----------  Original message  ----------
Subject: Re: Goodbye Power Macs! Or: Linux on Power Macs
Date:    Dienstag 06 Juli 2010N
From:    Doug McNutt <[email protected]>
To:      [email protected]

> Before you go too far.  A couple of questions about Linux on MY 64 Sawtooth

What is a 64 Sawtooth? Or do you meen you've 64 (pieces of) Sawtooth_s_?

> I'm now using Ubuntu on an Intel, but not Apple, box  with a pair of Nvidia
> flat screens that work like a Mac only because of proprietary drivers from
> Nvidia.

Currently they are developing nouveau – an open source accelerated driver for 
nVidia cards. But it's still experimental and unstable. May eventually also 
run on Macs, but I haven't had any luck so far: tried to compile it on a Mac 
G4 –which worked– but X11 wouldn't start. But I didn't try hard.

> My G4 runs OS neXt with four monitors two of which are still
> CRTs.  How can I work with lots of monitors under Linux? Xinerama is
> either a POS or I haven't figured it out yet.

Try xrandr and a modern desktop like Gnome or KDE. They should support this 
out-of-the-box.

Just a quick search – Google found this:
http://maketecheasier.com/how-to-setup-dual-monitors-with-xrandr/2009/06/01

There are propably a dozen more possible ways to accomplish this.

> I use all those monitors for CAD software, Vectorworks 12.5 on my G4 and I
> can't afford to keep it updated but it runs on Macs and peecees but not
> under any kind of Linux or UNIX. If I put Linux on my G4 I doubt that I
> will be able to use all of the screen space. I certainly can't if I use
> X-11 to log in to my existing Linux box.

Do I get this right: you use the Mac only as an X11 client? This CAD software 
is running on a different machine?

If so, this *could* be more complicated, but since I've never tried this, I 
really don't know. Could be easy as well.

> Are there any open source options for decent computer aided design -
> circuit boards, electronic schematics, and some machine drawings -
> available for Linux? I keep looking and even compiling but I haven't found
> anything I can afford.  Yeah. . there are things like Pro-Engineer which
> are way out of my price range.

CAD and anything alike is not my kind of expertise. I only have programs for 
Linux which are 1) open source (to be able to run on various platfroms: x86, 
amd64, ppc, ppc64, armv5, …) and 2) which is –as a natural concequence– free 
(in the sence of not costing any money).

Sorry I can't be more help.
Andreas  aka  Mac User #330250

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