zazen's reply just reminded me about this topic... > Is it even POSSIBLE to run linux on the Starmax?
StarMaxes (and all other PCI Macs) can run Debian, Gentoo, Linux-Mandrake, SuSE, Yellow Dog and others - see <http://penguinppc.org/> for links and information. > Do any of you have a working distribution on your Motorolas? I think others here do; I have Yellow Dog 2.0 installed, and previously had Debian installed. I only ditched Debian because it kept freezing the Mac in X; when the same thing happened with Yellow Dog, I enquired in IRC and discovered that the cause was incompatibility between the 2.2 kernel and the ATI Mach64VT video chip in my 4000/200. You will most likely need the 2.4 kernel, as I did, although I'm sure all distros come with that as standard now anyhow, or better. I only had 64 Mb RAM in this machine before, and that was insufficient for KDE 2 (excessive thrashing), but otherwise it worked fine. Nevertheless, I ceased using it. When I upped my RAM to 144 Mb recently, Mac OS (bless it, it is a truly wonderful OS) was happy with that, but Linux's X performance dropped such that the X GUI is really lagged out with no obvious cause, and I again abandoned it. Otherwise, yes, it is running. > If so, please tell me the details of getting it, installing it, > and de-bugging it. The easiest way to install it is to download the ISOs for the installer CDs (offered by most distros, except SuSE it seems), burn them, and use them. You can purchase CDs from the differnt distros instead if your Internet connection is too slow or if you have no CD burner. Old World Macs (beige, basically), cannot boot from the Linux CD to install it, so you will need to make a boot floppy or two with Disk Copy (though I think Yellow Dog had an alternative involving booting off some Linux disc image, ask me and I'll look into it (my memory is not very good)). Depending on the distro, you can reformat the hard disc to contain Linux partitions before, or during, the installation - Debian ships a partitioning tool which I played with, but when I put Yellow Dog on, I used Apple's Drive Setup. I think - this part of my memory is badly inconsistent and makes no sense. Dual booting Mac OS/Linux can either be done Open Firmware (requires your Linux root partition comes first on the hard disc, else you have to do evil things I never tried), or with the Mac OS BootX system, comprising of an extension (to offer an OS selector dialog early into the Mac OS boot sequence), and an application (to allow you to reboot into Linux while inside Mac OS). I now use the latter method to avoid the evil I mentioned (my partitions were in the wrong order). (An aside: Yaboot, as currently listed on penguinppc.org, is only for New World (candy etc) Macs, which can also boot straight off a Linux CD). As for debugging it - I cannot help there. The 2.2 and 2.4 kernels offered no proper access to HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) partitions, and thus I have no access to my work, MP3s, anything. When in Linux, I was stranded without my favourite applications, files, music, and even Internet access when I first updated the kernel to 2.4, and I never really saw any advantage to using it. Sure, Linux can be great fun, but Mac OS doesn't crash that much! Thus, I never really learnt what I was doing, leaning on help from IRC and knowledge of a few UNIX commands I picked up from university to get along. If you know IRC, another good place to try is #linuxppc on irc.openprojects.net, if it's still there, which is where I went. Linux is an OS which, to me, seems to be where you have to know how to use it in order to learn how to use it, a catch-22 - it's a deliciously geeky OS, but Mac OS just gets the job done :) Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that, if access to HFS+ is now available, or you are prepared to keep your Mac OS and files on an HFS partition, an application called Mac-on-Linux (MOL) allows you to run Mac OS in a window inside Linux. You could go into Photoshop or any other non-Linux app while in Linux, work on files in Mac OS, etc. Finally, all distros' CDs come with heaps of software and several desktop/window managers, so for starters you should have all the software you need. If you decide you need something extra/better, unless you can find PPC source or binaries, you will need to recompile a program written for Linux on x86 for PPC. This might be perfectly straightforward, but might involve tracking down various dependency code and libraries and dealing with endianness issues. - Daniel. -- StarMax is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... / Buy books, CDs, videos, and more from Amazon.com \ / <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/lowendmac> \ Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> StarMax list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/starmax.html> Send list messages to: <mailto:starmax@;mail.maclaunch.com> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:starmax-off@;mail.maclaunch.com> For digest mode, email: <mailto:starmax-digest@;mail.maclaunch.com> Subscription questions: <mailto:listmom@;lowendmac.com> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/starmax%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Macintosh? Get free email and more at Applelinks! <http://www.applelinks.com>
