How do I install Linux on Mac
 

I have the Knoppix Linux Live CD ver. 3.7 (Dec 8/04).

How do I try it out in my Apple G4 (dual processor)?

AFAIK you can't. Isn't Knoppix built for the x86 architecture? To use it on your Mac, you will have to have Virtual PC installed.
I cannot find any reference to it being built for PowerPCs.

Try Ubuntu/Kubuntu
 

Ubuntu Linux(a Debian based linux distro)does offer a live-cd version for ppc machines on this page. Kubuntu, a KDE based version of Ubuntu, has a live-cd on this page.

I tried Ubuntu a few weeks ago, and was able to boot my PBG4 1ghz, but not my housemates G3 iBook or G4 iMac.

Thanks for your interest/reply to my posting.

I don't have Virtual PC installed.

I guess I just wasted a few bucks buying that Knoppix CD.

I should have asked at this forum first:

What Linux LIVE CD should I buy that will run on my G4 to give me a taste of LINUX ( other then what I have in OS X Panther ) ?

Besides Ubuntu/Kubuntu, I think Gentoo is the only other linux distro with a live-cd for PPC machines. You can download it for free from one of the mirrors listed here, or buy it from gentoo.

If you don't have access to the bandwidth to download 650 Mb ISO files, Cheapbytes is another option.

There's also Yellow Dog . Please keep in mind that I've never tried it. It just happen to know it exists.

Distrowatch is a very good resource on the latest linux distributions and where to get them. There are a number of distros that have PPC installs, but only a few with PPC live-cds.

I'd like to second retcynnm above--if you are looking for a distro of Linux or BSD, check Distrowatch first. To save you some trouble, this link should get you the list of Live CD distributions that are built for the PPC architecture used on Macs.

Trevor

If you want to experiment with funky unixes, you should also consider the BSD-family (Net-, Free-, Open-BSD).

If it is for diagnostic purposes, you might be well advised to build your own live OS X CD, there's a very cool tool around to do that called BootCD.

I'm interested in getting a "Live CD" version of Linux for my iBook G4.
I have no interest in installing Linux on the hard disk but I would like to be able to boot a working Linux system from the CD. The last one I tried was the version of Gentoo Live CD that was available in November 2004. It booted just fine but that was a text-only boot. I.e. it didn't run X11. I tried to get X11 to start (typing the 'startx' command) but didn't succeed and I think I recall that I ended up reading that the X11 support wasn't included on this version of the Live CD. So that wasn't too useful for me.

I would therefore be very interested in hearing about successful experiences with a Live CD that either booted into the X11 graphical environment or started up X11 with a command like 'startx'. It would be nice if it used my USB flash memory "drive" for storage of preferences etc.

Depending on what window manager you use, X11 on Linux can be huge. If you want anything more potent than twm, you'd probably have to use a DVD.

Not really. The Kubuntu Live CD fits easily on a CD and contains KDE. Here's the PPC Live CD distro: Direct Download Link

Trevor

If your interested in PPC Linux LiveCd's. Check the one's listed here. It's more complete than the distrowatch site.

Successful experience with a Live CD
 

I'm posting this response from my PowerMac G4, running Konqueror in the Kubuntu distro off of the Live CD link I posted above. It booted to a text screen running yaboot, I simply hit the Return key to accept the defaults and I booted into the GUI without a hitch. (KDE/X). My network was recognized and configured via DHCP with no intervention from me. There are a full complement of KDE apps to play with.

I wasn't sure how to mount a USB thumb drive in the KDE GUI, but, fishing around, I pointed at the "System" icon in the task bar, selected "Storage Media", and voila! There was my thumb drive, displayed in Konqueror, already mounted. I clicked, navigated to and checked a .pdf that I knew was on there, it loaded in Konqueror. Flawlessly.

Everything is quick (Konqueror, booted from a CD, running on the same hardware, appears to load web pages quicker than Safari, which shares it's engine. That's just not fair.)

I haven't played around with all the apps, but so far everything is "just working". the only barrier to trying it yourself is
1. download time, and
2. the cost of a single blank CD

Trevor

P.S. System details in case anyone cares: PowerMac G4/400 Sawtooth (upgraded with a OWC card to G4/1.4 GHz), 1.5 GB RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro (Retail version) Mac Edition, M-Audio Revolution 5.1 soundcard, ATTO SCSI card (not currently attached to anything), USB card, two 120 GB ATA drives, on a local wired ethernet network.

Oops. I missed the incredibly obvious fact that the USB thumb drive automounted on the desktop. I didn't even need to go to System > Storage Media.

Trevor

Thanks Trevor.
On your recommendation, I downloaded the Kubuntu Live CD ISO for PPC.
I had trouble burning it to a CD on OS X - Disk Utility kept failing since the behind-the scenes "DiskManagementTool" kept crashing in a malloc-related routine. When I tried to burn it via the command-line with 'hdiutil burn kubuntu-5.04-live-powerpc.iso', the 'hdutil' program seg faulted.
This is with an ISO image whose MD5 digest agreed with what is listed on the Kubuntu web site and (as I found out later) burned without trouble on my aging Windows ME system.

Anyway, once I managed to get the physical CD burned, I restarted my iBook G4 (1.2 GHz) holding down the C key and Kubuntu booted as you described with no problem at all.
I was in the KDE environment and could run the various programs that were provided. Some things failed - notably "Help" from the KDE startup menu.

However, I never managed to get it to do networking properly. Initially I tried with the Wireless Network panel but then realized that it probably was unlikely that Kubuntu had drivers for Apple's Airport card. So then I went into the regular Network panel and went into Administrator mode (via the button there). It showed the eth0 interface as disabled. I selected the eth0 interface and then configured it to use Automatic DHCP and then pressed the "Enable Interface" button. It changed to show as enabled but then about 5 seconds later switched back to disabled without me doing anything.

Looking at /var/log/syslog showed that it seemed to see my 100 Mbs network fine, then it said something like "Pause not supported". There were no other error messages in the log relating to Ethernet.
I tried several times to configure and enable the eth0 interface with the same results each time.

When I restarted into OS X, the Ethernet network was recognized immediately and the iBook was assigned an IP address as usual.The iBook is connected by Ethernet to a router that does DHCP. There are no restrictions on the DHCP server as to MAC address etc.

The other thing that I was a bit disappointed about is that there didn't seem to be any easy (let alone automatic) way to get Kubuntu to mount the iBook's HFS+ filesystem. The internal disk showed up as an icon under "Storage Media" but clicking on it gave an error message about the device not being listed in /etc/fstab and I didn't bother editing that to see if that would make it mount.

Any ideas?

I have Toast 5.2.3 (although I'm sure 6.x would work fine as well). With Toast open, I went to the "Other" tab, selected "Disk Image", and dragged the .iso image file from my desktop onto the Toast window. It burned flawlessly.

I did not try to use Disk Utility. However, after posting this above I heard from someone else who had an identical problem that you had with Disk Utility. Based on these two incidents, I suspect that there is something inherent in this .iso image which does not agree with DU/hdiutil, and that it is not the fault of any configuration of your or the other person's machine.

Your workaround of burning from Windows is one option, another is to use Toast or another third-party CD burning application.

A possible workaround to explore is the use of cdrecord from the command line, if you have that installed (it is available via fink and elsewhere).

My experiments above were on a PowerMac. I will try to find time this evening (Central US Time) to experiment with the Kubuntu Live CD on my PowerBook, which should be architecturally much more similar to your iBook. I'll report back then.

Can you give us the results of ifconfig -a while running Kubuntu?

Trevor

I can't manage to boot from the kubuntu live cd... I have read the docs, and tried to do a direct boot to it through open firmware, but it just reverts to OS 9.

Why????? My computer seems to have more problems then anyone on this forum! Every time I come up with a new work-around, it finds a new way to go wrong!

Ah well... ;) It still works...

Isn't your Mac a beige G3 desktop? Is the Linux Distro equipped for G3?

Well, it says it is.

(I can hear you all sniggering about my computer behind my back... ;) hey - I cant afford anything better :D)

FYI: Kubuntu 5.04 live CD and iBook G4 - no go
 

I have tried $subj, and it was a no-go, no matter how many tweaks I have attempted at boot time (including spending lots of time on Ubuntu's forums for this specific combination) -just FYI

Linux on Mac better with Ubuntu and FireStarter FX
 

The best Linux on PPC (regarding best hardware suppport and most available software packages) is Ubuntu. Yellow Dog Linux runs a close second, but package management is more difficult than it needs to be since YDL is RPM-based.

Kubuntu is probably not what a "newcomer" is interested in (though try it if you want) since Kubuntu uses KDE as its default desktop environment which is much more like Windows than Gnome. Gnome is what Ubuntu and YDL use. KDE feels like a mesh of barely connected programs and just lacks the beauty and simplicity Mac users have come to know and love.

I say Ubuntu/Kubuntu is the way to go for hardware/software support and out of the two Ubuntu for its use of Gnome, but try Kubuntu (with KDE) if you're into that sort of thing.

For burning the ISO images, use FireStarter FX (http://www.projectomega.org/subcat.p...ts_firestarter) and you won't have any trouble booting from the CDs.

One thing to keep in mind is that Linux does not support the AirPort extreme found in current Macs. The chipset manufacturer Broadcom will not release the specs so that the open source community can write drivers for it. Eventually it will probably be reverse-engineered but that's a slow process that could be much simpler if Broadcom didn't suck.

Just my three cents.


khad

While most linux/unix users arn't aware of it there actually is a knoppix for ppc:
http://debian.tu-bs.de/knoppix/powerPC/
I have downloaded it and tried it without any real success but there is a fairly long and old thread at the knoppix forum about this and it seems like someone got it working-yes supposedly live-cd. That is after all a knoppix claim to fame. I use a pc alot (linux) and am at several boards including knoppix.