Hi, I'm looking for a new computer to replace my P166, and I've been wondering for some time if buying a Mac, and run SuSE for PPC on it, would be a good idea. As far as I understand, Apple has its own flavor of Linux, named Darwin, on top of which OSX runs. Yes I recall their infamous ad 'Send other Unices to /dev/null', once mentioned in this list - I also saw it in the British Linux Magazine lately - thrashing their roots, not being very grateful to the ones they took it from, it seems. AFAICT, Apple was never very good at marketing, and this was another bad move. Anyway, I wonder if it would make sense to install SuSE on it, since Darwin is already there? But could KDE, Gnome or some WM be installed on that? A number of big applications, such as StarOffice or WordPerfect, seem to require the i386 architecture. Does this mean that they could not be run on Linux for PPC? I heard rumours that the only available office application for the Mac is MS Office??? And Internet Exploder is their default browser??? Yes I could have asked this on the SuSE-PPC list, but these questions are probably extremely basic for them, and more interesting for this list I guess, where there might be people considering purchasing a Mac. Greets, S.H. -- "Tattoos are cool." "Yeah, I wish I was born with one." "You're not born with tattoos, dumbass. You get them when you join the navy." -- Beavis & Butt-head
On Mon, 2003-03-31 at 08:39, Sjoerd Hiemstra wrote:
Hi,
I'm looking for a new computer to replace my P166, and I've been wondering for some time if buying a Mac, and run SuSE for PPC on it, would be a good idea. As far as I understand, Apple has its own flavor of Linux, named Darwin, on top of which OSX runs. Yes I recall their infamous ad 'Send other Unices to /dev/null', once mentioned in this list - I also saw it in the British Linux Magazine lately - thrashing their roots, not being very grateful to the ones they took it from, it seems. AFAICT, Apple was never very good at marketing, and this was another bad move.
Apple is a strange beast, some there are pro Linux/Open Source, others I am not sure about. If you compare Safari, there new browser with iTunes the difference is great with regards to the Open Source community. iTunes still does not play Ogg Vorbis, other than from a third party plugin.
Anyway, I wonder if it would make sense to install SuSE on it, since Darwin is already there? But could KDE, Gnome or some WM be installed on that? A number of big applications, such as StarOffice or WordPerfect, seem to require the i386 architecture. Does this mean that they could not be run on Linux for PPC? I heard rumours that the only available office application for the Mac is MS Office??? And Internet Exploder is their default browser???
You can get Open Office running, but it looks out of place on a Mac. You can also get AppleWorks...Apple have released there own version of X11, indeed with this its easier to get Gimp and Open office running.
Yes I could have asked this on the SuSE-PPC list, but these questions are probably extremely basic for them, and more interesting for this list I guess, where there might be people considering purchasing a Mac.
Should ask there to :). Remember, the PPC version is way behind the x86 version. Lastly, Darwin != Linux, I find SuSE better than MacOS X and I am not saying that with no experience as I use it 5 days a week 9 hours a day, but again with any OS your mileage may vary :). Perhaps if you can play with a demo machine for awhile I would recommend that. Ovwerall, if I had a choice between MacOS X and Windows I would choose Mac :).
Greets, S.H.
--
"Tattoos are cool." "Yeah, I wish I was born with one." "You're not born with tattoos, dumbass. You get them when you join the navy." -- Beavis & Butt-head
I'm looking for a new computer to replace my P166, and I've been wondering for some time if buying a Mac, and run SuSE for PPC on it, would be a good idea.
Depends. If you're gung-ho about Linux, go for it.
As far as I understand, Apple has its own flavor of Linux, named Darwin, on top of which OSX runs. Yes I recall their infamous ad 'Send
Mac OS X is not linux. Darwin is not Linux.
very grateful to the ones they took it from, it seems. AFAICT, Apple was never very good at marketing, and this was another bad move.
I have absolutely no idea where you got that idea from, but it's completely incorrect. Apple has had some of the most memorable marketing campaigns in history.
Anyway, I wonder if it would make sense to install SuSE on it, since Darwin is already there? But could KDE, Gnome or some WM be installed on that?
Depends on the hardware. I would never bother installing Linux on a fast G3 or G4 machine, but an older G3 or 603/604 machine, sure..go for it.
I heard rumours that the only available office application for the Mac is MS Office??? And Internet Exploder is their default browser???
Hrm. No, again, that's totally false. There are a couple "office applications" out there. Nisus Writer (suite) isone, Appleworks is another, Microsoft Office is yet another, and OpenOffice is coming soon. Internet Explorer is the default browser for now. However, there are many alternatives. Opera, Safari, Netscape, Mozilla, OmniWeb, iCab.. Internet Explorer does not take over the system like it does on Windows. Apple has released an X11 package for Mac OS X. Many existing open-source projects compile & run just fine on Mac OS X. There are many "ports" setups for Mac OS X. fink is one, darwinports is another one. You also have quite a bit of commercial software available, should you be interested. Give it a whirl. Try them both out. But I would not suggest installing Linux right away without giving Mac OS X a serious look.
* Sjoerd Hiemstra (shiems.suselist@freeler.nl) [030331 09:38]: ->As far as I understand, Apple has its own flavor of Linux, named ->Darwin, on top of which OSX runs. Yes I recall their infamous ad 'Send ->other Unices to /dev/null', once mentioned in this list - I also saw it ->in the British Linux Magazine lately - thrashing their roots, not being ->very grateful to the ones they took it from, it seems. AFAICT, Apple was ->never very good at marketing, and this was another bad move. Well, OSX isn't based on Linux. It's in fact based on FreeBSD and uses a Mach kernel..both of these parts are Open Source but the GUI (Aqua) is not. It's a proprietary Apple product. As far as running SuSE on it. They seem to be REALLY far behind on their PPC version which is most likely because it's not really their cash cow like X86 is. My opinion..which may sound strange to some because I'm such a staunch SuSE support is that if you are going to buy a Mac then you should most likely either run OSX (my preference) or checkout Yellow Dog Linux which is much, much more up to date. In fact YD 3.0 comes with KDE 3.1.1, XFree 4.3..etc..etc. So your newer hardware such as the Radeon 9000 which a lot of Macs are shipping with these days would be supported. If SuSE decided to put out a PPC 8.2 with all the current bells, whistles and updates then I could see using it. But the fact is SuSE PPC 7.3 is just to damn old and will most likely give you fits of rage trying to get things to work..such as video, sound and maybe even installation. ->A number of big applications, such as Star Office or Word Perfect, seem to ->require the i386 architecture. Does this mean that they could not be run ->on Linux for PPC? You seem to kind of hit the nail on the head. If you want to be able to run OSX then I would suggest a Mac because you can also do YD 3.0 on it. But if your looking for applications that work as advertised and for the most bang for your buck then I would go with an X86 box. You can get 3x the speed and other such things with X86 for about 40% of the price of a comparable Mac. ->I heard rumors that the only available office application for the Mac ->is MS Office??? And Internet Exploder is their default browser??? -> Actually, Yes..Internet Exploder is the default. But you can change that easy enough and get rid of it. My wife has always been a Mac user but she flat out refuses to use Microsoft products on her Mac. She uses Mozilla 1.3 for browsing and email (imap) and she's quite happy with it. She liked Apples mail client until it refused to read the mailboxes it created after she upgraded from 10 to 10.1. I've seen OSX's version of MS Office and it's pretty good but it doesn't import and export .doc, .xls and other MS formats as good as Open Office does which seems weird since Microsoft are the bozo's who made the software. All in all I'd do X86 and SuSE 8.2 when it's released...unless you really want to use OSX. latah, -- Ben Rosenberg ---===---===---===--- mailto:ben@whack.org Tell me what you believe.. I'll tell you what you should see.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Monday 31 March 2003 10:15 am, Ben Rosenberg wrote: - --------snip-------
import and export .doc, .xls and other MS formats as good as Open Office does which seems weird since Microsoft are the bozo's who made the software.
Then again it shouldn't seem so wierd given m$ marketing strategies, ie make other OS's look bad by creating buggy software for them and refusing to recognize other's file formats properly (or at all). but I digress Have a great day - -- dh Don't shop at GoogleGear.com! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+iIrGBwgxlylUsJARAhIqAJ9iYg7bSDaNGGJV90QkXfUdYpJ1AgCgh6zJ TgDXlbOZI8jSj8Dpg32cQqo= =WZFr -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Hi,
I'm looking for a new computer to replace my P166, and I've been wondering for some time if buying a Mac, and run SuSE for PPC on it, would be a good idea. If you want a Mac, buy a Mac for itself. It's underlying OS is and Appleized FreeBSD, not Linux. The Mac is an excellent system, and will fit in your network. If you want a new system to run SuSE (or Linux or FreeBSD), buy a system
On Mon, 31 Mar 2003 18:39:28 +0200 Sjoerd Hiemstra <shiems.suselist@freeler.nl> wrote: that meets your needs and price range. PC architechture is significantly cheaper than an equivalent Mac. -- -- Gerald Feldman <gfeldman@attbi.com> Boston Computer Solutions and Consulting ICQ#156300 PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9
Hi, Thanks to all who replied and shed some more light on Apple's Mac. Very useful information! I understand that it is possible to have both OSX and Linux on your computer to quite some extent, though it would mean leaving SuSE for the time being -- at least, on a newer Mac. :-. Torn between different worlds... well I've got some stuff to contemplate. Thanks again, Sjoerd
On Tue, 1 Apr 2003 20:14:45 +0200 Sjoerd Hiemstra <shiems.suselist@freeler.nl> wrote:
Hi,
Thanks to all who replied and shed some more light on Apple's Mac. Very useful information! I understand that it is possible to have both OSX and Linux on your computer to quite some extent, though it would mean leaving SuSE for the time being -- at least, on a newer Mac. :-. Torn between different worlds... well I've got some stuff to contemplate. AFAIK, Yes it is possible. My daughter has a Mac laptop that she got with my recommendation. Her old laptop hard disk is in a FireWire enclosure so she can get access to her old files.
-- -- Gerald Feldman <gfeldman@attbi.com> Boston Computer Solutions and Consulting ICQ#156300 PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9
participants (6)
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Ben Rosenberg -
David Herman -
Jerry Feldman -
Jonathan Nichols -
Matt -
Sjoerd Hiemstra