[aclug-L] Re: iMac hell - not quite!

[John Reinke <jmreinke@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yes, iMacs are included in LinuxPPC (USB and all), and have been for a
while now. LinuxPPC is based on RedHat, but you can download it for free.
Yellow Dog is a commercial distribution, based on LinuxPPC, which also
includes different levels of support (and isn't a free download). They are
about the only distributions available for PowerPC systems. Debian has one,
but the last time I checked, they didn't have an installer or single
installation package. Most people who used the Debian distro started with
LinuxPPC, and then converted it to Debian. It has been a while since I
checked into the Debian distribution, so they may be further along by now,
but I haven't heard anything about it.

Apple has (had?) their own version, which uses a different sort of kernel,
called MkLinux. It will work on some of the older Macs that don't run
LinuxPPC, but I'm not sure if it is alive anymore or if it even supports
iMacs. Besides, it doesn't use the "real" Linux kernel. ;-)

With installing it on an iMac, you'll need to download BootX, an
application that runs in MacOS, and will reboot the system into Linux.
Starting with the iMacs, Apple started using something sorta like a ROM (or
BIOS) that is stored on the hard drive, and must load it every time it
boots. For those reasons, you'll need to keep a small partition that
contains MacOS.

If you are intending to download the whole thing, you can download it and
store it on the hard drive, as well as the BootX application, and the
installer. It uses a RAM-disk to boot into the X-based installer, which is
pretty easy to use.

Hopefully, that'll help. It's been a while since I've done this, so I can't
really help much more than that. Also, be sure to download the installation
guide PDF from the LinuxPPC site. It's about 60 pages, but I printed it
out, and that really helped a lot.

Helpful links:
http://www.linuxppc.com/ - main home
http://www.linuxppc.com/userguide/ - the userguide
http://www.linuxppc.org/mirrors/ - mirrors for download
http://lists.linuxppc.org/ - search the archives for more info

Good luck,
John

>Hello aclug-l,
>
>  Looking for suggestions on finding a copy of a linux distribution
>  that will function on an iMac, G3, 266. LinuxPPC covers quite a few
>  Power PCs but the iMacs are not included. Yellow Dog linux Champion
>  Server 1.1 will work but I can't find the damn thing for download,
>  only on cd. I really hate apples, but it's a good box and I've been
>  wanting to build a linux box for ages. Any help is appreciated.
>
>
>Best regards,
> Kurgan                          mailto:Kurgan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx