At 9:57 am +0200 26.5.02, Tobias Kerscher wrote:

Hi, this is a quit general question but I am interested in your knowledge: - Can you recommend installing Linux (e.g. SuSE) on a Mac?

On many (older) Macs, OS X cannot be installed at all, so Linux is a great way to use UNIX on those Macs. There are other UNIX alternatives -- *BSD, for example -- but Linux is the most popular and, I believe, easiest to use of those possibilities. As for newer Macs, it depends on what you want to do with the Mac and Linux. Which leads to your next question:

- Isn't OS X better?

Define "better". Better in what way? If you want your Mac to do server tasks, then Linux definitely has the advantage here -- better performance, better compatibility with other UNIX platforms (especially other Linux types), proven stability and so on. If you want to use your Mac as a desktop system, again, it depends on what you want to do. In many ways, for example, software development on Linux is more compelling an option than on OS X. Many (x86) Linux developers have Mac laptops, because they have excellent hardware, have a lot of bang for the buck, have better battery life than most x86 laptops, are more powerful than comparable x86 laptops and so on. (And they look cooler. ;-) ) Linux also generally runs faster (and feels *much* faster) on the same hardware than OS X. After all, Linux runs quite well even on very old hardware (like an old 486 PC or 68K Mac), so naturally it will benefit greatly from the greater firepower of a newer Mac. Also, Mac OS X's graphic layer (Quartz/Aqua) is very processor-intensive and the whole system feels sluggish as a result, especially in comparison to Linux. This may change once OS X 10.2 and QuartzExtreme come out, but I personally am not hopeful in spite of breathless press reports. As a concrete example, I recently was talking about DivX movies with colleagues. A colleague saw another colleague using an iBook with Linux, and they were using xine to watch DivX movies and DVDs, at very high quality -- much better than under OS X with QuickTime and the DVD Player *on the same computer*, indeed the colleague remarked that he'd never seen DivX movies play so well before. That doesn't mean that Linux is always better than Mac OS X. OS X has its advantages as well. But equally one cannot say flatly "OS X is better than Linux". Would I buy a Mac just to run Linux on it? Aside from getting a laptop for that reason, no, I probably wouldn't -- not really worth it. Would I run Linux on a Mac? Certainly -- I have three that do. One exclusively runs Linux, the other two are dual-boot. Which leads nicely to your next question:

- Do you run OS X (or similar) parallel to Linux? Or do you run Linux under OS X (similar to vmware there are some "emulators" I think?)

I have five computers -- three Mac desktops, a Mac laptop and an x86 PC. The PC and one of the Mac desktops run only Linux (though the PC has Windows on a small partition, but only so that I can test my site projects under Windows from time to time and it otherwise isn't used). One other desktop and the laptop are dual-boot (in both cases OS X and Linux). Sometimes it is best for me to work in Mac OS X (when I'm doing print graphics work), sometimes in Linux (when I'm doing development of websites). As for emulators, yes, there is VirtualPC for Mac OS X, and you can use Linux under VirtualPC. But it's like water torture. Very slow and only barely useable. I would *not* recommend trying it. Hope that helps, John -- John Grantham | Dipl.-Designer (FH) | Homepage http://www.grantham.de/ | LinuxMac http://www.macnews.de/_linuxmac/ Web Designer | AGD Member http://www.agd.de/

am 26.05.2002 9:57 Uhr schrieb Tobias Kerscher unter tk.commercial@gmx.net:

Hi, this is a quit general question but I am interested in your knowledge: - Can you recommend installing Linux (e.g. SuSE) on a Mac? - Isn't OS X better? - Do you run OS X (or similar) parallel to Linux? Or do you run Linux under OS X (similar to vmware there are some "emulators" I think?)

Thank you for your answers, yours Tobias

Hi, this is a more general answer: I started following this mailing list more or less interested, since it was recommended in a Mac-magazine. I never found a link to place certain questions, most topics seem to be too specialiced. Me, I`d managed to install Mac OSX and Suse PPc on the same HD of my imac. It happend, because I was searching for a "multitasking-desktop-system" with a printing and a secound rewritable disk possibility (Imation SuperDisk). (Meanwhile I realized, that printing works under MacOSX with the classical enviroment, if the program, or it`s symbol or whatever is "Classical-only") Suse PPC is interesting, there is a lot of documentation, but I never managed to set up a possibility to start it from HD (It just worked with the SusePPC CD1 as startup disk) Meanwhile I can`t start it again, my Theory is, that I tried to unpack to much to big programs with to low space on the linux-partition. My HD is "just" 7GB big, and regarding my origin interest, I should tell, that SusE PPC is obsolete, but on the other hand: - I just bought the "Das Telefonbuch, map&route- CD" from the Deutsche Telekom - It doesnt work in an Mac-Enviroment - There were files called "Linux..."-somehow on the CD but: - repeating the complete setup with the one extra GB on the linux-partition for the Telefonbuch-installation (still just old-boot-CD startable?) - LinuxPPC and common Linux seems to differ more one could wish, who is more interested in the products, then in the patching-knowledge. I´m fine with MacOSX, I´ll give away the CD for nothing to my neighbor, why did I buy it at all. SusePPC ... Phh greatings Peter