MacOS 9, OS X And Linux On An iBook? 16
zoltanse asks: "As I am changing jobs, I have to return my company notebook, so it is time again to think about new hardware. Given the recent hype around OS X I am considering buying an iBook to give it a try. More important of course is my day-to-day productivity, so being able to run Linux is important, too. Does anyone have experience with this kind of setup? What are the pitfalls of running MacOS 9, OS X and Linux side by side on well equipped hardware? Is it possible at all, practical, or painful? What about the supported add-on hardware, like wireless LAN?"
powerbook (Score:3)
If you use it a lot, its really worth it.
Avoid the most recent models (Score:5)
As for running GNU/Linux, OSX and OS9, this is quite possible, you just need to think ahead when partitioning, `newworld' Apple hardware needs a small 800K "Apple_Bootstrap" partition to hold the yaboot bootloader. see my partitioning doc at http://penguinppc.org/usr/ybin/doc/ [penguinppc.org] ; ; ; along with the yaboot-faq. my bootloader installer (ybin [penguinppc.org]) also lets you create a boot menu for the 3 OSes.
For newwer (G4 era) Apple hardware the best kernel source tree to use would be Ben's: http://ppclinux.apple.com/~benh/ [apple.com]
I recommend the Debian [debian.org] distribution for powerpc hardware, in my experience its the most complete and stable.
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Ethan
Re:powerbook (Score:1)
Consider VPC (Score:3)
One of the advantages I appreciate about it is the ability to keep my Mac environment while popping in & out of others at need, no reboots required. At various times I've had RedHat & Mandrake installed, Netware, Win9x, and several NTs. Double-click - I'm running NT. Double-click - I'm in Netware. Double-click - hey it's Linux! Click - I'm back to my MacOS which never stopped running. No messy partitions, no boot managers, no shut-down-everything-then-reboot-into-whatever.
Moving from hardware to hardware is simply a matter of reinstalling VPC then copying the settings & disk image. I keep a small hub on my desk so I can drag these images between my desktop & laptop without burdoning the office LAN (routinely copying a 1 GB file on shared media isn't really a nice thing to do to one's office-mates)
Tips for running VPC: Memory and disk space, you can't have too much of either. A stock iBook would be crowded with VPC, really consider bumping up whatever you get as much as reasonably possible.
The hackers highjacked grammar nazi's account! (Score:2)
Although the iBooks are nice looking computers that do have a good purpose, they do not have as much utility as a Powerbook.
Also, he would have said "...there are no Svideo...".
Re:powerbook (Score:2)
Even the base PowerBook comes with a 1MB L2 cache, and it makes a noticeable difference. The bus runs at 100MHz versus 66MHz on the iBook. The extra screen real estate (1024x768) is also something you'd miss.
I'd suggest the base 400MHz PB upgraded to 128MB or more.
Re:powerbook (Score:1)
Anyway, to the point, the 256k Level 2 cache on the iBook is significantly better than the 1MB L2 cache on the Powerbooks for this reason: The L2 cache on the iBook is placed on the CPU and runs at the same clock speed as the CPU, while the Powerbook has an external L2 cache that runs at like 1/2 or 3/5 the clock speed of the CPU...There's a quick, unscientific result at Xlr8yourmac.com [xlr8yourmac.com]
Even though the iBook is faster than the Powerbook, I agree that the other features the Powerbook offers (PC Card Slots, Better Screen, etc) are much better than what the iBook offers a professional and thus would be idea for this consumer...
Re:powerbook (Score:1)
Re:Avoid the most recent models (Score:1)
The nice thing about OS X and OS 9 is that they can share a partition. So you really only need to worry about setting up Linux and MacOS to dual-boot, which is a common setup. Then, from within MacOS, you choose whether you want to boot OS 9 or OS X. I have a friend who does this, and it seems to work pretty well.
And yes, the Airport is supported under Linux, and presumably under OS X as well. What I'd really like to see is support for OS X under Mac-On-Linux. Then I could run Linux, with MacOS X on a virtual desktop, running OS 9 applications. ;)
Re:powerbook (Score:1)
The new iBooks have composite out, but not s-video. They also have Firewire, so they've got the bandwidth for TV output, digitally, but nothing cost effective would let you take advantage of that.
Re:Avoid the most recent models (Score:1)
PS There is no support for Airport in OS X at this time. Read the release notes. Neither is there support for Firewire.
Re:Avoid the most recent models (Score:1)
That is true, well i suppose you could but it would involve getting the OS9 system folder reblessed (a pain) which renders OSX unbootable...
The other problem is if you have separate partitions but use HFS+ for OSX, once you boot OS9 it mounts your OSX partition and sees its not really MacOS and deblesses it! making OSX unbootable.
Your much better off using UFS for OSX on a seperate partition.
And to the previous poster about dual booting, look at ybin [penguinppc.org] it makes tri booting MUCH simpler then that, no fscking with boot variables and control panels, just reboot and choose your OS from the boot menu.
--
Ethan
Mac OSL (Score:1)
LINUS [mikegallay.com]
Re:Avoid the most recent models (Score:1)
<P>
This isn't true for me. My Mac OS partition is HFS+ and I've booted into OS 9 several times. The Mac OS X partition is mounted. I can go in, look around, then boot back into OS X with no problems.
Re:Avoid the most recent models (Score:1)
> boot OS9 it mounts your OSX partition and sees its not really MacOS and deblesses it! making
> OSX unbootable.
To boot back into OS X from OS 9, you have to use the System Disk 3.3 that they included with OS X. It's in the OS X partition under the Mac OS 9 folder. Run that and you'll be fine. If you had some other kind of issue, you may try running Classic from OS X to set up OS 9 with the new extensions.
As far as I can tell, you're fine with HFS+ for your OS X partition, save case insensitivity if you care about that sort of thing.
Regarding the original question, you can do this on most machines. As another poster mentioned, you may have some issues with brand new machines and Linux. You'll have to make 4 partitions, MacOS 9, X, Linux and Linux Swap partitions. Then use BootX from OS 9 when you want to run Linux, SystemDisk 3.3 from OS 9 to run OS X.
Frankly, if you're looking for Linux, why install OS X at all on this machine? Just install OS 9 and Linux. If you're looking for any decent UNIX, then just install Mac OS X, I think you'll find most UNIX packages have been ported (except that nasty X-Windows stuff
Hope this helps, Chris, posting from MacOS X
Re:Avoid the most recent models (Score:1)
NO! don't use BootX on newworld machines it does *NOT* work. you must use yaboot instead.