Linux on mac

H2OSX

H2OSX

iKnow (sometimes)
I know you can run linux on a mac, but I was wonderin if anyone has ever partitioned their drive so one partition is OSX and the other is Linux. I was wondering if one, anyone has done this, two, if it worked, and three, if it would be a good idea for me to do it aswell. Thanks :p
 
I did it once and it lasted a whole week...maybe?. There really wasn't any reason for the Linux OS to be there IMO, everything I needed could be done under OS X and the terminal. For me that's especially true under Panther.

Is this just a 'cause I can thing' or did you have a specific reason to want to do it?

From what I've seen, there are some people who do it with OK results and some who have problems. There's too many factors to really say one way or another why that is.
 
I have to agree with mdnky...

If it's a fairly new machine, there really isn't any reason to install Linux as Mac OS X should cover all the same bases that Linux would.

However, if you DO have an older machine that either runs sluggishly on OS X or isn't supported under OS X, then you might want to use Linux (or Darwin, or Net/Open/FreeBSD) as that would bring new life to an older PPC Mac.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to experiment and find out. Just make sure that you backup all your files before proceeding.
 
Its mostly just a "cause I can thing" and ya OSX does do every thing i need, i was just wonderin if it was possible and if it was and worked very well then i might try it out. Thanks for ur help!
 
Why bother? If you really want to 'use linux' why not just install KDE or Gnome on X11? Should be similar enough
 
I've tried Gentoo, and YellowDog on my iBook. Dual boots just fine but I saw myself using Linux more than OSX. So did a reinstall but this time ONLY Linux was put on.
 
Linux more than OSX!? who are you and what have you done with the real Lycander (whoever he was before he must have liked OSX more) O - and thanks dlloyd for the comment.
 
Yes you kidnapper, give us Lycander back! (he did like OS X...) :D

I never actually seriously tried to get KDE or Gnome working, since I don't actually ever use X11 apps (thanks to the great Cocoa developers out there!). The few times I did casually try, it never fully compiled properly via Fink. If I were you, I'd get the package from www.opendarwin.org
 
I've installed Linux on several Macs, both new world and old world machines (the boot process is different between new and old world Macs). New World machines use Yaboot, which kind of patches into your open firmware, whereas old world Macs (like the 75/85/9500) use BootX, which semi-boots OS 9 and then drops into the Linux booter.

Linux on a Mac is interesting if you're curious. You may have to repartition your drive, since you cannot have Linux and OS X installed on the same partition.

I would highly recommend Yellow Dog Linux, since it's the most Mac-friendly and is specifically developed for PowerPC machines (ie, Macintoshes). You can download it for free from:

http://www.yellowdoglinux.com

Be wary, you're gonna want broadband to download the ISOs. They're about 600MB a piece, and there's three of them, all of which are required (unless you do a minimum install, which is useless).

Ask away if you decide to try it out. We'll be glad to help.
 
Well, I used Linux much longer than OSX. By that I mean I've used KDE/Gnome longer than Aqua. *shrugg* I'm really picky about UI speed and responsiveness. Even with Jaguar on my iBook G3 it was "difficult". So I put Linux on and it was a speed demon.
 
Heh... I'm gonna have to agree with Lycander here. I use OS X more than I use Linux, but using Linux on an old 8500 with a 400MHz G3 is MUCH more responsive than using OS X on a 500MHz G4.

The only complaint that I have is that Linux is put together by thousands of people and the UI is not anywhere NEAR consistent. It's maturing into one hell of a great desktop OS, but still is not ready for casual users who are used to booting from a CD, initiating an install, then getting down to business and just using the computer. Hell, making an alias on your Desktop to launch Mozilla is a multi-step process and would be confusing to the casual user.

In spite of that, I would still recommend it highly. If you can configure a Linux desktop machine and install updated software (without the use of yum or apt-get), you've got a good understanding of UNIX and how it behaves. Once properly configured, my Linux machine seems to run faster and perform better than my OS X machine -- it's not bogged down by the UI and you've got TOTAL control over how EVERYTHING works.
 
And thus began the ages-old argument... ;-)

Hmm... Thinking about it... I should install Mac OS 9.2.2 on my old iBook G3/800. It surely rocks interface-speedwise. :)
 
I don't have anything OS 9 related still on my computer. I used the actual OS 9 only once, to set it up, and I only used Classic about twice. I don't even have the OS 9 hard drive drivers installed now.
 
Lycander said:
Nope. Yellow Dog is strictly a PPC distro. If you want to run Linux in VPC, pick from any other distro that's x86.
Click to expand...
There is, needless to say, small point in doing this as a native linux distro will perform much better than an emulated one.
The only plus point is having "linux in a window"
however rebooting doesn't take THAT long
 
Sure you can:

http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/resources/downloads.shtml

You'll need ISO images, all three of them. You'll probably get better speeds from the mirror sites (same page as above, just scroll down).

Once you connect to a mirror site, navigate through the folders to the "iso" or "isos" folder. You'll find three YellowDog Linux 3.0.0 and three 3.0.1 ISO images that you can download and install for free. Nothing crippled, nothing missing, it's everything you need -- and is identical to the install CDs that come with the paid package (except you get some other CDs with different Applications on them, most of which can be downloaded for free just as with YellowDog).

I'd venture to say that 95% of all Linux software you can get for free, legally. Including all the distributions.
 
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