Best Linux For Macs?

Well, I now love Linux enough to install it on my mac with dual boot.

Can you tell me what is the best Linux? My main priority is the size of the installer. I want something small (1 cd ideally, 2 cd's at the most). I'm considering YellowDog, because its the most famous, but I just wanted to hear others' opinions before I finally settled for it.

Also, that distribution should have plenty of programs available. I know there are many Linux distributions for Macs, but I want to go for one which is developed the most.

Right now, I'm considering SuSe and YellowDog..

#44597

Why not Mandrake? You're already used to it. And Mandrake has ZeroConf (what macs call Rendevous), so two mandrake machines can network instantly.

But honestly, unless you go for something more hardcore (Debian), any of those distros would be fine.

I would suggest YellowDog over Suse,because YellowDog has a version of APT available, and a nice repository over at freshrpms.net , so you can get a lot of software.

#44626

Also, is there ANY way to install Linux (using the 'install on free space' or somthing) without having to reformat?

I've reformatted 5 or 6 times this month. Mostly because of Fink.

#44628

Well, there was that one OS9 utility I showed you. It cost $24, that wasnt that bad (considering partition magic is $80).

But besides that, you have to reinstall. Sorry. :shy:

#44630

Originally posted by contrasutra@Aug 3 2003, 02:28 PM
Well, there was that one OS9 utility I showed you. It cost $24, that wasnt that bad (considering partition magic is $80).
But besides that, you have to reinstall. Sorry. :shy:

but wasnt the 'install without reformat' a free utility that comes in the Linux install CD?

#44633

your hard drive has to be a FAT partition for Linux to install without reformatting the hard drive. I would reccomend suse linux 8.2 personal. I have it installed as a second OS (dual boot) and it is the best operating system I have ever used. I have XP so I couldnt help you much with installation on a mac.

#44634

Actually, Mandrake has a non destructive NTFS Partitioner.

The problem taha, is that Linux cant live on an OSX (HFS+) partition. They need a linux one. So for that to work, they'd have to be able to non destructively resize the OSX partition. This is extrememly complicated, and it took people 4+ years to be able to do it with NTFS.

So when you isntalled OSX for the 10th time you should have listened to me and left some unpartitioned space for Linux.

#44638

can we install any linux distro on a mac?

or there are some of them able to work with the PowerPC Arquitecture?

#44639

Yeah, you have to get a version specifically for PPC.

Ones I know of:

Mandrake

Suse

Debian

Redhat

Slackware.

#44641

I guess I'll just wait till my next reformat.. <_<

edit: is it possible to do it using pdisk?

#44645

whats pdisk?

#44649

Oh.. I guess its just for Darwin.. anyway, here's the man entry:

PDISK(8) System Manager's Manual PDISK(8)

NAME
pdisk - Apple partition table editor

SYNOPSIS
pdisk [-h | --help] [-v | --version] [-l | --list] [[name ...]]

pdisk [r | -readonly] device ...

DESCRIPTION
pdisk is a menu driven program which partitions disks using the standard
Apple disk partitioning scheme described in "Inside Macintosh: Devices".
It does not support the intel/dos partitioning scheme supported by fdisk.
device is of the following form:
/dev/disk0s
/dev/disk0s1
etc.

OPTIONS
-v | --version
Prints version number of the pdisk program.

-h | --help
Prints a rather lame set of help messages for the pdisk program.

-l | --list
If no names are present then lists the partition tables for
/dev/disk0s, /dev/disk0s1, /dev/disk0s2, and so on. Otherwise,
lists the partition tables for the specified names.

-r | --readonly
Prevents pdisk from writing to the device.

Editing Partition Tables
An argument which is simply the name of a device indicates that pdisk
should edit the partition table of that device.

The current top level editing commands are:
h command help
p print the partition table
P (print ordered by base address)
i initialize partition map
s change size of partition map
w write the partition table
q quit without saving changes

Commands which take arguments prompt for each argument in turn. You can
also type any number of the arguments separated by spaces and those
prompts will be skipped. The only exception to typeahead are the confir-
mation prompts on the i and w commands. The idea being that if we expect
you to confirm the decision we shouldn't undermine that by allowing you
to be precipitate about it.

Partitions are always specified by their number, which the index of the
partition entry in the partition map. Most of the commands will change
the index numbers of all partitions after the affected partition. You
are advised to print the table as frequently as necessary.

Creating more than fifteen partitions is not advised. There is currently
a bug in the some (all?) of the kernels which causes access to the whole
disk fail if more than fifteen partitions are in the map.

The c (create new partition) command is the only one with complicated
arguments. The first argument is the base address (in blocks) of the
partition. Besides a raw number, you can also specify a partition number
followed by the letter 'p' to indicate that the first block of the new
partition should be the same as the first block of that existing free
space partition. The second argument is the length of the partition in
blocks. This can be a raw number or can be a partition number followed
by the letter 'p' to use the size of that partition or can be a number
followed by 'k', 'm', or 'g' to indicate the size in kilobytes,
megabytes, or gigabytes respectively. (These are powers of 1024, of
course, not powers of 1000.) The last argument is the name of the parti-
tion. This can be a single word without quotes, or a string surrounded
by single or double quotes.

The C command is identical to the c command, with the addition of a par-
tition type argument after the other arguments.

The r (reorder) command allows the index number of partitions to be
changed. The index numbers are constrained to be a contiguous sequence.

The i (initialize) command prompts for the size of the device. This was
done to get around a bug in the kernel where it reports the wrong size
for the device.

The w (write) command does write the partition map out.

BUGS
pdisk should be able to create HFS partitions that work.

Even more help should be available during user input.

Darwin March 24, 2001 Darwin

#44650

I use Debian GNU Linux for pc, they should have one for PPC. I suggest if your not too familiar with linux to stick with Redhat or its varients like mandrake. They equally do the job well, but debian is geared more twords security and development. I love it cause I have a choice for stable (non beta packages), testing (packages in the last beta stage before stable) and unstable (which is just the newest packages that havent been fully tested).

#44653

Originally posted by contrasutra@Aug 3 2003, 01:14 PM
Yeah, you have to get a version specifically for PPC.

Ones I know of:

Mandrake

Suse

Debian

Redhat

Slackware.

Don't forget Yellowdog!

#44654

Yellowdog is a modified version of Redhat, thats what I meant.

Taha:

Pdisk just changes the partition map, not any of the data in the partitions. Whats this mean? That you could resize your partitions, but any data would be transfered to the new partition, so if you move some critical data, your system goes splat.

Now, if you defrag your drive, that will move all your data to the front of your drive, leaving just empty space at the end,allowing you to chop it off.

Just be sure not to take off too much.

#44657

now you got me interested

So basically, I defragment (which I do, and literally the defrag image shows the file 'blob' at the top with empty space at the bottom) and with the empty space, I can create a new partition?

Also, I still have like 14GB free, and I intend to allow Linux 5GB max, so I'm sure I won't chop off 'too much'..

edit: What about fdisk?

#44660

nevermind, cant do it.

I guess you'll have to reformat .

This is why I always leave 5GB of free space whenever I install something, because you never know

#44667

You could give Gentoo a try. You can run it right from the cd to see if you actually like it first and if you do you can install it. I tried it on my Mac and it actually runs really good.

#44668

He has linux, just not on his mac. Don't worry, we've already convinced him to join our cult of commies.

And dont get me started on Gentoo.

#44676

whats wrong with Gentoo?

And it seems its a one-CD OS, which is ideal for me !

edit: why are there sooo many files for Gentoo? Which one should I download just to test it? (run it off the CD?)

#44679

k.. I've downloaded the Gentoo 'livecd' thing, and I was wondering, is it possible to burn it on a CD-RW? Will it work?

#44698

I suppose it'll work, it's the same format, the only difference is that you can rewrite it

#44710

does anyone know how to clear a CD-RW? Its not being recognized for some reason, and I can't delete the files on it..

#44719

Why dont I like Gentoo? Because its got an overly complicated Install, it makes you compile EVERYTHING by hand, and the community is too l33t for me.

I can do everything with Arch that Gentoo can, but faster, better, and easier.

And Ive installed and ran Gentoo, so its not that im not capable of doing it.

Yes, you can burn it on a CDRW, just be sure to finalize the CD. And for erasing it. You need to get a program. Sorry, I dont know any for the mac, but if you have FINK working, they may have "cdrecord", a great cd burning program for the command line.

#44729

actually I got a cd-rw eraser utility. Its actually a port. Man, I love open-source!

It worked great. (Y)

and now to burn and run.

@Contra: oh come on now, you're the guru of Linuces! How can it be difficult for you? :lol:

Anyway, I read about the livecd thing around the internet and I don't think its gonna be too bad. And if I don't like it, I wont install it!

#44735