Today, I decided to give Linux a try on my iBook. I’ve been wanting Linux on my iBook for a long time, but I’ve simply never had the time to do it. I ran the occasional PowerPC live CD, but live CD’s are far cries from the real, installed thing. A second showstopper was that suspend never really worked– and I cannot use my iBook without suspend. After trying out a new live CD yesterday, I found out that suspend on lid closure now worked mighty fine on Linux/PPC; hence, it was time to do the real thing. And oh how I was left surprised. Note: This is this week’s Sunday Eve Column.
The usual reaction to ‘Linux on the Mac’ is ‘Why Linux when you have OSX?’ Various reasons can be cited for wanting Linux on your Mac. The primary one if of course simple curiosity: probably the thing that first drove you to non-Windows operating systems in the first place. Secondly, one may not like OSX. Yes, don’t be flabbergasted, I know enough people who cannot stand OSX. Linux might be a good alternative for them. A third reason is that of Freedom: some people prefer Free software, but want a small, affordable 12.1″ laptop (flame all you want, people, but the 12″ iBook is anything but expensive, compared to x86 12″ laptops).
My personal reason is a mix of number 1 and number 2: I’m sometimes completely frustrated by OSX (for whatever reasons), and it would be nice to have an alternative hiding beneath the power button.
Yesterday, the Ubuntu Team released flight CD 5, the 5th test release en route to the Dapper Drake release, later this year. I couldn’t stop my curiosity, and as such downloaded the live CD for the PPC architecture. My last experience with Linux/PPC was not very good: I wanted to write an article about it earlier this year, about running Linux on a G5 iMac (the same iMac I reviewed early January), but a batch of bugs prevented me from running the Linux kernel on that revision of the iMac (at that time; it might be fixed by now; it was something related to the videocard).
However, this time it was completely different. The live CD booted fine, and loaded the GNOME desktop without a hitch. And to my utter surprise, almost everything worked out of the box. The power manager was correctly recognizing the power state (plugged/unplugged), including remaining battery life. Via the power settings, I enabled ‘suspend on lid closure’ (a dialog warned me that suspend might lead to data loss, since it doesn’t work on all configurations), and closed the lid of my iBook. The machine immediately blanked the screen, and the pulsating suspend light started, well, pulsating– as fast as in Mac OSX! Opening the lid almost immediately brought the GNOME desktop back to the screen (almost, because for a few seconds you see kernel output). Two things did not work immediately. Sound did not work, and neither did Airport. The latter was to be expected, the former should be fixed before the Dapper release goes final.
This pleasant experience made me think: should I install Linux on my iBook permanently? I regularly am away from my Linux computer (a normal desktop tower), and I don’t like that: I enjoy using Linux, and rather have it as an option available everywhere I take my iBook to. However, a big problem always comes up when wanting to install Linux on a Mac: resizing MacOS’s HFS+ partition. This is impossible to do without buying 3rd party partioning software.
Then I found this. A detailed and complete guide on how to resize HFS+ partitions using nothing but– GNU’s parted. The author found out that parted can resize HFS+ just fine– after you disable journaling via the shell. After sleeping on it for a night, I decided to do it. Backed everything up, followed the guide (resizing took an agonizing 15 minutes), installed Dapper Flight 5, and was again pleasantly surprised.
Everything worked. Sound worked, suspend worked, and, to my utter surprise, even the function keys on the iBook’s keyboard worked fine. Screen brightness, volume, and even the ‘eject’ key, they all worked (changing the volume with the function keys even used a nice OSX-like on-screen display). The Ubuntu team did two very smart things too to solve the single-button mouse and lack of a delete key problems. They mapped F11 and F12 to middle and rightclick respectively, and mapped fn+backspace to ‘delete’ (iBook keyboards lack a dedicated ‘delete’ key; OSX uses backspace as delete).
As expected, Airport did not work out of the box, but I haven’t had the time yet to configure it properly (I did find a good guide on it). I will do that as soon as possible– I’m awaiting major pains and CLI magic to get it up and running, but I’m so close now– I will get it working no matter what.
Besides many others, that leaves one burning question unanswered: did parted hose my OSX install and kill my bunnies? I’m happy to report that I do not have any bunnies for parted to kill, and that OSX booted fine, as if nothing ever happened.
In conclusion: the Ubuntu team have done excellent work in bringing the PowerPC version of their distribution on par with its more grown-up siblings. Many issues turned out to be non-issues, and basically all hardware is working fine, without any hitches. Even infamous things such as suspend seem to be working just fine. And with the ‘discovery’ that HFS+ can be resized fairly safely with parted, there are no reasons anymore why any Linux user should not be dual-booting between Linux and OSX.
–Thom Holwerda
Note: Neither OSNews nor the authors of the guides linked in this article should be held responsible for any damage the step outlined in this article might do to your Macintosh computer. In other words: it’s all at your own risk.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
Thom: The airport extreme works on Linux, just not super easily yet [1]. I was browsing OSNews earlier today on my friends ibook. Dapper is very nice provided you change the orange theme to Clearlooks. Very good article also btw.
[1] http://pinguin.uni-psych.gwdg.de/~ihrke/wiki/index.php/Installing_U…
Edited 2006-03-12 21:04
I think Macs are actually a pretty good bet for people who want to run Linux. Since there are only a few well-known configurations, they tend to be well-tested, and things are more likely to work without the surprises you can encounter on random PC configurations.
But the bitter reality is there are a lot of disadvantages with running Linux on PowerPC (that will of course change with the new x86-Apples):
There are much less binary packages than for x86 – you have to compile a lot (FreeNX for Ubuntu e.g.).
There are less backports than for x86 (at least with Ubuntu) => more compiling.
Some binary only software like win32codecs, Sun Java (there’s a IBM version though), Flashplayer etc. doesn’t exist for Linux on PPC. You can’t play WMV at all for example.
Documentation is not as excellent as for x86 (because there are less users who write it and correct errors).
Im playing with Kubuntu on a Mac Mini at the moment and it’s quite frustrating. No comparison to Kubuntu on my x86 PCs. Even the power management works better there.
But there’s one highlight: Linux feels so much faster than OSX (10.3) on my Mini (1,25 GHz, 1GB RAM), it’s just incredible. Especially for Firefox and Java applications the performance boost is huge.
I can agree, java on macosX sucks big time. It is really slow.
To bad when apple said that osX should be the best java platform.
“I think Macs are actually a pretty good bet for people who want to run Linux.”
You might think so, but in reality the Linux PowerPC community is tiny compared to x86, which means less support and less software. Having been there and done that, I would not recommend buying a Mac to anyone wanting to run Linux. If you already have a PowerPC Mac, Linux is a fun, free alternative to OS X with lots of great software, especially for developers, but if you want to get serious about Linux, get an x86.
I would not recommend buying a Mac to anyone wanting to run Linux. If you already have a PowerPC Mac, Linux is a fun, free alternative to OS X with lots of great software, especially for developers, but if you want to get serious about Linux, get an x86.
simply not true. if you want to buy a mac go ahead they are as good.
Sleep has actually been supported for a few months now. I dual boot Gentoo and OS X on my machine (I always grab the latest beta vanilla kernels and distributions don’t always use the latest kernel so you may not have known about it). Yea sound can be tricky to get working at first. Airport extreme is not supported but I have a prism2 usb wireless nic so I can use linux-wlan-ng. Thermal support for fans and every works nicely. Overall, linux on pre G5s works great! I’ve got the radeon 9200 in my iBook so accelerated 2D works but not 3D
Now as far as G5s go – no thermal support, no audio support, etc.
I’ve got the radeon 9200 in my iBook so accelerated 2D works but not 3D
Accelerated 3D works perfectly well on my iBook’s Radeon 9200 for more than a year now.
Edited 2006-03-12 22:33
Oh? I guess I just couldn’t find how when I last tried. Could you plesae point me to a link or explain how? THANKS
Sleep has actually been supported for a few months now. I dual boot Gentoo and OS X on my machine…
Same here. Sleep works great with Linux. Every bit as good as OSX. See video:
http://www.davidcourtney.org/Files/Linux-sleep_medium-%5BXvid].avi
Gentoo and pbbuttonsd on my G3 iBook works so nice; it does all the things OSX would do on there. While OSX is a great OS, there’s many things lacking there that us extreme hobbyists and power users yearn for. For instance being able to throw any handheld media player in there and moving music to and from it. Or perhaps passive sniffing (true monitor mode) wireless. Or even a complete and comprehensive package manager (sorry apt/portage are way nicer than DarwinPorts). But there are days when the “moving target” nature of Linux get’s annoying.
Isn’t there an OSX tool that allows linux to run from the same partition in a virtual environment in OSX? Sometimes i like to test tools on linux but don’t want to reboot.
Maybe the latest version of Qemu (Q) runs decently when running PowerPC code on PowerPC machine?
Anyone got experience with this?
try Mac-on-Mac: http://maconmac.bastix.net/
It’s a os x port of the good Mac-On-Linux.
It’s not perfect, but works.
>No Reasons Not to Be Dual Booting Linux and OSX
Well, other than the fact that there are no devlopment tools included with OSX that is.
Apple supplies a good set of development tools; not only compilers (gcc, make, flex, bison, etc) but also a good quality IDE called XCODE. Also available for free download are kits for writing device drivers and so forth.
Some find XCODE to be excellent; others haven’t found it easy to get into – which is par for development environments.
Of course; they could charge hundred of dollars for such things – but they don’t. Apple have faults but this area ain’t one of them.
Editted to add:
(And yes the major dev tools do come on the OSX disks).
Edited 2006-03-12 21:53
Yes XCODE tools offer a very good IDE for free.
Other OS can benefit from dual booting (specially Linux) because you can develop on it using GNUstep (www.gnustep.org) Frameworks to “port” Cocoa apps.
Whether you choose to run Vista, Linux or any other major OS, multi-boot is a must have on x86 macs, and Apple knows that.
Please, in the future, know what you are talking about before posting. As other people have already pointed out, there *are* development tools in OS X, you just have to install them seperately, but they are included on CD/DVD!
I have one good reason not to use it on my ibook. No support for the airport extreme in the laptop.
You didn’t read this column, huh?
well, not to disappoint you, but airport extreme now works under linux (it’s still a bit tricky to setup, but works fine)
For “Mactel” users, another good reason to put a copy of Linux on your machine is because you can use VMWare running under Linux to get a copy of Windows running.
http://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/misc/vmware/
Given that the only other alternative at the moment is QEmu, it’s an interesting route to take.
Or, wait until VMware is released for OS X on X86.
use VMWare running under Linux to get a copy of Windows running.
http://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/misc/vmware/
Given that the only other alternative at the moment is QEmu, it’s an interesting route to take.
I have VirtualPC installed on my iBook and on my Mac Mini, and both run Windows just fine (though a little slow).
VirtualPC isn’t available for Intel, and Microsoft is being quite vague about when (or even if) it will be ported.
I haven’t the disk space. 9MB is barely enough for what’s on it now.
But, this was a great article. Once I have another Mac, I will probably put Linux on this one, precisely because of this article. Thanks 🙂
Hey guys, I’m posting this from my iBook running Linux—wireless is functioning. In other words, the airport drivers work. The only slight downside is that I had to *cough* disable WEP.
Luckily I live just south of nowhere…
Update: And it survived a suspend/recover cycle! Yay!
Edited 2006-03-12 22:34
Thom have you tried using 128 bit hex instead of wep?
Excellent article. Every day linux is improving to a point that the only reason someone should not be on it today is if they have a very specific application that they cannot otherwise run. Even then, vmware and similar software often solves the issue.
I believe that a dual OS X-Linux computer is much more useful and complete than a Windows-Linux dual-boot. I also think that you will eventually, in about 5-7 years, see Apple ship Linux pre-installed on their hardware. Apple cares about shipping hardware, lots of it, and once the Linux desktop reaches the Zen-like state for which it is heading, Apple would be foolish not to deliver their hardware to anyone who wants it.
Why would Apple need to ship Linux on their machines if a standard distro will install on Apple hardware out of the box?
Anyone who wants Linux on it could just get a distro and install it themselves.
Apple will nexer provide technical support for someone elses operating system. It does not make financial sense to do so.
“ the only reason someone should not be on it today is if they have a very specific application that they cannot otherwise run. ”
Or because they don’t want to. If I had an iBook, I’d prefer to stick to OSX. But it’s nice to know a LiveCD works so well if eneded.
I tried the same release as Thom, and screen brightness keys only work in the console, but not X. It also thought I was running off the battery the entire time, though I had the adapter plugged in.
Definitely nowhere close to usable in its current state. 🙂
I have to give credit where it is deserved and this article deserves good credit. It isn’t too deep but to the point. And was very informative. Thanks for Ilustrating how Mactels can be great with Linux.
I have to give credit where it is deserved and this article deserves good credit. It isn’t too deep but to the point. And was very informative. Thanks for Ilustrating how Mactels can be great with Linux.
I liked this article too, but FWIW, this isn’t about “Mactels” running Linux, it’s about an iBook which is a PowerPC machine (it has a G4 processor).
So far the Mac mini, the iMac and the PowerBook (now renamed MacBook Pro) have switched to Intel, but the iBook is still PPC only.
People like your article.
I like it too. I used to run YellowDog on my old mac. I enjoyed it. It is pretty cool that linux is keeping up with the Apple hardware and able to boot and run cleanly.
I am actually thinking how cool it will be when KDE 4 comes out… The desktop will rival the finish of Mac OS X for sure…
Has anyone tried pb g4 12″? It probably has different videocard. I am especially interested, if dual view works (having an independent external LCD), as I’m quite used to it. Does Apple’s external bluetooth keyboard work?
I’m really looking forward to get rid of OS X and get back to Linux, but I have had no time for playing and experimenting, since this notebook is my primary work computer.
…and I was amazed at how snappy it was compared to Mac OS X. And this was running it off the live CD! It made me wonder whether the G4 was that slow at all. Everything worked except for wireless. I didn’t try suspend because I usually have my iBook plugged in at all times.
I must say though that’d I’d never install Linux over Mac OS X. Firstly, there was no accelerated graphics so moving a window around was blurry. I found the other mouse keys being mapped to the function keys to be annoying. A better key map would be Ctrl+Click for the right button and Cmd+Click for the middle button.
Ubuntu’s really nice. I just find that Mac OS X’s much nicer
With XGL coming along, soon Linux and OSX will be equal in their graphics capability.. with Vista presumably taking last place.
Of course, this depends on the capabilities of the video card driver, and the video card itself.
“Of course, this depends on the capabilities of the video card driver, and the video card itself.”
Which is a thorn in Linux’s side: lack of 3rd party support
That’s what I’m writing this from. Previously it had OSX on it (horribly slow), and then OS9 (faster, but terrible in terms of memory management, stability, etc.) So finally I got to putting a copy of debian sarge on it, and it seemed alright. I didn’t think it would be able to handle anything too heavy, so I just kept fluxbox et al on it as window managers.
Anyhow, yesterday I decided to give KDE (3.3) on it for a whirl, to see how well this old machine could hold up with it. Wow… Sure, it’s not the equivalent of the latest greatest athlon or whatever, but it’s performance is actually quite tolerable. I don’t know if this is due to excellent PPC support in the linux kernel, debian devs doing a fine job, or that the PPC cpu arch is itself actually pretty good. Maybe a combination of all of the above.
So, for anyone with one of these possibly collecting dust in the closet, smack a copy of debian (or X distro that has full PPC support) and give it a try. You might be surprised at the extra life you can get out of it.
Anyhow, yesterday I decided to give KDE (3.3) on it for a whirl
If you can tolerate some small package fluctuations, try adding sid sources to your /etc/apt/sources.list and installing KDE 3.5.1. It should be slightly faster still.
Previously it had OSX on it (horribly slow)
Actually, I’m using a B/W running Tiger as my main desktop machine, and am pretty happy with it.
Pretty impressive for such an old 350mhz machine – though the fact that it has 448mb memory probably helps.
to the casual user mac os x should be enough like linux it’s virus free,stable and it can be commaned line driven and it’s also UNIX based.
I bought my iBook 12″ two years ago and started tinkering with linux the day after I bought it: http://malmostoso.altervista.org
After a bit of struggle with YDL I switched to Debian and never looked back. OSX occupies a small partition on my drive and Debian is my main OS (as on every other machine I use *ahem*).
A couple of side notes:
1) Mac-On-Linux, last time I checked did not support Tiger. That is, if you still run panther you’ll be able to “boot” it at native speed in linux: I generally launched it to use Office.Mac and it ran just fine. Tiger support should be near, but unfortunately MOL had a very slow development lately.
2) All that Thom said is perfectly valid for ATi based macs. Unfortunately nVidia based machines (i.e. PowerBooks G4) are not that well supported.
That said, they can have suspend-to-disk (first google link: http://www.ncc.up.pt/~rvr/kh/kh.html)
3) As someone stated, G5 macs are not 100% under control, especially in Power Management issues (i.e. fans on iMac G5).
4) MacMinis work apart from sound. There are some unofficial patches: http://groups.google.com/group/linux.kernel/browse_frm/thread/a3015…
5) Before people start asking: no, there is no Flash plugin support, nor win32 mplayer codecs. Java support is provided by IBM: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/eserver/library/l-pow-LoPJDKF…
If you use Opera you can have Java support in browser using this JVM, as there is no plugin provided. Opera uses the JVM libs directly and does not rely on the .so plugin.
Hope this helps someone!
Edited 2006-03-13 08:23
Sorry to reply to myself, but latest Mac-On-Linux 0.9.71pre8 boots my Tiger partition just fine.
You can get it here: http://dev.gentoo.org/~josejx/mol-0.9.71_pre8.tar.bz2
Has the poster recommending Mac-on-Mac really tried it?
The documentation specifically states that Linux doesn’t really work at the moment. The fact that there have been no updates in the last 8 months would seem to indicate it’s a dead project.
So far as I know, there is no ‘virtualization’ solution to run Linux (or MacOS) on Mac.
I am not sure, but I think VirtualPC runs linux. I think I tried once, but I am not really sure…
I struggled with this also when I wanted to dual boot after getting my OSX set up “just so”.
But I discovered Mike Bombich’s Carbon Copy Cloner (using my friend Google), which makes a nice copy of your hard drive. So I was able to hook up a Firewire external hard drive, then do the following:
1. clone my internal to the firewire drive.
2. switch the startup disk to the firewire drive.
3. reboot from the external drive
4. repartition the internal with space for Linux
5. clone the external back to the smaller internal partition
6. switch startup back to internal
7. reboot again from the internal
8. install Linux.
This question bug me since one month: Switch to GNU/Linux OS or not on my powerbook (and mac mini?) . I tried many distributions : Ubuntu, Yellow Dog, ArchlinuxPPC and Gentoo .
This weekend I take the time to make a table of comparaison between Mac OSX and GNU/Linux OS. here is the result :
http://bchesneau.info/articles/2006/03/13/macosx-or-linux-what-to-c…
what linux should I start with on my PPC Mac? I have a first gen Mac Mini.
Start with either Ubuntu or Gentoo.
I suggest Ubuntu Dapper, as it has many fixes for PPC that Breezy does not yet have.
I will second the vote for Ubuntu.
It’s not as polished as OS X, but it is useful.
Unless you have a really good reason to dual boot OS X and Linux, pick one and stick with it. Switching back and fort smacks of fanboy idolatry and gadgetry.
And suddenly it dawns on me…
So this is why everyone likes Ubuntu!