I use Linux all the time and I too wonder why you'd bother with trying to put it on a Mac. But! My two 32-bit favorites are Vector Linux and Zenwalk. The Age of Linux will never start because in spite of the many improvements and accomodations of the last few years, it still takes a lot of fancy dancing and voodoo to get it all to do what you want. Probably the least difficult to install and run is Vector, but... hey, you wanted flash and java? Well, sit there and figure out how to put them on your browser. Need more codecs for your player? Same story. I'm no expert but I've used fifteen different Linux distros for a month or more. And I tell non-geeky folk to just go buy an Apple. Pay the price, get the stability and service, and use the puter rather than trying to educate yourself!
On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 6:43 PM, Clark Martin <[email protected]> wrote: > On 2/15/10 12:26 AM, williamd wrote: > >> >> On 13 Feb 2010, at 23.12, Bruce Johnson wrote: >> >>> >>> Perhaps a better question to ask is *why* do you want to install these >>> OS'es? >>> >> >> More than anything it seemed like a good use for an imac that was just >> collecting dust. Besides that, I'd most like to check out various gui >> options such as gnome, kde, and others. Other than OS X I haven't looked >> at -nix in years. I'm interested to see if they are now more user >> friendly. Maybe I should just install Tiger and learn to change the >> desktop guis via command line in terminal? >> > > The various Linuxs may be more user friendly than they were but not more so > than OS X. I've been trying many of them out, Debian (ver 2,3,4, 5 and > "6"), Fedora (ver 9, 10 & 12), Yellow Dog (ver 3, 4 & 5), SUSE (ver 11) and > Ubuntu (ver 9). I've installed them on old world (where possible), new > world Macs and an AMD based system. Somewhere around 90-95% of the cases I > had to do some futzing to get system to boot, mostly tweaking the X11 > configuration. Coming up to a shell prompt or blank screen is definitely > NOT my idea of more friendly. Every time I hear someone suggest something > like "or just install Linux on it, it's simple" I'm glad I'm not drinking > something at the time as I'd have a thoroughly soaked computer to deal with. > I keep hearing about Linux being the wave of the future but it isn't going > to be until just getting a computer to boot properly is much easier. > > And if you were to ask why I'm doing all this, well, I don't think I can > remember why, banging my head on a post seems to have wiped out that memory. > > > -- > Clark Martin > Redwood City, CA, USA > Macintosh / Internet Consulting > > "I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway" > > -- > You received this message because you are a member of the iMac Group, a > group for those using Apple iMacs and eMacs. > The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette > guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To leave this group, send email to > [email protected]<imaclist%[email protected]> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist > -- You received this message because you are a member of the iMac Group, a group for those using Apple iMacs and eMacs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist
