Mac-optimized Linux Distro - Page 3

Wildy · Feb 23, 2013, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PowerPCMacMan

And what is your opinion on FreeBSD? I would think BSD flavors of UNIX would be similar in design and use compared to Darwin.

FreeBSD is really nice - OSX is actually using a FreeBSD userspace. I actualy prefer FreeBSD to various Linux distros because I feel the design is much more logical and there isn't a ton of custom/non-conventional abstraction layers sitting on top. The downside is that desktop hardware support is nowhere near as good as Linux - but as a server OS it is wonderful. I am using FreeBSD as the base for a little project of mine and find it incredibly easy to work with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ihuman:D

What about Chromium OS? It's an open-sourced version of Chrome OS. Chrome OS can run on ARM well but it can run on traditional PCs well too. And it being open-source we could configure it to be more desktop friendly than netbook friendly and be based more on your machine than on the web. It's supposed to be lightweight enough aswell.

Chromium OS is all based atop the Chromium browser which, alas, will not run on PowerPC (and it's unlikely we'll see it running any time soon). The reason being the V8 JavaScript engine contains an awful lot of x86 optimizations to make it faster, which makes the task of porting it to PowerPC a lot more difficult.

ihuman:D · Feb 23, 2013, 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wildy

FreeBSD is really nice - OSX is actually using a FreeBSD userspace. I actualy prefer FreeBSD to various Linux distros because I feel the design is much more logical and there isn't a ton of custom/non-conventional abstraction layers sitting on top. The downside is that desktop hardware support is nowhere near as good as Linux - but as a server OS it is wonderful. I am using FreeBSD as the base for a little project of mine and find it incredibly easy to work with.

Chromium OS is all based atop the Chromium browser which, alas, will not run on PowerPC (and it's unlikely we'll see it running any time soon). The reason being the V8 JavaScript engine contains an awful lot of x86 optimizations to make it faster, which makes the task of porting it to PowerPC a lot more difficult.

Oh yeah... I forgot about that. I wonder what it uses on ARM then?

Wildy · Feb 23, 2013, 06:37 AM

Oh neat, I missed that part. I imagine it shares a lot of code with their Android port of Chrome.

pcfast · Mar 22, 2013, 10:37 PM

From what I can tell reading this the 3 best Linux distro for PPC Macs are:

Lubuntu
FreeBSD
MintPPC

It seems to me Lubuntu and MintPPC are much more user-friendly distros though.

PowerPCMacMan · 04:01 AM

I like FreeBSD the best as its similar to Darwin and BSD Unix is as close as you will get to true UNIX. Linux, while nice is a dialect and or different form of Unix that is plain weird to me.. I always would run BSD on my PC's back in the day. I give Linus Torvalds credit though.

Linux is good, but BSD is better. My only concern is how do I control the fans on my PowerMac G5 Quad and also prevent the processors from overheating when using FreeBSD and or Linux? Mac OS X Leopard has code in it to prevent the fans from revving up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pcfast

From what I can tell reading this the 3 best Linux distro for PPC Macs are:

Lubuntu
FreeBSD
MintPPC

It seems to me Lubuntu and MintPPC are much more user-friendly distros though.

MisterKeeks · Mar 23, 2013, 10:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PowerPCMacMan

I like FreeBSD the best as its similar to Darwin and BSD Unix is as close as you will get to true UNIX. Linux, while nice is a dialect and or different form of Unix that is plain weird to me.. I always would run BSD on my PC's back in the day. I give Linus Torvalds credit though.

Linux is good, but BSD is better. My only concern is how do I control the fans on my PowerMac G5 Quad and also prevent the processors from overheating when using FreeBSD and or Linux? Mac OS X Leopard has code in it to prevent the fans from revving up.

Is there an issue with the fans?

Since the Darwin kernel is open source, I believe that someone has put the information needed into FreeBSD.

PowerPCMacMan · Mar 23, 2013, 12:04 PM

Yeah, there is no fan control when I am in FreeBSD.. The fans rev up to max. Is there a way to silence them with a patched kernel in freebsd?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterKeeks

Is there an issue with the fans?

Since the Darwin kernel is open source, I believe that someone has put the information needed into FreeBSD.

theos911 · Mar 24, 2013, 02:06 PM

Go for it! The PPC world needs more people going, doing, porting, and coding.

crewkid89 · Mar 26, 2013, 09:27 PM

I know Zen can be a bit of a touchy subject around here, but his blog has some great information about Lubuntu and making it work on PowerPC Macs. The Ubuntu docs for 12.04 and 12.10 are also pretty good.

Back to the original idea of the thread, I would be thrilled to have a Crunchbang port for PowerPC. We have gotten left out on the light distros. Yellowdog for Mac is long gone and most of the other lightweight distros are x86 or ARM only. We need a good *box distro like Crunchbang. I am not nearly enough of a Unix Guru to be porting much stuff myself, but I would be happy to help with testing and poking around with config files if anyone has a need for some help.

ihuman:D · Mar 27, 2013, 08:12 AM

Lubuntu is very lightweigh(LXDE and OpenBox), has the support and isn't too difficult to use.

Mar 22, 2013, 10:37 PM	#54
pcfast macrumors newbie Join Date: Mar 2013	Lubuntu, FreeBSD, MintPPC From what I can tell reading this the 3 best Linux distro for PPC Macs are: Lubuntu FreeBSD MintPPC It seems to me Lubuntu and MintPPC are much more user-friendly distros though.
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Mar 27, 2013, 08:12 AM	#60
ihuman:D macrumors 6502a Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: Ireland	Lubuntu is very lightweigh(LXDE and OpenBox), has the support and isn't too difficult to use. __________________ !WHAT IF WE'RE SIMS AND WE'RE THE ONES BEING PLAYED! iMac G4 17'' 1.25GHz, PowerBook G4 15'' Hi-Res Mac Maniac - My Blog/Website - Made in iWeb on a PowerBook G4
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Feb 23, 2013, 06:37 AM	#53
Wildy Thread Starter macrumors regular Join Date: Jan 2011	Oh neat, I missed that part. I imagine it shares a lot of code with their Android port of Chrome.
	0

Mar 24, 2013, 02:06 PM	#58
theos911 macrumors newbie Join Date: Mar 2013	Go for it! The PPC world needs more people going, doing, porting, and coding.
	0

Mar 26, 2013, 09:27 PM	#59
crewkid89 macrumors regular Join Date: Jun 2011	I know Zen can be a bit of a touchy subject around here, but his blog has some great information about Lubuntu and making it work on PowerPC Macs. The Ubuntu docs for 12.04 and 12.10 are also pretty good. Back to the original idea of the thread, I would be thrilled to have a Crunchbang port for PowerPC. We have gotten left out on the light distros. Yellowdog for Mac is long gone and most of the other lightweight distros are x86 or ARM only. We need a good *box distro like Crunchbang. I am not nearly enough of a Unix Guru to be porting much stuff myself, but I would be happy to help with testing and poking around with config files if anyone has a need for some help.
	0