Unix on Mac
First, max your Mac memory!
Since I decided that the Mac was the more cost effective method of going portable, I purchased an iBook. It is sleek, streamlined and sexy. It came with more ports, real processing power and just looks cool! I tried putting up with OSX as long as I could. The truth is, it was the underlying OS that attracted me. I love BSD. I hate OSX.
OSX, much like Windows XP, is less than perfectly free from bugs. And, also like Windows XP, it is bulky, cumbersome and sluggish. It is too bad the people at Apple did not offer a thinner interface like TWM. You could have seen how powerful and fast the hardware really can be. The iBook hardware engineers really do make the best equipment for the money.
How About Open Source for OSX/Darwin? (Unswitched or Dual Boot Users)
You can install Fink, which is a package manager for OSX, fashioned after the package management of Debian Linux. You will have to excuse the linux weenie explanation of how to use Pico. However, it appears to be an interesting project. The important thing is that after you install the file for Fink, you add the line sourcing it's init to your .rc file of choice. If you stick with the csh that is standard with OSX, it will be added to your .cshrc in your home dir.
Add the line:
source /sw/bin/init.csh
Make sure you have Darwin
installed on your machine. Of course, this goes without saying. There are many versions of Linux and BSD that will install on the iBook. NetBSD runs on practically everything. It is reported that NetBSD works well on the iBook. It even supports the DVD/CDRW. Installation instructions are available on their website. Yellow Dog Linux is designed for installation on the Mac and PowerPC hardware. It may well be the route to go for the Redhat fan. However, below we are dealing with Darwin, as designed for the machine itself and typically already installed.
- Fink ports many Unix programs to OSX and Mac using a ports collection style port of the Debian package tool.
- Gimp is a popular Unix GUI image editor.
- Mac Gimp is a port of Gimp for Max OS.
- XFree86 on OSX
- List of Windows Managers
- A quick Online HowTo
- TuxPPC
Linux on Mac
- A story about a Mac (iBook) conversion to Linux
- Ben Herrenschmidt's website about LinuxPPC.
- Brandon's Explanation of Installing Debian on your iBook.
- Penguin PPC is a homesite for development on the PPC platform for linux users.
- Debian's PPC Home
- Debian's Official PPC Installation Guide
- Mike's howto install Debian on a iBook 2
- Yellow Dog Linux
is designed for installation on the Mac and PowerPC hardware.
Non-Darwin Unix Links for Mac
- FreeBSD has a PPC project
running. At present it is not a full blown usable system as it
is on the x86 architecture. - NetBSD
appears to be well ported to later PPC models of Macs.
OSX