[wplug] Linux on Mac questions

[Jonathan S Billings]

On Tue, 2004-02-24 at 11:12, Robert E. Coutch wrote:
> Just a couple of quick questions about running Linux on the Mac.
> 
> 1 - Is anyone doing this?

I've installed linux on some old-world macs, never on the newer
hardware.

> 2 - If so, how does it compare to the PC in terms of hardware support, updates 
> and such?

They work fairly well, since the mac has a smaller subset of hardware to
support, that makes life easier.  Of course, I am still talking about
the older macs, but I prefer linux over macos for some of my wimpy
100mhz macs.

> 3 - Some distro's offer install iso's.  Do these allow for leaving OS-X in 
> place and adding Linux or do they attempt to overwrite Mac OS.

They're pretty much like linux distros -- they don't provide much for
repartitioning, just for writing and deleting partitions.

> 4 - Are hard disks partitioned on the Mac similar to the PC?

No.  The mac partitioning information is different, you don't have the 4
primary partition silliness you find on PCs.  You'll find that programs
like 'fdisk' are going to be quite different.

> 5 - Have you tried Mac on Linux and if so, how well does it work?

The newer macs can boot linux directly from the open firmware, but the
older ones have to use a MacOS extension like BootX.  

> Just toying with the thought of getting a Mac but not sure.
> 
> 
> Thanks for any info,
> 
> Bob
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-- 
Jonathan S Billings <billings at negate.org>