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Apple Businesses

MacWorld to ship LinuxPPC 134

Posted by CmdrTaco from the ain't-that-spiffy dept.
An anonymous reader sent in a link to a bit at LinuxPPC that says that MacWorld will ship LinuxPPC in the April issue of their magazine. Anyone have a circulation number on that?
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MacWorld to ship LinuxPPC More

MacWorld to ship LinuxPPC

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  • Indeed. Much better support than Linux has, in fact.
  • You're forgetting 2 things.
    1) powerpc is a better arch, yes, but x86 is not dead by any means. clunky? yes. Lots of baggage included? yes. But still a better choice of arch for me, and many others I suspect... because of..

    2) Show me where I can get a G3 chip + mb + case, etc... until G3 has the exposure, and the ability to build/replace as I have now, it's worthless. Locked into one chip, made by one company, no matter how good the chip is, is a bad idea. Give me Intel, AMD, cyrix(ok, bad choice... :) ) anyday over a G3. But if i can do G3 systems like i do x86 systems today, they I'll join ya in G3 world. I'll won't run that lousy thing called macos, however...

    David
  • 1) slot incompatiblitys are no big deal... i've been dealing with them since before 386's, and i will no doubt continue to...

    2) To the best of my knowledge, Motorola makes G3's, and i do trust motorola.. but i don't trust a chip made by a single h/w vendor... call it burned to many times by intel. :) And I know G3 is non-apple hardware, yes, i seem to recall amiga also using them... but I can't get G3's from all the same places I can get x86 now. Yea, I'll be glad when I can get superior hardware the same way i get the inferior stuff now... but till I can walk into my local parts store and get G3's and such like pentiums and k6's now, i don't have much of a choice.....

    Hope that clears things up a bit.

    David
  • About a year ago, I got a BIOS update for my three-year-old Packard Bell, and booting from CD was one of the things added. (They use AMI as their BIOS base.) If a Packard Bell can do it, any couputer ought to be able to.


    --Phil (And no complaints about the computer. If I knew then what I know now...)
  • MacOS X will not cost over $100.
    MacOS X Server will be $1,000.
    Now we're nothing.
  • Ya ya ya, whatever... if it's for integrated hardware, I have a p5/100 with SCSI and Ethernet on the planarboard, along with both PCI and EISA. And it feels just as fast as the p5/233MMX I have on my desk at work (which runs NT - *shudder*).

    Besides, who's comparing home-built machines to workstations here? Most Macs don't fit my definition of "workstation".
  • Intel SE440BX motherboard (AMI BIOS I think) boots El-torito nicely.
  • I can think of 995 reasons. Probably closer to 945 reasons. I realize that the workstation version of OS X won't cost that much but it also won't have WebObjects. I won't argue with the superior graphic interface. The superior OS depends strongly on the application an budget.
  • I got mine in the mail several weeks ago. Other than the Unix/Linux articles (most of which I already knew) and blasting NT as a file server, the issue was a complete waste.

    And now I learn that the newstand version had LinuxPPC included. You can forget about me renewing my subscription. What a waste. Now the debate: Do I buy the newstand verion and toss the mag... Any other magazines including LinuxPPC CDs? MacTech?
  • OK, there are are a few things about that program:

    1) It only works on SCSI disks. If you have Linux installed on an IDE drive you're out of luck as far as I know.
    2) DO NOT use it to write to an ext2 filesystem. While it can theoretically do this, it's very risky to do so; the bugs aren't all worked out yet and while you might be able to get it all right you can also corrupt the filesystem.
    If you need to get something from a Mac disk to the Linux side of things, use Linux's HFS utilities (which face problems with writing to HFS disks not unlike the problems LinuxDisks has with writing to ext2 volumes). You can also just use FTP if you have sufficient space somewhere.
    3) Just a point of interest: it also works on BFS (BeOS File System) drives.
    4) I'm afraid I don't know where to find the latest version; its homepage was taken down a while back and nobody seems to know where it moved. Anybody know that one?
  • I'd also like to see a win32 app capable of mounting ext2 volumes in read/write mode... I know it exists for Mac...
  • One must open their eyes to see. Open them.
  • he is, ya know
  • "G" is the most important letter in "GNU"!

    GNU = Gnu is Not Unix

    On the other hand...

    LINUX = Linux Is Not UniX - That might work...
  • At least they could have an update log a la Alan Cox...
  • Great! Now if they could only get R5 out sometime soon. I've been waiting for the new release rather than updating the KDE beta-1 packages that MkLinux ships with. It's getting to the point where none of the new KDE apps will compile on my system.

    Speaking of which, I'd appreciate it if people could take a look at my site of RPMs for LinuxPPC and MkLinux [tripod.com]. (KDE apps and some other stuff.) I've been seeing a bunch of failed downloads in the log and hoping I could get some feedback on what's happening. Warning - it's temporarily running on a IIci with NetPresenz while my Linux box is being repaired so it won't take much to /. it. Thanks!

  • It's a sign of the times. Solid color's are modern, they're in. That's why there are five different colors of iMac's, not one five colored iMac. This isn't the yippie Apple that we once knew.
    --
    _____
    | MAD |
    | |
    | HAT |
    ---------
  • Your "typical" Mac user is not going to be any more out of water than a Windows user, given a Linux CD.

    Linux is more prevailent on x86 not only because there are simply more x86 systems... but also because a number of wintel users are simply not satisfied with their environment. One COULD argue that had Appple won the desktop wars Linux would not be what it is today... necessity fuels innovation. (Necessity being defined as needing something "different" in a very general sense... not needing GNU, needing command-line, etc.)

    When I get a Mac to replace the one I sold off (sniff!) it's getting Linux. There's a lot of hacker types on the mac side as well.. they're not graduates from the America Online School Of Computer Illiteracy. When I had my Mac I loved running BeOS. I only wish SheepShaver evisted at the time, so I could run MacOS apps from within a be environment.

    Of course, today OS X went GM so you'll get UNIX + MacOS all in one..

    Macintouch.com has a story of the new 460 MHz PowerPC chips from IBM, and how some users are overclocking these babies all the wauy to ** 550 MHz ** and they still don't overheat. I think beyond that, the cache RAM becomes unstable, but heat isn't as much an issue as it is with poorlydesigned Intel chips...
  • I keep hearing these wonderful things the LinuxPPC group is doing. They really are doing excellent work, considering as a non-x86 Linux distro they are "swimming AGAINST the tide".

    I'd love to see Motorolla/IBM sell PowerPC components. Unfortunately the market is against this, since a manufacturer won't piddle about with small orders. Motorolla isn't even sure if they want to fight Intel anymore, since Wintel is a solid duopoly. It seems like Mot is drifting towards DSP/"embedded" territory, which is probably why we keep hearing rumors of an eventual MacOS on Merced chip. Merced has the potential to help Apple, since their big disadvantage has always been 'to run MacOS you need different hardware'... and most people are reluctant to switch hardware platforms EVEN if they regret their initial choice.

    Maybe the PPC Linux group, being a larger entitity than a few of us here, can secure some hardware for resale. I'm buying a G3 this summer, but I'll also buy a more generic G3 system for Linux if I can ever find one.

    I'd love to see G3's take on the market. I want a new Mac, networked to a generic Linux box. If I can get a G3 Linux box I will be much happier, but I don't want to waste a more expensive Apple system on my Linux server. (troll bait here...)

    MacOS X should be a great thing for competition. Yes, it's a "closed UNIX" like Solaris, but ANY version of UNIX is a hundred times more open than NT! Methinks someday Apple will take advantage of Linux and sell turnkey Linux systems. If Linux *really* catches on they will have an easier time adapting BSD/MacOS-X to Linux than Microsoft (who won't even have a product ready for UNIX, never mind their dead OS :)
  • Or worse yet... built-in help!

    ready Jerry Pournole's (I know it's spelled incorrectly) new column in BYTE. UNIX should be slim and trim, but it CAN do things cheaply like load help files from within the program. Yes a unix user knows ho to switch between background and foreground I know I know... that's not my point.

    How many Linux manpages have been neglected, or tell you to instead consult the infopage or readme instead. RTFM is not a problem for me but it's annoying to be forwarded to yet another doc (with no "link" in the doc to make it automatic). And if you REALLY want to understand the help, you'll have an xterm open to EACH documentation resource.

    Microsoft was onto something when they copied the Mac.
  • ...call it 'banana', OK?

    Actually, I was talking to a friend right after Bondi Blue came out, and said "Wouldn't it be just great if they had some other colors? Like purple."

    "Who'd buy purple?"

    Biggest selling color after blue.

  • BeOS users know how ya feel man. Now if linuxppc only worked on G3's then you could say conspiracy. (MacOSX only works on G3's)
  • an open source OS on proprietary hardware. Perfct combination :)
  • EEK! I've been looking for an app that can do that for my Mac!

    Do you know what Mac app can do that?
  • HFS+ support is in the works, people. Apple has presented us with the specs, it will released probally during the summer of '99.

    Live installs sucks anyways. Get off your duff, and do a quick reformat / partion. It's not that hard, it can be done!

    My partioning scheme:

    1 gig - HFS+ (Mac System, Mac Apps and a few mac-only documents)
    450 meg - HFS (My documents and other crap including way to many old versions of GNOME and lots of source code)
    50 meg - Linux Swap / Virtual Memory Space for Linux.
    500 meg - Linux main partion.

    This works good for me. It's fast and full feature.

    GET LINUXPPC NOW - ftp.linuxppc.org !
  • The April edition of Macworld has an article that presents an overview of Unix (it is not yet posted at macworld.com). As most of you know, MacOSX will be based on the Mach kernel and BSD4.4. This story therefore serves to introduce the Mac user to this "new" OS.

    I found the article to be well written (at times), and also funny; funny like in haha and sad. Let's just say that there will be the normal Apple flaming if /. features a link to this when it eventually gets posted at macworld.com (hmmm, maybe I shouldn't be writing this).

    Now close your eyes and imagine what a story about Unix for a typical Mac user would look like.

    Oh I forgot, Go LinuxPPC!! Where's my Release 5 CD!:-)

  • As an opportunity to get some cheap shots at
    Microsoft and/or Intel, as they did in this story [apple.com]
    on their website.


    ---------------------------------
    "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
  • Oh, I don't know about that. I've got a lot of shiny plastic coasters, but none of them are from MacWorld :-) Linux has been getting a lot of press in the Mac community lately, I suspect that a fair number of people will try it.
  • I got a full install of LinuxPPC working before I got LinuxPPC Live working. If it's anything like BootX/Linux PPC combo, then it'' do a full reboot and unload all of the Mac OS. A quick check at http://www.linuxppc.com/ doesn't tell me much more.

    Anybody actually used the thing ?
  • Who's shipping systems with an El-Torito compatible BIOS ?I haven't seen a Wintel box that could actually do this yet. I haven't looked very hard, but none of the half-dozen production environments I've worked in have had one.

    This sin't a flame folks, I am sincerely interested in which manufacturers are shipping boot-cd compatible BIOS chips (salsa optional). My web research turned up more info on *nix boot CDs than Dos/Win boot CDs (no Mac info, but we've had that capability for years, and on shipping systems to boot :-). http://www.nikko.simplenet.com/goldentime/bootcd1b .htm is nicely technical. There must be more out there somewhere
  • This isn't a true installation of LinuxPPC. As I understand it, it's a single very large MacOS file containing an image of a Linux ext2 filesystem with Linux loaded. A user would boot under MacOS, and then run a LinuxPPC "Live" application that would map in the contents of that file as a volume, unload most of the MacOS, and "boot" from that file. Not exactly a power-user kind of Linux, but it is a good way to introduce general users to Linux without making them go through the learning curve and commitment of repartitioning a hard drive. I'd like to see Red Hat and others pick up this idea to attract Windows users.
  • But then you run into the problem of everyone having their CD drives in different places. i.e. mine is /dev/hdc (IDE 2 drive 1) my roommates is on /dev/hdd (IDE 2 drive 2). My Mac at home has a SCSI CD-rom, my old box has a noname CD that plugs into the soundcard (with a proprietary interface). And so on, ad nauseum, et cetera...
  • Two questions:

    Can I put the live file on an HFS+ volume ?

    Can it be a DHCP client ?
  • It's being worked on. Since most people aren't huge slackers who are too lazy to reformat their drives or too cheap to pluck down $20-$40 bucks or so for a gig drive, it's not a top priority.

  • Cap'n BootX, Benjamin Herrenschmidt, used the ext2 lib ported for LinuxDisks to write an extension that mounts ext2 disks right on the desktop. Can windows do that? Slick-o-rama.

    Ben's page [calvacom.fr]

  • Wrong. As MacOS X is based on Mach, which has amazing support for mulitple processors.
  • MkLinux, Apple's Mach based Linux, supports either 2 or 4 processors out of the box. You can recompile it for more.
  • I checked. It's two out of the box, recompile for more. Kinda like NT. ;)
  • That's one pretty slick looking icon, but what about our heritage!?! C'mon, you'd really choose that iMaccy glossy lookin' thing over the beautiful rainbow colors of the IIe era logo?! Everyone is insane, I tells ya! Everyone!
  • Of course if they DID make a iMac in all five colors, that would either be really cool looking or really gay looking. An opaque iMac in the Apple II color would be quite nifty though...
  • I talked to the TurboLinux folks at Linuxworld Expo. They said they expect 3.x out in about a month. I, for one, am looking forward to it. Wish they'd get their marketing asses in gear, though! Their promotion is pretty pathetic. I mean, you ask anyone semi-knowledgeable what PPC-based Linux distros are available, and they'll answer, "MkLinux and LinuxPPC". TurboLinux is almost a secret.

    --Tom
  • AC writes:

    "If I read their official circulation figures correctly, MacWorld's average monthly readership in 1998 was over 650,000 total"

    A small, technical correction: 650,000 is their circulation, not their readership. In publishing jargon, "readership" = circulation x number of people who read each copy. The latter number is a combination of the biggest number the marketroids can think of, SWAGs (strategic, wild-ass guesses) and something to do with the entrails of a goat.

    --Tom, ex-editor for MacWEEK and others
  • Yes Mach was designed to support multiple CPU's,
    but can you point to *any* Mach-based systems that
    actually support SMP? Linux SMP may not be perfect but it's also not vapor.

  • OK, the PowerPC and Alpha might have life spans ranging 10 years from today, whereas the x86 might have 5 years tops.

    Does that mean that buying a G3 or an Alpha workstation todayis a smarter buy than buying an x86 workstation today?

    I think not -- by the time Intel+AMD can't scale x86 anymore (2005?), your old 1999 G3/Alpha will be pretty much obsolete, except to run 1999-era software.

    It's like telling someone not to buy a 1999 Mustang because the 2004 Camero is going to kick it's ass. Think about it.
    --
  • So x86 isn't the best processor for all applicaitons. Big Deal - neither is any other processor. Nor do I care about Titanic rendering or RC5 cracking, because those are very specialized applications that I don't do. (I do a little audio, and the tools are all on x86 too.)

    You're right about the historical longevity of Macs and Mac applications. I use a Quadra 950 (1990) from time-to-time with Netscape 4 and MS Word 6.0. However, that's a testament to the system design, not the CPU. (People write novels on 386s with WordPerfect 5.1 too.)

    Most Mac users I know don't give a crap about what the CPU is called. Those of you advocates who have been repeatedly told since 1993 that sooner or later PPC is going to scale way past x86 were lied to. Maybe in a few years, but not yet, so get over with it.
    --
  • It is very hard to make sure that you enter a 32bit OS properly after you have already booted Windows. You do not know who and how initialized which sloppy bugware driver... Still it does worth trying. Having a linux autorun boot would be fun. I imagine some people's faces on this one...

    Anyway even something startable from dos is not a bad idea...
  • I tried the LinuxPPC disk on a number of machines before it hit me to start the Mac with extensions off. It did start on one machine without doing so.

    It's a beautiful demo. Can't wait to get KDE for my Intel machines. Just waiting for SUSE 6.1..., and now I've added LinuxPPC 5.0 to my list of things to buy.
  • I fully agree. I installed this "live" version on a 6500 this past Friday, toyed with it, then off to a Linux Installfest on Saturday for the full version. The install of the "live" version took about 2 minutes, the install of the full less than 5. I get more impressed everyday.
  • My FIC VA-503+ does it quite nicely.
    btw anyone recall the story behind the El Torito name? There is a chain of mexican restaurants by that name in Southern California (possibly elsewhere).
  • I see you're using the new apple logo I sent ya. =)
  • I ripped the logo off a demo machine at the MacWorld Expo, resized it and emailed it in. I don't know if it ships with powerbooks or if it's only for demo machines. As for the old rainbow colored logo, I never put the old Apple stickers on my car since the rainbow colors could too easily be confused with another bumper sticker...
  • Hardware envy. My machine costs 1/3 less than yours and I can get parts for it anywhere I want to with a wide variety of options. How about you? Mr. Superior OS over there wishing he could find software for his brandnew Macintrash System 8.x


    What do you do? Go to MacMall?

    ---
    The statement below is true.
  • Well, I don't know about that. Many of us have been running Tenon Systems mach kernel for years to do unix programming. Don't underestimate an installed base of over 25 millon macintosh machines.
  • Both of their sites have said for ages that the next release would be out in late February or MAYBE early March. Well, it's obviously March. Anybody heard updates/rumors? (I did hear the spiel about Netscape's failure to compile already.) Also, anyone have thoughts on Yellow Dog? They have yet to ship an actual product, but they seemed to get fairly good media coverage. How does it differentiate itself from a repackaged LinuxPPC distro (besides the high price)?

  • That's great. I pre-ordered R5 quite some time ago. I understand the delays too. There was a message posted on linuxppc.org that those who pre-ordered R5 were going to get a copy of 4.1 sent to them. Hmm, still waiting for that and my T-Shirt as well as some sort of reply to the emails I've sent there. =) I'd ftp 4.1 but every time I look at my poor 56k modem, I laugh.

    On another note and sort of off topic... I'm an old Amiga user. My 3000T bit the dust almost two years ago and it took me a year after that to decide on what system/s I should buy. I knew about Linux at the time but stayed away from it because I mainly use my system for music sequencing and recording. I also didn't like the idea of Windows (a matter of preference), as well as the idea that most of the higher end hardware I was interested in wasn't available or supported on Intel based hardware. When the G3's came out, my mind was made up. Not only that, Linux for PPC was making leaps and bounds. So my plan was to get a PowerMac and use the MacOS for things that weren't up to snuff yet in Linux. One reason I like the Linux alternative to Mac or Windows is that I'm not stuck in the GUI. I actually quite like the MacOS now that I've learned it's in and outs (didn't take very long) but it lacks in the area of flexibility. Flexibility was something I was used to on my old Amiga. A CLI or Shell is an imortant thing to me IMHO.
    AppleScript can be useful, but only if the app that you're interested in is AppleScriptable.

    Anyhow, The more I'm learning by using Linux the more I'm inclined to think that I may not ever really need to use anything else. Functionally and morally speaking.

    So I guess I'll go out and find one of these MacWorld mags with LinuxPPC and find out if it's an actual full install or not of R4.

    Well then, I'm off to go find out. Heh, that'll teach me for posting before I read the article. It's only the 'LIVE' version. Ah well. =) Time to get ADSL. heh...
  • I don't beleive that audio is really supported at all on the LIVE version. The internal speaker works though. It's only meant to give you an idea of how it will run. And it runs damn mighty awrighty fine on a G3 OC'd to 292 thank you. =)

    A small detail that I haven't yet figured out if there is a remedy for is the fact that the Mac mouse only has one mouse button. For all intents and purposes, it's a left mouse button. Keep this in mind if you have any ideas about downloading LIVE to use The Gimp and save out to floppy or zip or what have you. (Although I'm not even sure if you can save out to disk in LIVE). You need a right mouse button to activate the save options etc, by right clicking on the image. No keyboard modifiers to emulate a right click that I know of.

    Kind of a pain really. I use a 4 button trackball. All four buttons are left mouse buttons in KDE. =) You could use the KDE mouse options to make the mouse a left handed mouse and that'll get you your menu alright, but try to get any further than that and you can't. =) You can't even switch back to a right handed mouse.

    I'd only blame that on the LIVE version though. It's only meant to demo. (Unless there is a way around it ) Otherwise, if every little goodie was in the download, you might as well download LPPC lite for the small difference in size it would be after the fact.

    Quick and dirty. But a good idea IMHO.

  • Thanks... I found the same Faq. It's http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jonh/lppc-serve/cache/1. html . If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have noticed that my right alt/option key was busted. Luckily I have a spare KB. I'll fix it later.
    I thought it would have been strange if there wasn't a kb modifier...

  • How about Linux users becoming aware of the Mac?

    Zagmar
  • Just can't see to many mac users jump at the chance to try a real OS.

  • LinuxPPC live is neat, in that it allows me to boot into KDE and play with the neat toys. Apparently, it also contains Internet tools, although it has no information on how to connect (just a note that kppp doesn't work).

    It doesn't contain gcc or ecgs, it won't save changes, and I don't see how to get packages to work. All I can see is that it shows that KDE works on the Mac, which is worth about 30 minutes of enjoyment.

    Is there anything more that can be done with LinuxPPC Live? I have preordered 5.0 (only $35, why not?), so I guess it has served its purpose.
    MkLinux is dead, Yellow Dog is vapor, OSX Server is too damn much money, Be doesn't work on G3, and Debian PPC and OSX are not out yet, so it seems to be my only choice for Unix goodness.

    Ron - trying to get out of the MacOS ghetto
  • Option-1 and Option-2.
    I found this in the LinuxPPC automated FAX, as an aside in response to another question. I don't have the URL handy right now, but you can get there from www.linuxPPC.com.
  • I have three original IBM PC's. All of them still work. IBM's page here [ibm.com] says they were introduced in 1981.
  • I hope enough people start to run Linux on thier mac that apple will reconsider the thousand dollar price tag for MacOS X. LinuxPPC costs a lot less and offers a lot of value. And add sheepshaver to LinuxPPC, what else do we need? Then we have a real os on our macs.
  • Apple's always been a fruit. Sheesh.
  • Was I the only one to nothice LinuxPPC with Macworld on the stands two weeks ago?

    I'm in Canada for pete's sake, we get everything waaaaaay later than those south of the border.

    John.
  • You missed the (albeit very subtle) pun.

    If you want to understand what he meant, walk up to your nearest co-worker of the female pursuasion, and ask her if she would like to try some macingnulux. Remember, with all such plays on words, it is best to let the syllables fall together.

    If you still don't understand, pick up the nearest copy of MS Bookshelf (prefferably one which has pronunciation examples) and search for a similar word that starts with cunning and ends in alot of fun.

    John.

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