    Anyways, hardware support for mac linux is fine. It's actually a lot easier because you have much more homogenus hardware. PC's can have any of 100's of different video cards, but on the mac it's a much more limited affair. Plus since newer macs use a lot of the same hardware as PC's (PCI bus and disks, AGP video, PC100 ram, etc) a lot of the hardware support already exists in linux.

  • to sell hardware... Apple's income comes from hardware. MacOS is a way to sell hardware. But they'll be happy to sell you hardware to run linux if you want.
  • It appears that Apple has also been nice and aknowledged LinuxPPC by offering the user a pre-set partitioning scheme in the "drive utility". The utility is used for partitioning your drive. As of v1.8.1 there is an option for LinuxPPC which gives makes all the partitions for you (swap, etc, etc) Their size changes with proportion to your HD size.

    I doubt Jobs knows about such things, but they sure are nice to see.

  • very interesting, although not what i would have expected from Apple (although they are "thinking different" with this one). My main problem with the page is that there's almost nothing on it. You would think that they would put more work into it! Here's a short list of what I'd like to see on this page:

    • technical information about OpenFirmware
    • technical information about the hfs2 file system. there was a lot of hype about it when MacOS 8.5 (?) was released with the new filesystem type--if it's so superior, post some info so the linux geeks can port it.
    • An exmplanation of why they couldn't think of their own catchy name rather than (almost) steal LinuxPPC's [linuxppc.org] name.

    ben's linux page [apple.com] is a good start--but there needs to be more pages like this one. I'd also like to hear if there is anything soecial that needed to be done to build the kernel he has posted.

    darren

  • Kevyn is more than "just some guy at Apple who likes Linux". Kevyn is the DTS person at Apple responsible with helping certain Linux/PPC Developers get information on machines and to get Apple (hardware) engineers to do a better job preparing specs for external use.

    This is an honest to god position that Apple setup to help certain Linux developers. Steve Jobs himself was the one who approved the position. (FYI the certain Linux developers are a group of people identified by Apple as being in the core development stream. They only have one DTS person working on it so he doesn't have the resources to answer 1000 questions a day. But by picking 10 or so main kernel developers they have the resources to help.)

    --Mark
  • http://www.mklinux.apple.com/ [apple.com] has been around for 2 or 3 years. But LinuxPPC definately has more momentum right now than MKLinux, so I guess it's cool that Apple is supporting
  • > But you can't choose Linux and still, say,
    > play Quicktime movies. If Apple is so into
    > letting someone choose his/her OS, then are
    > they working on a Quicktime Player for Linux/
    > PPC?

    More to the point, why aren't YOU working on a QuickTime Player for Linux/PPC?

  • BeOS (Score:2)

    by hwj ( 79083 )
    Gee, you don't think that the reason that Be "couldn't" support Gossamer-based-G3 or newer Power Macs had anything to do with the fact that they were passed over as Apple's choice for their modern operating system in favor of NeXT? Hmm.

    I think it's great that Apple will host a page with links to various Linux/PowerPC distributions. Certainly, their OS focus right now is Mac OS X, and granted, the Linux buzzword is attractive these days, but in general I think we can file this page under "more cool stuff you can do with your Mac". Apple, after all, lives and dies by its hardware sales.
  • [I'm sorry about these HTML tags here, but Slashdot's Extrans posting mode seems to be broken]:
    <I>This page looks very unproffesional.</I>

    That's because it wasn't put up by a pro. Apple has a huge number of sites/pages on the Apple.com domain that are maintained by people inside Apple who want the content to be there. Many of their dev pages aren't candy-coated.

    I think the main point of this page was to show support of Linux by hosting Ben Herrenschmidt's kernel page off Apple.com. (Ben ported and maintains the kernels for Apple's latest machines.)
    Aside from the kernels page, this site has a total lack of content. Everyone's noted the spelling errors, and even the lack of decent links. I'd think Apple would try harder to get actual info on doing installations to the public.

    Where is my mind?
    mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0
  • Having developed extensively on LinuxPPC and mkLinux, BeOS, MacOS as well as you-name-it unix for x86 and Solaris/sparc I can tell you MacOS is the same speed or marginally quicker running computationally large programs than Linux or BeOS. Really.

    Windows may be an awful kludge on x86 but it isn't so for MacOS.

    mkLinux has been around for a long time. Apple couldn't even support its own systems though. It flopped kinda. But this was back before free software was cool. I think their BSD focus for that slot is a better idea though.

    The G4 processor isn't theirs anyway, it's the Motorola 7400 which you can get all the specs you want on. Since the switch to the PCI bus (in 1995?) their systems have used OpenFirmware which supposedly (it was buggy as far as compatibility) was to make it possible for other OS's, such as for a while hints of Solaris and Windows NT as well as the free unixen. This has been covered in other recent discussions though.

    A fairly unpublicized website mentioning how to get Linux running on your mac is not a marketing toy. Compare IBM which makes servers that run on the same processor. NetBSD also runs on Power Macs, as well as their Darwin OS. They aren't selling more computers because they run Linux. Their MacOS X Server even competes with these possibilities (sort of).
  • What I am mostly concerned about is if maybe in the future I can get rid of my 486 in favor of a good mac that perhaps could run linux. I am wondering if perhaps if they could create cheaper macs to allow for a larger adoption. I am sure they would increase their user base by a great deal.
    I don't know what the support level for linux on the mac (in terms of getting all the hardware and everything up to it's full operating capacity and all. However it is a good thing and one should never look a gift horse in the mouth as the saying. This would mean that at least some better support can be had because then customers can see that at least Apple mentions linux officially and mention it to them that "hey my hardware xyz dosn't work with PPClinux why not?"

  • Well, how about that port of Quicktime for linux ?

    What exactly are my options for viewing movies created with their server software using patented Sorensen codecs ?

    Apple seems perfectly willing to support ppclinux when they feel there is no possible way it can dent their OS. And when they are about ready to take BSD and release it as their next Mac operating system.

    Maybe then they will allow lowly linux users to view their video - but I doubt it.

  • Linux is important for Apple. They know they are selling machines to have people run Linux on. Why is this a big deal? Well it given people a choice. Now you can CHOOSE your operating system (Linux) and then choose which platform you want. A lot of people are picking the newer Macs as their Linux platform.

    But you can't choose Linux and still, say, play Quicktime movies. If Apple is so into letting someone choose his/her OS, then are they working on a Quicktime Player for Linux/PPC?
  • Well, there are three types of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.

    ^_^

  • I've been using Linux on PowerPC-based systems (not all of them Macintoshes) since somewhere around 1995 or 1996. At first, I had to use MkLinux, as none of the other forms of PPC-based Linux supported NuBus systems like the 8100 (PPC 601@80 MHz). MkLinux got its start, as I understand it, because a couple of guys at Apple wanted to play around with Linux on their systems and managed to get themselves assigned to working on that as a project.

    At the time, Apple was trying to get itself in gear working on their Copeland project. Copeland originally was supposed to be Mac OS 8, and was supposed to include preemptive multitasking and protected memory, and all those fun little buzzwords. No one especially cared what these couple of guys were doing when everyone was so focused on getting Copeland out the door. As we all know, Copeland got killed. No skin off my back; Copeland was such a bastardized, hacked OS that no one in their right mind would have used it, much less developed for it.

    In the meantime, the guys working on MkLinux had decided to base it on the Mach microkernel, figuring that this would make it easy to port it to other systems. They got DR1 and DR2 out the door, and they even worked half-way decently. The installer warned you about five times that you were doing something that could wreck your file system, and they didn't give you any options in terms of what was installed, but damn if it didn't boot up with a linux kernel and run KDE when you typed 'startx'.

    After Copeland was killed off, Apple started up the Rhapsody project - the all-new, action-packed, feature-filled, buzzword-compliant OS based on NeXT's technology. NeXT was based on the Mach microkernel. Guess who found themselves reassigned *real* fast once Apple realized they had been playing around with Mach for a couple of years. To my knowledge, Apple has never officially dropped MkLinux.. they just don't have anyone working on it right now. The MkLinux web site is still up at http://www.mklinux.apple.com [apple.com], and you can still download DR3 from there.

    The next sort of PPC-based Linux I have experience with is LinuxPPC [linuxppc.org]. I "inherited" (since no one else wanted it) an IBM PowerPersonal 6015. Very few people have ever heard of this beast. It's one of the original CHRP designs, also known as "Sandalfoot". I spent about $50 getting parts so I could get it to run, and decided to throw LinuxPPC on it since I could get it for free. (My other options were AIX and Windows NT, neither of which I had, and neither of which I could get my hands on quickly) Sadly, this system only ran for a little bit. The power supply isn't especially good. If I felt it were worth it, I'd get a new power supply to put in. It's not though, because there's no way I can install LinuxPPC anymore - the CHRP/PPCP installer program won't fit onto a floppy disk, and CHRP systems are not a support priority for the LinuxPPC guys since their are so few of them (CHRP systems, not LinuxPPC guys).

    My next experience with running an Apple-related alternative OS came when I received a copy of the Rhapsody for Intel CD. I tell you, it's unholy starting up an x86 box and seeing a giant Apple logo appearing on your screen. It just felt Wrong.

    Anyway, I'm going to stop rambling now. My own personal perspective on the web site mentioned in the article ( http://ppclinux.apple.com [apple.com]) is that it is not official in any capacity. It looks like something that an Apple employee just threw together so s/he could say "Hey, my little web page has links to useful info about running Linux on PPC machines!".

    P.S. I don't mean to discredit the LinuxPPC guys above. They've done a lot of hard work and LinuxPPC runs very well on the Apple hardware on which I've tried it. It just didn't work so well for me on the obscure, non-Apple hardware.

  • While I am not up to date on Linux's actual POSIX compliance (although it's definitely not 100% POSIXLY_CORRECT), I can confirm that you're definitely right in that POSIX covers more than just the kernel. Especially conspicuous are its specs for utility progs and shells.

    For more information, you can order the POSIX standards from IEEE (yes, they charge for this; they suck) by calling 1-800-678-IEEE (+1-732-981-1393 international), or get the bible of posix [intertain.com].

  • Re:Maybe they do.. buuuut... (Score:3)

    by Darchmare ( 5387 ) on Saturday February 05, 2000 @07:39PM (#1301856)
    Were the LinuxPPC people going to pay Apple for the time?

    Apple may not actively help, but that doesn't mean they're stopping anyone. Apple has more important things to spend its time and money on. Engineer time isn't free, after all.

    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])

  • This is, like, 3 years old. (Score:3)

    by hatless ( 8275 ) on Sunday February 06, 2000 @04:30AM (#1301857)
    Folks, Apple's had LinuxPPC and mkLinux websites up for a few years now. Long before the return of Steve Jobs, they had a small team of engineers primarily focused on the mkLinux project using the Mach kernel.

    Whether there's anyone still left at Apple working on this is another question, since after acquiring NeXT, Apple's OS strategy became a Mach + *BSD one. Note that by working with the Mach kernel all along, it can be assumed that work done on the key focus of the Mac Linux porting efforts--device drivers--would be largely applicable to mkLinux, OS X and Darwin.

    Good grief, 200 posts to this item and only one AC who noted that this is old? Wow.

  • Hmmmm... (Score:3)

    by Snack Cake ( 71094 ) on Saturday February 05, 2000 @06:43PM (#1301858)
    I sort of wonder if this is a real apple page. Look at the real apple homepage. Look at the OS X aqua interface. Look at an iMac. All of them are pure eye candy. This page is boring and unprofesional. It had a spelling error(so do my possts, but they aren't supposed to be profesional), and it appeared to be a bit inaccurate.

  • Posix certified? (Score:3)

    by inburito ( 89603 ) on Saturday February 05, 2000 @06:12PM (#1301859)
    Has linux really been officially posix certified as this webpage claims? I thought it just follows the posix guidelines as closely as possibly.. And doesn't this certification affect more than just the kernel? Not that I know much about the details of posix but just started wondering..

  • Re:Hmmmm... (Score:3)

    by cybercuzco ( 100904 ) on Saturday February 05, 2000 @07:25PM (#1301860) Homepage Journal
    Look at the OS X aqua interface. Look at an iMac. All of them are pure eye candy.

    Thats the point, you have eye candy to entice the masses to purcase your product. the average american wants style, they dont care how long your box will run without a restart, if its longer than a day, thats good enough, since most consumers shut their boxen down at night. apples strategy is: eye candy to lure them in, then spring at them with power and ease of use underneath. sure it would still work as well, look at linux, it works great, but is it easy to use? is it beautiful to look at? were working on it, but apple is light years ahead.

  • Re:Stop being so critical, please (Score:3)

    by cybercuzco ( 100904 ) on Saturday February 05, 2000 @07:19PM (#1301861) Homepage Journal
    The courtesey of Linux users to any windows/mac user will not win them over. They much experience and make the decision themselves. They have to see the light that is Linux. For if you know nothing of Linux, you should feel lower and inferior. Apple is not moving towards a friendly relationship. It sees competition in Linux. Apple can see the writing on the wall. Their move is nothing more than a ploy to blind us.

    You know what? thats exactly what apple zealots said when microsoft started making windows. "Apple has better quality, if people just buy macs, theyll see the light, and soon everyone will run them" Granted, apple has improve significantly the last couple of years, but not as a result of quality of product, but as a sole result of marketing. Candy coated computers are good PR, they make you want to buy them ( if youre average Joe six-pack) If linux users get into the same mindset of "our quality will win them over" then linux will fail. Microsoft and others will spread so much FUD youll think that world war three will result from runing linux on your box. lets embrace apple, since theyre helping us as a community market the goodness of linux, and counteract some of the fud thats out there

  • This page isn't new (Score:3)

    by Dominic_Mazzoni ( 125164 ) on Saturday February 05, 2000 @06:49PM (#1301862) Homepage
    Note that this page has the old navigation bar at the bottom instead of the new Aqua one at the top. So this page has probably been around for a while and certainly hasn't been updated since Apple redesigned their site.

  • Linux PPC on the iBook =) (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 05, 2000 @06:24PM (#1301863)
    Hi all, A few words on Apple's LinuxPPC page...the kernel hack made available by benh is required for use in BootX using an iBook. I just got my brand spankin new iBook G3/300 , 160mb RAM yesterday night and have been working on getting Linux up and running.

    If you have an iBook and attempt to grab the Bootx and install files from linuxppc.com , the kernel provided will not work (hang on boot). Just grab the kernel from the Apple page, uncompress it using MacGzip and throw it into the Linux Kernels folder in your system folder. All will be well, the boot will be successful.

    Just a note for everyone out there, the iBook is one excellent laptop and thanks to hard working kernel hackers like benh , I can now take advantage of the superior architecture in the iBook with the power of Linux.

    Thanks for the hardware Apple!
    Thanks for the kernel hack Ben!

    If anyone else wants to try to get Linux up and running on their iBook and is having any trouble, I'd be happy to try and help. Just mail me at dan@genuinemedia.com

  • Stop being so critical, please (Score:5)

    by Taco Cowboy ( 5327 ) on Saturday February 05, 2000 @06:14PM (#1301864) Journal


    I don't get it, I just don't get it !

    At last, Apple has come out fully embracing Linux, and they even have a PPCLinux.Apple.Com to prove it, the people who champion Linux (and all other opensource projects) suddenly turn their noses.

    Why?

    Why do you have to be critical to Apple just when they embrace Linux?

    Sentence like "But can you drag your hard drive to the trash to unmount it?" just isn't going to win any friend, you know?

    A friendly reminder to all Linux Advocates:

    Believe it or not, Linux is still the new kid in town, and those of us who want to see Linux to be the dominant player in the world OS scene must remember that the number thing we must do as Ambassadors of Linux is to be friendly to all, and only by our friendliness and our helpful attitude that the world will be finally brought into our fold.

    Snobbery doesn't win any friend. Please remember that.

  • Apple and Linux (Score:5)

    by mhatle ( 54607 ) on Saturday February 05, 2000 @06:56PM (#1301865) Homepage
    Before too many people whine and bitch about Apple let me set some things straight.

    First off without Apple, MkLinux wouldn't exist for the PPC and a lot more effort would have been needed for Power Macs (of ANY type) to support a monolithic kernel.

    Apple engineers AND marketing are both interested in working with Linux on PPC developers. We ARE getting hardware, specs, and assistance on making things work.

    Apple wants all "new" machines to be supported at or soon after their release. How can we do this? By Apple giving us specs and such. Look at the iBook for a good example.

    Now what about those people bitching about BeOS. Everything to support BeOS on the new machine is available to Be. Just because Apple won't hand hold them through desiging their OS, the Be engineers are a bit peeved. Apple isn't hand holding any of the Linux on PPC programmers either, but for some reason we're not whiners like the Be people.

    Linux is important for Apple. They know they are selling machines to have people run Linux on. Why is this a big deal? Well it given people a choice. Now you can CHOOSE your operating system (Linux) and then choose which platform you want. A lot of people are picking the newer Macs as their Linux platform.

    FYI I know what I'm talking about, Apple loaned me hardware to help with the Firewire linux port... So before you bitch about Apple, understand they are changing, they are supporting "Alternative" OSes, and more importantly they are helping out the independent Linux developers.

    Check out www.crashing.org [crashing.org] for a good picture of last years Apple Think Different bus.. :) (Also for information on the Linux/PPC Developer's Reference Release 1.1)

    --Mark Hatle

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