Which Linux to use with a Mac?

[James McKenzie]

All:

I am looking at installing Linux on a very old piece of hardware.  I've 
tried FC12/13/14 but the screen is 'messed up' and it only has 384MB of 
RAM.  Also, I now have a brand new, shiny MacBookPro.  Any ideas on what 
to install on it as far as Linux.  I'm trying to stay away from the 
Linux distribution that starts and ends with U as my first experience 
was not pleasant.  I would like to stay with the RH family, if possible.

James McKenzie

[Suvayu Ali]

On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 10:30 AM, James McKenzie
 wrote:
> All:
>
> I am looking at installing Linux on a very old piece of hardware.  I've
> tried FC12/13/14 but the screen is 'messed up' and it only has 384MB of
> RAM.

As far as my understanding goes, there are two kinds of old macs. The
older of the two is probably not supported by any major distribution.
However the newer among the two are supported by any distribution with
ppc support. Earlier Fedora releases used to support them (up to F10 I
think). But for ppc support I think Yellow Dog is more preferred over
older Fedora.
> Also, I now have a brand new, shiny MacBookPro.  Any ideas on what
> to install on it as far as Linux.  I'm trying to stay away from the
> Linux distribution that starts and ends with U as my first experience
> was not pleasant.  I would like to stay with the RH family, if possible.

The newer Macs are regular x86, so the standard distributions should
work. However I think I have heard issues with how Macs deal with
BIOSes. I think they use something called EFI, not sure though.

Disclaimer: I have no personal experience with any of the above, it is
all hearsay.
> James McKenzie

If things work out, maybe you could publish your notes. Might be helpful
to others trying to achieve the same goal. Maybe a page on the Fedora
wiki ... GL.

[Colin Paul Adams]

> > > > > "James" == James McKenzie  writes:

James> All: I am looking at installing Linux on a very old piece of
    James> hardware.  I've tried FC12/13/14 but the screen is 'messed
    James> up' and it only has 384MB of RAM.  Also, I now have a brand
    James> new, shiny MacBookPro.  Any ideas on what to install on it as
    James> far as Linux.  I'm trying to stay away from the Linux
    James> distribution that starts and ends with U as my first
    James> experience was not pleasant.  I would like to stay with the
    James> RH family, if possible.

I run Fedora 14 (exclusively, not dual boot) on my MacBook Air.

[Joel Rees]

Sorry I missed this. I don't get on the list often enough, lately.

(But I have this deja vu feeling, too.)

On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 3:30 AM, James McKenzie
 wrote:
> All:
>
> I am looking at installing Linux on a very old piece of hardware.  I've
> tried FC12/13/14 but the screen is 'messed up' and it only has 384MB of
> RAM.

Which model?

And where did you find F13 or F14 for PPC?

(I'm sure it isn't 68K because, as far as I know, there is no Fedora
for that. I'm sure it isn't Intel, because the first Intel Macs had
way more RAM than that from the start.)

Although, 384M is pretty tight if you're wanting to use X11 graphical desktop.

I still have F12 on this white iBook G4, sometimes I boot it for
various reasons.
> Also, I now have a brand new, shiny MacBookPro.  Any ideas on what
> to install on it as far as Linux.

If you are still monitoring the list, you will have noticed that many
people are using Fedora on intel Macs. I don't have an Intel Mac, so I
can't say. There are apparently some (understanding?) issues with EFI,
but it shouldn't be too difficult.
> I'm trying to stay away from the
> Linux distribution that starts and ends with U as my first experience
> was not pleasant.  I would like to stay with the RH family, if possible.
>
> James McKenzie

Me, too.

PPC was, for a couple of years,  until about a year and a half ago, a
primary target, like x86 and the 64 bit release.

But, with F12, it has been dropped off the edge of the earth, so to
speak. I suspect that has something to do with Sony's sudden paranoia,
but I suspect it may have more to do with IBM wanting to protect (so
much for them being on our side) their PPC as a "big iron" cpu. Lots
of people not telling us the real reasons for things.

On the other hand, the feedback level on PPC was kind of sparse. And I
can't claim that I helped much.

I am playing with Debian on x86 to get ready for the LPIC, and to get
ready to replace Fedora 12 on this iBook. But when I do that, I'll
probably use the Japanese "Vine" derivative of Debian. I have booted
Debian and Vine on it, and it does work, within certain parameters.
LXDE and XFCE (or was it XCFE?) should be much more responsive than
Gnome with the RAM you have. Add RAM if you can get the total over
512M. It is a bit of a rough ride.

If you are interested in openBSD, it runs pretty nicely. Steep
learning curve, and you may want to run startx from the keyboard, but
that's something you can probably get used to. (BSD is not Linux, but
it's pretty close, and it does have Linux emulation. Oh, I haven't
tried Linux emulation on PPC, so I shouldn't say that so boldly,
maybe.)

If enough people with enough time can get together, we should be able
to get the secondary PPC infrastructure up for Fedora and get it up to
sort of the same level as ARM support. I'm still trying to get time to
figure out what I can do there.

Joel Rees

[JD]

On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 3:09 AM, Joel Rees  wrote:
> Sorry I missed this. I don't get on the list often enough, lately.
>
> (But I have this deja vu feeling, too.)
>
> On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 3:30 AM, James McKenzie
>  wrote:
> > All:
> >
> > I am looking at installing Linux on a very old piece of hardware.  I've
> > tried FC12/13/14 but the screen is 'messed up' and it only has 384MB of
> > RAM.
>
> Which model?
>
> And where did you find F13 or F14 for PPC?
>
> (I'm sure it isn't 68K because, as far as I know, there is no Fedora
> for that. I'm sure it isn't Intel, because the first Intel Macs had
> way more RAM than that from the start.)
>
> Although, 384M is pretty tight if you're wanting to use X11 graphical
> desktop.
>
> I still have F12 on this white iBook G4, sometimes I boot it for
> various reasons.
> > Also, I now have a brand new, shiny MacBookPro.  Any ideas on what
> > to install on it as far as Linux.
>
> If you are still monitoring the list, you will have noticed that many
> people are using Fedora on intel Macs. I don't have an Intel Mac, so I
> can't say. There are apparently some (understanding?) issues with EFI,
> but it shouldn't be too difficult.
> > I'm trying to stay away from the
> > Linux distribution that starts and ends with U as my first experience
> > was not pleasant.  I would like to stay with the RH family, if possible.
> >
> > James McKenzie
>
> Me, too.
>
> PPC was, for a couple of years,  until about a year and a half ago, a
> primary target, like x86 and the 64 bit release.
>
> But, with F12, it has been dropped off the edge of the earth, so to
> speak. I suspect that has something to do with Sony's sudden paranoia,
> but I suspect it may have more to do with IBM wanting to protect (so
> much for them being on our side) their PPC as a "big iron" cpu. Lots
> of people not telling us the real reasons for things.
>
> On the other hand, the feedback level on PPC was kind of sparse. And I
> can't claim that I helped much.
>
> I am playing with Debian on x86 to get ready for the LPIC, and to get
> ready to replace Fedora 12 on this iBook. But when I do that, I'll
> probably use the Japanese "Vine" derivative of Debian. I have booted
> Debian and Vine on it, and it does work, within certain parameters.
> LXDE and XFCE (or was it XCFE?) should be much more responsive than
> Gnome with the RAM you have. Add RAM if you can get the total over
> 512M. It is a bit of a rough ride.
>
> If you are interested in openBSD, it runs pretty nicely. Steep
> learning curve, and you may want to run startx from the keyboard, but
> that's something you can probably get used to. (BSD is not Linux, but
> it's pretty close, and it does have Linux emulation. Oh, I haven't
> tried Linux emulation on PPC, so I shouldn't say that so boldly,
> maybe.)
>
> If enough people with enough time can get together, we should be able
> to get the secondary PPC infrastructure up for Fedora and get it up to
> sort of the same level as ARM support. I'm still trying to get time to
> figure out what I can do there.
> Joel Rees
>
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The last PPC release was
http://chi-10g-1-mirror.fastsoft.net/pub/linux/fedora/linux/releases/12/Fedo...

Fedoraproject.org, on URL http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Arch:PPC,  points to
the above link