Hi Bruce; Thanks for all the input. FYI here are the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing:
Ever since reading "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" back in 1998? (a friend, at the time, the sysadmin for AMNH, hooked me up with it), I've been profoundly curious about using linux, but haven't, until now, had the time to seriously play around with it. You could say that I'm interested in Linux for ideological reasons and curiosity more than for specific computing needs. I want to check out linux, so I'm not interested in OSX or BSD. >there's sufficient differences between many of the PPC ports > and the X86 ports that if you need specific experience on one, use the > real thing. The reason that I'm planning to use linux on my G4 is simple: I have one that I used to use for business. That, too, is why I looked for a recommendation for flavor specifically from a listserv dedicated to linux on the G3/4 systems (FAQs/help for my specific machine have been all but absent from my websearches). I'd prefer to experiment with what I have, (since I can find a distro that will run on it), than to buy a whole new rig that I don't have space for just to learn a new OS. > (and if you haven't used any why do you want to avoid RH and 'other, > more commercial distros'? Which, iirc, don't have a PPC distro anyway, > though you might find a version of Fedora) That's exactly what I was hoping to find out: which of them had a distro for my rig, and which one(s) were recommended by other G4 users. I suppose that your reply, and the reply from Mike which recommends YDL, gave me the answers I needed. The reason I'd prefer to avoid RH and the other commercial distributions is that, as I wrote earlier, I'm interested in linux for ideological reasons as much as any. Still I would use a more commercial distro if that's best on my machine (I can always switch later). Thus, just to get my feet wet, I'm planning on DLing the YDL and Debian ISOs and am currently trying to figure out how to burn them in the correct format. If I can't figure it out (as the FAQs I've found aren't providing the info I need so far, e.g. decribing Toast options that I can't find on my Toast 5.0), I may post on it later. Hope that answers your questions, and thanks for the advice (from both of you). My best, -Jon on 6/22/04 4:06 PM, Bruce Johnson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > On Jun 22, 2004, at 2:06 PM, jon salenger wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I'm a brand-newbie who is looking to install linux on my 867 mHz >> quicksilver. Haven't even chosen a distribution yet. I'd like to avoid >> RedHat and other, more commercial, distributions, but I'm not sure >> which >> flavor to use, since I've never actually used any of them. >> >> I don't mind a learning curve if I'm able to find out what I need >> online/at >> the library. >> >> Any recommendations? > > OS X ? ;-) > > Seriously, it's a way better Unix than any Linux, imnsho. If you need a > particular flavor of Linux to work something on get Virtual PC and run > it there; there's sufficient differences between many of the PPC ports > and the X86 ports that if you need specific experience on one, use the > real thing. > > There's also Darwin, which is the unix core of OS X, free from Apple. > > FreeBSD has a PPC port. > > IIRC Debian has a PPC distro, possibly SUSE too. > > (and if you haven't used any why do you want to avoid RH and 'other, > more commercial distros'? Which, iirc, don't have a PPC distro anyway, > though you might find a version of Fedora) > > -- > Bruce Johnson > University of Arizona > College of Phar macy > Information Technology Group > > Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs > -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
