elektro80
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Joined: Mar 25, 2003
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 Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2004 9:51 am Post subject:
Linux on a Mac |
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http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-pmac.html
I have received some PMs and emails re running Linux on a mac. This webpage is a great start. Older macs perform well on Linux, but personally I see not much point in using Linux on a brand new mac.
| Quote: | So you own a Mac -- Why run Linux?
To a surprising degree, operating systems (other than those from the highly-proprietary Microsoft) have become commodities. What this means is that most vertical applications are a mere recompilation away from running equally well on Linux, FreeBSD, SunOS, Irix, AIX, or indeed on Mac OS X; in some cases even this step is not necessary, since ABIs (application binary interfaces) support foreign binaries.
If you bought an Apple machine in the last few years, it came preinstalled with a high-quality Unix-derived operating system called OS X. OS X has a kernel and collection of base utilities called Darwin, which is under a Free Software license and is derived (in part) from FreeBSD -- the only proprietary elements are in the GUI (Aqua) and in the collection of end-user and system-administration applications that come bundled with OS X. Even X11 (specifically XFree86, despite what the name implies) is supported on OS X, in either full-screen or rootless modes; "rootless" here means that X11 applications run side-by-side with native Aqua ones. You can run Apache on OS X; you can run NcFTP server; you can even run GIMP or KOffice. Why bother installing Linux?
There are a number of scenarios where it makes more sense to run Linux on your Apple machine than to run OS X. A first situation -- one that will appeal much more to hobbyists than to corporate users -- is when the Mac in question is an older machine. OS X is either entirely unsupported, or at least quite sluggish, on older Macs: 603s, 604s, or even early G3s. Linux can be quite snappy on these older systems; and Linux is a lot more useful as a server, or in many cases even as a desktop, than is the Mac OS 9 (or earlier) that came with those older machines. Still, the hobbyist segment is fairly narrow, or at least does not need to look here for advice.
A more important situation where Linux is worthwhile as an operating system for G3, G4, or G5 machines from Apple is when you want to assure a uniform system/user interface across machines. Many enterprises, hosting companies, schools, or research facilities will have a mixture of x86 and PPC systems that it provides to users. While you can recompile most specific Linux applications for OS X, doing so does not bring the systems all the way to having a uniform GUI, configuration files, directory structure, and build environment between the various maintained machines. "Linux everywhere" assures a much greater degree of consistency.
One thing in particular that can be confusing to Linux developers about OS X is its overlay of two distinct directory organizations -- the traditional /etc/, /usr/local/, /sbin/, and so on of Linux/Unix systems, and the /Application/, /Library/, /System/ from Mac OS 9. The /sw/ hierarchy fink creates, additionally, is almost like a third overlay. Moreover, even though OS X has an X11 server built in, I have still found a variety of minor glitches (redraws, key bindings, etc.) in using X11 applications there -- Linux with a good window manager such as KDE or GNOME is a much more seamless environment in this case.
Apart from developers who might use PPC desktops or laptop machines, Web-hosting companies would like to present a predictable system to its customers who maintain sites via SSH, FTP, or Web-based interfaces -- regardless of whether a domain is hosted on PPC or x86 chips. Considering servers further, Linux offers several advantages over OS X, even over the server version of OS X. One major strength of Linux is the variety of filesystems that have been developed for it or ported to it: ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, IBM's JFS, SGI's XFS, etc. Each of these has its own strengths, often specific to particular usage scenarios (Web host, streaming multimedia server, RDBMS, etc.). While the server version of OS X supports an enhanced version of HFS+ with journaling and optional filename case-sensitivity, it cannot match Linux's range of filesystem options. Also, I should mention -- but not overemphasize -- the little matter of cost: An unlimited-client version of Mac OS X Server will cost you US$1000 per machine, whereas Linux is free of cost (and even a support contract from a distribution vendor is much cheaper than this). The caveat here is that if OS X Server's administration tools save your IS staff even a little work each day, that kilodollar outlay can quickly pay for itself. |
Anyway.. read the full article at: http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-pmac.html
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