Linux Coming to Power Mac G5

Justen writes "Terra Soft, the people behind Yellow Dog Linux (YDL), announced that they will be supporting the new Power Mac G5. Since they are an Apple Authorized Reseller, you can purchase your Power Mac G5 through Terra Soft and have YDL pre-installed on a separate partition from Mac OS X. According to Terra Soft, 'as Yellow Dog Linux was in 2000 enabled for the IBM Power3 by IBM Lab and Linuxcare, and subsequently for the Power4, the effort to support the 970-based Apple computers is anticipated to be completed with relative ease.' Life is good. Anyone wanna loan me $2,000?"

Never understood this.

[digerata]

I'm sorry, but why in the hell would I want to pay the premimum cash for the premium computer and *not* run the premium OS X.

Re:Never understood this.

[ichimunki]

Considering it's impossible to buy one that won't ship OS X, your question makes little to no sense. This isn't going to be instead of OS X, but in addition to it. You still have the privilege of paying for the Mac OS, even if you don't plan to use it.

Re:Never understood this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, did YOU ever miss the point.

The question is, now that you've bought your nice, new G5, why would you want to run Linux on it? The only thing Linux has over Mac OS X is the ability to use software that's already compiled and packaged for IA-32, and that's not true when you're using a PowerPC. And Mac OS X has tons of advantages over Linux. So what's the rationale here?

Re:Never understood this.

[Delphiki]

Personal preference? Linux can be made to be much more light weight than OS X, it is more customizable, etc, so I can understand why some people would want to use Linux, but I don't think I'd pay the extra for Mac hardware if I didn't want OS X.

Re:But one questions remains...

[muonzoo]

Hmm here are my calculations:

1. Open HUA, visit the site I ripped off [trollaxor.com]. (7 words)
2. Select all (Control-A) ( call that 1 word)
3. Paste (1 word)

For me that's 9 words in 6 minutes or a more realistic (for a Troll) 1.5 WPM.
Mavis is safe and sound; more importantly, she isn't on slashdot.

Re:But one questions remains...

[karlm]

I like OS X. I'll be getting a G5 laptop soon after they arrive and will probably run OS X on it at last 90% of the time, with some forrays into Linux and hopefully the boys in Dresden will have a PPC-64 verion of L4 out by that time. In most ways I prefer OS X to Linux, but your arguments need improvement. You must also remember that there is non-Mac G3 and G4 hardware out there that does not have the Mac firmware necessary for OS X. This hardware is mostly for scientific computing and embedded applications.

1. PowerPC hardware, PowerPC operating system

Linux has its origins on IA32, Intel's 32-bit architecture. Every platform Linux has migrated to since then has been beset with porting problems-- Linux runs 32% more efficiently on Intel than PowerPC. This is very telling as PowerPC is in general much faster per clock than Intel. Somewhere in the translation from PowerPC to IA32 something got lost.

Mac OS is 100% native for PowerPC. The Mach kernel has been optimized for the G3, G4, and 970 since Apple began writing the operating system back in 1996. Why choose a hacked and kludged OS from another platform when you can have an environment tailor-made for the system you'll be running it on? Mac OS certainly isn't plagued by same driver problems Linux is (in)famous for.

OS X began life on m68k NeXT boxes, not PPC hardware. Linux is also 100% native on PPC hardware. The last numbers I saw showed Linux PPC outperformed OS X on the same hardware. I like some of the ideas behind Mach w/ a BSD server. Too bad they put the BSD server in the kernel address space for performance reasons. The driver gap is largely historical at this point, but still a valid but minor concern.

2. Control over the source code

In Linux, the development model is highly irrational: anyone is allowed to submit patches, and one man (Linus Torvalds) sorts through gigabyte after gigabyte of amateurish code, attempting to integrate it into the kernel. Apple's model is much more modern and decisive: the code for the low levels of Mac OS is available for anyone to download and modify, while the more complex parts of the system (QuickTime and OpenGL) are kept closed-source so those that know better-- the Apple programmers-- are the only ones allowed to tinker.

The results because of these differing development models are clear. Apple released a major update to the OS once a year, and releases about five minor updates to the OS, as well as several dozen security patches and driver updates, in the interim. Since March of 2001 we've gone from 10.0 to 10.2.5! Linux is still stuck at some sort of bizarre "in-between" 2.5 kernel patch and won't move on to 2.6 until well after Apple has released Mac OS 10.3.

It's not hard to see the difference here is a bunch of kids playing with source code instead of doing their homework vs. highly qualified professionals pushing their skills to the limits. The Mac OS user benefits.

You missed your opportunity to jab Linux in the ribs. The tender spot here is Linus switching the entire VM subsystem out in the middle of the 2.4 serries. The weakness in the development model is that it is less conservative with no PHB breathing down Linus's neck. The "bunch of punk kids writing a kernel" argument just doesn't hold water. Some of the most respected coders of our day contribute to the Linux kernel, including some very telented professionals at IBM. Sure lots of rubbish gets submitted, but it gets filtered through a heirarchy or very good coders. Linus may be a little overwhelmed, but that results in some good improvements getting dropped on the cutting room floor rather than rubbish making it into the kernel. Per man-hour, the Linux kernel development is therefore very inneficient, but you have an absolutely huge number of coders.

Your argument about not letting people see the QuickTime and OpenGL code is way off. The same effect could be gotten by opening the cod