On (15/10/03 21:06), Kent West wrote: > >So, lately, I've been drooling over the latest 15" powerbooks. I have > >never owned or even really used a Mac, but when looking at laptop > >choices, powerbooks look to be the best. I even had a dream about it > >last night ... except in the dream, salesmen kept giving me the wrong > >model, and I'd get home, open it up, realize it was the wrong one, and > >have to repeat the process. Hopefully the actual purchase will be less > >painful ... > > > >So, question for people who have used this architecture before: If I buy > >a system from Apple, how hard would it be to reconfigure it for > >dual-boot? Single-boot debian? What is the Mac way to resize/move > >partitions? What does one use for a boot-loader? I know that OS X is > >based on BSD, but I don't know how easy it is to get, say, xfree86 or > >gnome compiled and running on it. > > > > > >How much functionality should I expect from debian on a mac compared to > >my x86 setup? Are packages as readily available? > > > >What are the gotchas? > > > >Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated. > > > Later. . . > > >Speaking of which, http://www.debian.org/ports/ lists the motorola 68k > >as the second-most popular debian-port, then later down the list > >mentions the powerpc. Both mention Macs. Are all modern Macs > >powerpc, or do I need to look at the specs to know what I need? > > > > > There's a debian-mac list where you'll find people running Debian on Mac. > > I have a Gray&White G4 on which I'm triple booting Mac System 9, OS/X, > and Debian. > > Within Debian, I sometimes run MOL (Mac-on-Linux) which allows me to run > System 9 and OS/X on top of Debian, even both at the same time, in a > window or in full-screen, with networking. Works great for a Helpdesk > area; click, you're in System 9; click, you're in OS/X; click, you're in > Debian. Of course there are a few minor gotches when running Mac OSes on > top of MOL, but it's pretty much as successful as running Windows on > Linux via VMWare, only for free. What a deal! > > Boot off your Mac System CD; run Disk Tools (or pdisk, which is more > like fdisk, but which you'll have to download); partition your drive for > your Mac OS(es), leaving a large chunk free for Debian _in front of_ the > Mac partition(s). Install one or both Mac OSes. Then copy down four or > five Debian files (rescue.bin, etc). Reboot the computer and go into > OpenFirmWare (or whatever it's called; I forget. Maybe it's > OpenBootWare, or OpenBootProm, or something. It's sortta like a PC's > BIOS, but, dare I say, more powerful. The keystroke to get in is > something like Command-Shift-O-F, but again, you'd have to read the > install docs rather than rely on my likely-wrong memory. Then from > there, you feed the OBP some esoteric command to tell the Mac to boot > off the Debian rescue.bin file that's sitting on the Mac partition. Then > the install is very similar to a regular PC Debian install. Instead of > cfdisk you'll use fdisk. You'll see 6 or 7 partitions you didn't know > were there, which you'll need to keep if you're keeping the Mac software > around. If you're not keeping the Mac OSes, you can get rid of these 6 > or 7 partitions. You can only have a maximum of 14 or 15 (I forget) > partitions, so 9 or so (7 plus OS9 plus OS/X) are already used, so > you'll be somewhat limited in your partitioning options. The only > remaining hard part is getting the boot record set up properly for you > to boot into all three OSes. (I forget the name of the boot software, > but it's kindda like LILO, but not much like it.) Yaboot - don't use the woody version, it won't work with the latest hardware. Details here: http://penguinppc.org/projects/yaboot/doc/yaboot-howto.shtml
> > After that, Debian is pretty much Debian. You can't run VMWare or WINE > on it, as they're strictly for x86 architectures. I think bochs will > work however, and maybe that "other" windows emulator (I say "other" in > quotes because I know, I know, WINE IS Not an Emulator), which name I > can't think of at the moment. > > (Sorry I'm giving you so many vague "I can't quite remember the details" > answers.) > > Modern Macintoshes, ever since the G3, are PowerPC machines. I doubt the > G5s qualify as a PPC machine however; I just don't know. There are other > PPC-based machines besides Macs however; that's why the architecture is > not called "Macintosh". > > Feel free to ask more questions; I can be vague for weeks at a time :-) > > -- > Kent > > > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- http://www.clivemenzies.co.uk strategies for business -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
