Linux On My Mac
 

I am very new to linux, and have no clue what i am doing. I always that linux was just one operating system, now I see that there are several "distribuations" to choose from. Well i just want to run "applications' like Auditor and backtrack, on my mac os x computer. I have no idea where to start, and what to download. My question is what do i download to run my mac os x and linux on the same computer, for just the following programs above. Help will be very nice.

Try downloading or ordering Ubutu its free and can be run side by side with Mac OS X. It takes you through the process. If you order it online there is a Live CD so that you can try it before you install.

So, will this mess up my mac in anyway? Like, will i have to switch from using my mac to linux, or i can use both and boot them both up, also do i always have to put the cd in everytime i run it?

Also when i go to download area, it says which country are u in, so i click Canada, so i get this link of downloads, but which one do i download?

Hi Mr Z -

we are allready chatting on another thread about Q and parallels.

If recomend installing Q - and creating a virtual computer running in a window n your mac - you can then check out as many linux's as you want (and xp) - and if you dont want them just delete the one file the containg the virtual machine...

The best idea would be to orderr the disc if you can. A friend lent it to me so i'm not sure how. If you download the software you will have to mount it on a CD anyway. The live version is just a test to try out the operating system and see if you like it. It boots from the cd and will not affect your mac. The other disc, the installation CD will install ubutu onto your mac. You can run it side by side with OS X or on its own. The set up process will guide you through this and partition your hard drive for you.

Well i am not sure i want to order it and go through all of that....I am sure they have it on there site the whole file, not just the test one. Because its no problem for me to mount it on a disk. Cause i dont have pypal or anything and cant pay for S&H.

Look http://www.ubuntu.com/download

I am just sure when i click cananda, and go to place where all the links are, i am not sure which one to download, cause theres like 20, unless i dl all of them?

Or i went to a torrent site : http://isohunt.com/torrents.php?ihq=ubuntu&ext=&op=and

Theres like different ones and sizes, i am not sure which ones to get ?! help!

if you click the first USA mirror you will be directed to this page. what mac do you have? click on the correct download and it should start

I see, i have a powerbook g4, i got it like 4 months b4 the intel macs started to come out
Ok i started to dl, but is that 650 meg file the whole linux system? , well the ubuntu whole linux system.

Also theres 2, first is the permanent one, i if i dl that one, i cant use my mac anymore, it will just be ubuntu software. And if i dl the second one, i get it on a disk, and everytime i want to use it, i just put it in my cd drive to start it up, and nothing happens to my mac??

the live version is just a trial and runs slow. Install the full version, it can be uninstalled and not affect your mac. However the setup will partition your hard drive setting some memory aside for ubuntu and some for OS X. Or it can just format your mac and just run ubuntu but i guess you dont want that. check out support for more info

Ok, so i want the full version, so i got to cancel that live version. Now once i dl the full one, when i start up mac, i have ALL my settings and it runs fine, and all my ram and cpu is going towards my mac. But like im going to say u can boot up ubuntu from when ur mac starts up or when ur mac is already started up??

Note that you definitely need to have a good backup of all of the files that you care about before starting to do anything like this.

Why is that? Someone said this last time when i installed virtual pc, and nothing went wrong. I wont be using the linux that much, just for on Auditor. I dont see how something can go wrong?

i dont know if i would call "live" version a trial. it boots directly from CD - so can be used without installing anything - this bit *is* fairly slow... but theres manyu advantages to having a version like this which boots from cd...

Installing Linux is much more intrusive than installing Virtual PC. It changes the way that your Mac starts up. If something goes wrong you may need to erase the disk and reinstall OS X. This is not something that you should be doing lightly. I think you need to do more reading about exactly what happens when you install Linux on your Mac - this should be in the docs that come with the distribution or on their web page.

Saying that you don't see how something can go wrong and that nothing went wrong in the past is like a blind & deaf man about to cross a country road. He's done it lots of times in the past and was successful since there isn't much traffic. But today ...

I am reading up on it though, I am not just going to install it right away. I just dont see like what can go wrong, its a product made for mac os x. The ubuntu people made it so that it would work well on mac os x, not so that there is lets say a certain amount of percen that: Oh and by the way were not sure but your hard drive might be deleted once in awhile. The Ubuntu people, proboly have checked all the errors, because Ubuntu has been out for a bit of time now. But like i always do , I will still look into it.

You need to setup your computer to start with Ubuntu, without erasing your hard disk. If you set it up wrong, you could erase you files!

You can use the Live CD to use Ubuntu without using losing your mac.

I think before bootcamp the danger of having to reinstall osx after a bad linux install was much greater.

Now i think theres three fairly simple methods to choose from

1) use a live cd - boots off cd - no problem
2) use bootcamp and set up a linux partition on your harddrive - then install linux to that
3) install a virtual PC product and install linux in there.

my pref would be 3 .

The Ubuntu people did not say that it would "work well on Mac OS X". It does not run in Mac OS X at all; it is a separate operating system that replaces Mac OS X until you decide to reboot into Mac OS X again.

You should always make sure you have current backups of anything important, regardless of what you're doing with your computer--you never know what could go wrong--but it's imperative in the strongest sense of the word that you back up important data before installing a new operating system.

I hate to sound like a prick, but it doesn't sound like this is something you're ready to do at this stage of the game. Read up on Linux (Ubuntu and otherwise) and dual booting some more first before you go attempting this.

Edit: Ubuntu isn't "made for Mac OS X", but even if it were, have you ever seen a piece of software that didn't have bugs? I haven't. Mail.app is made for Mac OS X, by the people who make Mac OS X, and it still has bugs.

Auditor and BackTrack both look like distributions, not a set of tools you would find within Ubuntu.

The tools that these distributions use might be there (inside of Ubuntu), but then you might also be able to find them inside Fink or Darwin Ports.

What you don't understand is that this is analogous to getting directions to the next village from a tribe in the Himalayas. They'll say "No problem, just go along the cliff-side path for a bit and you'll get there". They don't mention the possibility of rocks falling on your head or tell you to take the left-hand fork because those things are obvious to them.

K well i was going to install them on Ubuntu, but if they are distributions, how would i get them on my mac, put them on a disk, and then boot them up? Also there not on fink or darwin


I have virtual pc on my mac for windows, it runs fairly slow though. But how would i put linux onto the virtual pc.

All i need/want is the Auditor, i thought it was for linux ( which i know nothing of) so got ubuntu which seemed to be the most popular program that would work on mac and run linux. If theres in easier way to get auditor on my mac, it would be nice.

Neither one of those distributions seem to have PPC images.

Fink and Darwin Ports are ways to run certain programs on a Mac. You need to download them and the programs you want to use.

You might be better off here stating what it is exactly you want to do and the people can help you find a way to do it.

I am not a Linux guy but I am curious about things so I too want to learn to do things. Fleshing that out seems like the first step to see where to go. Nuking your current OS for a new one you are not sure how to install seems like it will cause a LOT more headaches than finding the best tool for what you want.

From this page: http://www.remote-exploit.org/index.php/Auditor_main
So "Auditor" is not "for Linux" - it is Linux (one version that is designed to run directly from a CD with no installation).
But if you look at the hardware requirements, you'll see that it is intended for standard PC hardware - not for Macs. Certainly not for PowerPC Macs.
So there is no way to get this to run on your Mac.

I suggest that if you want to learn more about Linux and experiment you buy a capable machine, either a Mac or a PC, experiment, and destroy and rebuild as you learn the ropes.

That's what I did years ago when toying with alternative operating systems to prevent downtime and accidents on my primary machine.

This distribution you're looking to run, which is apparently a live CD, should be bootable from Virtual PC, though very slowly because A) it's running in emulation and B) it's running from a CD. Though in the case of VPC, you could run it from an .ISO image, which should be nice.

You should realize that when experimenting with alternative operating systems documentation and logic are not always first and foremost; people who play with up and coming systems usually know the basics already. That means you have to feel your way through things sometimes, make mistakes, and spend a few hours oftentimes deciphering FAQs and man pages. Forums are more of a last resort after you've exhausted every other resource.

Absolutely. Put together a really cheap "white box" PC and tinker with Linux while you're gaining some footing. Something that won't matter much if you have to erase the HD or reconfigure hardware. Shopping around, you should be able to do it for just a couple of hundred bucks. (You also gain the experience of getting to know the OS by configuring the hardware with it!)

With the B&W G3s and G3 iMacs going for < $150 nowadays they make great Linux machines, especially since their hardware is supported by every PPC Linux distribution. My 'tinkering' machine/server right now is an iMac DV with Debian on it.

Hi Led Zep,

I don't know if it has been mentioned but for Ubuntu, you don't need Paypal or any payment method. Ubuntu has just sent me 10 copies of the OS in the mail for free - and i'm in australia!

I highly recommend Ubuntu

...and although i recommend ubuntu, ive been running it primarily on a PC, but i have the Mac cd's as well here... My question is:

Is it possible to fully install ubuntu onto a mac and keep OSX on there as well without the hassle of partitioning and potential other dangers? And also can I 'fast' switch between the two without a) a cd b) restarting the computer each time i want to?

?? thanks

You will have to partition. A program like iPartition will let you resize partitions non destructively though, and it's not too expensive.

Not really, but you can run OS X or OS 9 in virtualization with Mac On Linux. This is not emulation; it will run at native speed (on a PPC Mac).

So theres no way of running Auditor on my mac?

BTW, I forgot to mention that the latest version of Yellow Dog can be installed and booted off of a firewire hard drive with little hassle (unlike before). That's an easy way to play with Linux without repartitioning.

I already told you it could be booted from VPC.

It would run very slow but anyways....i already have VPC, how would i boot it from it then?

Anyone......?

From the page linked to above about Auditor:

and for support:
http://www.remote-exploit.org/index.php/Auditor#Support

If you must use Auditor and Auditor is not a Live CD for the Mac the above link might be the place to be asking the question to get the responses you want.

As I said above, I don't think there is any way that you can use the Auditor Linux distribution on your Mac.

If you're going to try using it through VPC

1. dl Auditor
2. burn it to CD
3. insert the CD in your Mac
4. create a new, empty VPC and when it starts it should boot off of the CD (if not you'll have to capture the CD in the Drives menu and then reboot the virtual machine).

Download the iso and in VPC set the cdrom drive to the iso.

d'oh! Forgot that VPC can read isos for the drive. Yeah, this would be a much smarter idea than what I suggested.

Dosent something happen when i put Auditor into my cd drive? Like are you sure VPC will pick it up.

I don't know if you can boot the Auditor CD from within VPC.
But even if you can, it would seem to be contrary to the purpose of Auditor. I think the idea of Auditor is to have a known-good copy of the OS running from a read-only medium in order to be able to check for security problems. If you are running Auditor under the control of some other software (assuming this is possible) then you've lost that "known-good" assurance. I.e. an infected system could change things so that the Auditor tools would report whatever it liked.

Did you try? What happened if you did?

Knoppix
 

Is similiar to a preinstall enviroment (PE) and runs off of an image. The Damn Small Linux kernel (DSL) is based off of KNOPPIX and is 50mb in size and can be put onto a bootable thumb drive to boot it from usb. It even has a web browser and network support.

So basically you are booting off that image from that disk you made. First off it has to either support x86 or PPC and to my knowledge there is no KNOPPIX package that will run on PPC based hardware, though I could totally be wrong.

Here are some relevant links:

http://www.knoppix.org/

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

I have used the DSL install and have it on my thumb drive. These virtual OSes so to speak are good for testing a machine to rule out software as a possible problem or to by pass other botched software issues to access data. They are not really that good for running your actual system on. There could also be some good cases to use this on an enterprise level when you don't want your users to be able to write to the drives or add or change any of the software, and then have them save their current work and progress on a network share.

Overall, you are best off just installing linux on a machine to learn it, this kind of stuff should come later when you want to learn how to use different methods of troubleshooting.

If you have a PPC based system I suggest you load Yellow Dog on it, it has been around forever with macintosh hardware and is one of the more developed for mac distros out there. If you have an intel mac you can basically pick your flavor. I use/have used: fedora, SUSE, mandrake, open, slackware, correl (i think they stopped making linux distros), and I am just now dabbling around with the newer distros.

Check this link out for more info

http://lcic.org/distros.html

I hope that maybe helps answer your questions.

O.K I decided to go through and try the VPC proccess, so for who dont know how Virtual Pc works, or justs so I will run through what I did here I go. First I open VPC, then I go to File, Then Click "New". So now I am making a new virtual pc. So the screen pops up with different choices, so I click install my own operating system. So then i can choose from any windows version, DOS, UNIX, or Linux, and I chose Linux. And then it automatically chooses the disk format, as unformatted. Then I just click create so its created. So when I try to start it up it says, insert the disk or boot cd. I just burned Auditor to a cd, now I am going to put Auditor, in my cd drive. But before I do anything, when I put Auditor in my cd drive, will anything happen? Like it wont do anything to my mac riight, heres the link from which i downloaded Auditor from. I am just wondering if Auditor will boot up on my mac or something, and mess with some stuff.

Download Page: http://www.remote-exploit.org/index.php/Auditor_mirrors

This is the version that I downloaded, I forget which one I downloaded it from, but there all the same.

auditor-200605-02-ipw2100.iso
This version is for all systems except systems with the Intel B/G wireless cards (IPW2200).
The md5sum of auditor-200605-02-ipw2100.iso is "cdec4b975c1001ddc127a16a32ed1dd7"
Transfertype Download link auditor-200605-02-ipw2100.iso
HTTP http://ftp.rz.tu-braunschweig.de/pub...02-ipw2100.iso
FTP ftp://ftp.rz.tu-braunschweig.de/pub/...02-ipw2100.iso
HTTP http://mirror.switch.ch/ftp/mirror/a...02-ipw2100.iso
FTP ftp://mirror.switch.ch/mirror/audito...02-ipw2100.iso

I don't think that the auditor distro, based on KNOPPIX will work on any PPC based hardware system. Check this link for details..

http://www.remote-exploit.org/index....itor_dev_list1

I would like to maybe point you in the right direction but I am not sure exactly what you are trying to accomplish here.

Are you:

1) Trying to run linux natively on your mac?
2) Trying to run a PE for testing?
3) Trying to dual boot OS X and Linux?
4) Or just trying to get Auditor to work

I do know know exactly what Auditor does, but I am very familiar with KNOPPIX type of installs, since I have DSL on my 1gig thumb drive and can boot off of it and for the most part most major x86 hardware is supported in a limited capacity.

So what is it exactly are you trying to accomplish with Auditor on your mac? There may be an alternative solution for you.

Number 4.........

I don't think it will work with PPC based hardware, it wasn't listed in their compatability list.

You can probably run it on an intel mac, but there may not be any support for it. Since it runs off an image the drivers are preloaded in the image, so if something is not supported, like lets say your wifi nic card, then its not going to work when you boot off the auditor cd.

You may just want to scrap together a cheap old PC or get an old laptop and run it, or find something that supports PPC based hardware. It may be possible to run the packages that are in auditor in like Yellow Dog, or something similiar.

Well, I downloaded an ISO of auditor and ran it on one of my laptops here. it is basically a PE type image that runs completely off the cd, so you don't have to install anything you just boot off the cd.

It comes packed with system and network analyzers, packet sniffers, wep and wpa crackers, etc.

All of the apps that are on this package are available for mac os x, you need to just go over to version tracker and look up some of that stuff and download it.

You can also probably make a bootable image of it to, but you would have to build it from scratch.

thanks for the help on the previous page :)

Did you run it on a mac laptop??

Another Questions :Configure CD ROM to Start ISO file, how do I do this

I don't have access to an intel based mac laptop atm, we only have a few macbooks and they are out to the users (i don't get cool stuff like that, the users do:mad: ) Auditor will probably not run unless the hardware is supported, it definately will not run on a PPC based mac.

The ISO is meant to be burned to a cd. It is an image file, so I just used Nero, and burned the ISO to a CD and booted from it. When you burn the ISO, the burning application converts the image to the original data. It is a live cd, so when you boot off of it, it loads the OS just like you were booting off a HD.

As for getting a cdrom to boot from VPC, you would have to ask someone who is more familiar with VPC. I have always just either used a mac or a PC, and never really messed around with VPC. I am going to guess that you cannot emulate a hardware enviroment for the auditor CD.

Well I am on a normal pb g4, i just want to know how change my cd rom so that it will boot iso's