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Best Linux for a 12" PowerBook?
- Thread starter 0098386
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I would try Yellowdog or Ubuntu for starters...
Yellowdog is a PPC only flavor of linux (so it supports mainly Macs and IBM servers) that is based on RedHat, they just released v.4.1 which has tons of support for powerbooks (my backlit keys even work standard!) Also, it has great sounds support which is nice. And it has a nice easy GUI install (this is the linux that I am using)
The current stable build of Ubuntu 5.10 is not ready for PBs at the moment but 6.0X (Dapper Drake (unstable)) is pretty good. Ubuntu is an awesome OS but because they are mainly x86 there is not AS MUCH pressure to fix all the little things that don't work on apple harware (for example).
I should let you know that with all linux flavors you will not have Airport out of the box because the makers of the airport drivers will not release them to the open source community . They are trying to reverse engineer them with some success but you will have to get pretty familiar with linux to get it up and running. Hope this helps... if you have any questions post them here and I am sure that you will get some help!
Yellowdog is a PPC only flavor of linux (so it supports mainly Macs and IBM servers) that is based on RedHat, they just released v.4.1 which has tons of support for powerbooks (my backlit keys even work standard!) Also, it has great sounds support which is nice. And it has a nice easy GUI install (this is the linux that I am using)
The current stable build of Ubuntu 5.10 is not ready for PBs at the moment but 6.0X (Dapper Drake (unstable)) is pretty good. Ubuntu is an awesome OS but because they are mainly x86 there is not AS MUCH pressure to fix all the little things that don't work on apple harware (for example).
I should let you know that with all linux flavors you will not have Airport out of the box because the makers of the airport drivers will not release them to the open source community . They are trying to reverse engineer them with some success but you will have to get pretty familiar with linux to get it up and running. Hope this helps... if you have any questions post them here and I am sure that you will get some help!
Yeah I think that dual monitors are done with ease... I will have to try though because I never use dual monitors...
yeah dual monitors can be accessed throught the GUI (I assume that is what you mean by supported with relative ease 
)
)
Top banana! I'm downloading the 4 iso's now. I'm really considering using the Firewire rather than USB2 connection on my external HDD, using a wee 6gb partition I made ages back I could easily stick Linux there and use it as a dual boot.
... or is that not possible?
... or is that not possible?
I think that it is possible but I am not sure if you will find that firewire works to boot from. I only say that because I don't know... if you need help setting it up I will tell you everything that I know (not all that much )
Oh and 6 gigs should be plenty I think that I gave mine 8 or 9 but I have tons free. Oh and another thing... I am not sure if you can mount HFS+ partitons... sortta annoying but it is another thing that I am working on... if you find a way let me know...
)Oh and 6 gigs should be plenty I think that I gave mine 8 or 9 but I have tons free. Oh and another thing... I am not sure if you can mount HFS+ partitons... sortta annoying but it is another thing that I am working on... if you find a way let me know...
well all iso files were at about 75%, then Safari crashed. So i took a step back and just looked at what I was doing, and read some more about compatibility issues with my PB.
without HFS+ and Airport support I'm going to sit this one out. Without internet and access to my files then there's nothing there for me. which is a huge shame because I respect Linux. I've had few experiences in the past with it but I've always liked it.
without HFS+ and Airport support I'm going to sit this one out. Without internet and access to my files then there's nothing there for me. which is a huge shame because I respect Linux. I've had few experiences in the past with it but I've always liked it.
raggedjimmi said:
Actually, HFS(+) is supported. There's even tools that allow you to resize HFS partitions (with some work).
The Airport thing is harder though, and as far as I know support for it is pretty much experimental at the moment (eg, it's not very stable), and will require "some" tinkering. The "best" solution right now is to get a support USB wireless adapter.
Another problem is video support. NVIDIA does not release drivers for Linux on PPC, so you'd have to do with the Free 2D-only driver. iBook owners are in a better situation, since it use an older ATI which have full 2D *and* 3D support, which means that some nice things like Compiz/Xgl (fully OpenGL accelerated UI, with some eye candy) will work on the iBook, but not the Powerbook. Plus, I'm not sure if Suspend is working properly, if at all, on the Powerbook yet.
What are you running on the Gericom? Maybe you could put linux on there to get more familar with it. I use SuSe 9.1 and Slackware 10 currently on my two linux boxes but I have all kids of distro CDs around and I have tried Fedora Core, Red Hat and Slackware 9 aswell as several versions that boot from the CD and allow the users to run sniffer applications, monitor the network. PHLAK (Professional Hackers Linux Assault Kit) is my personal favorite for such things.
So I have a little experience in the area, if you need any help, don't hesitate to IM me on the boards, or get my email or Yahoo/AIM information from my profile.