Finally Tried It: Linux on my iBook!

[berniej]

Yesterday I received my stash of Ubuntu Linux (Hoary Hedgehog) -- 10 sets for x86 processors and 10 sets for PowerPC processors. Each set has both installation and LiveCD versions. Upon reaching home, I excitedly tried the LiveCD version and I was mildly surprised how this distro was able to automagically detect almost all hardware connected to my 'Book. The only thing it was not able to detect was my airport card.

Anyway, upon boot up (which took a couple of minutes), I test drove a couple of the bundled apps (OpenOffice, some games, terminal, etc.) and it was quite responsive. This is running from an iBook G3 (chiclet) with just 384 MB of RAM.

My Verdict: If and when my iBook is old and (literally) gray, and if it can no longer run the latest and greatest MacOS, Ubuntuwill be a good alternative OS.

BTW, the attached image is an actual screenshot from my iBook.

[Edited on 6-6-2005 by berniej]

[Maverick]

downloading both live and installation cd's for powerpc and intel as well. i wonder how it compares to the likes of fedora core 3 and other flavors out there

[berniej]

I have a question to the Linux Gurus on board:

Is there a way to mount my hard drive under Ubuntu? Right now, since the LiveCD is usable on my iBook, I use it and save my stuff on a flashdrive which, as I have mentioned on my first post, is automatically detected/mounted by Ubuntu.

My second question is: Is it safe to mount my hard drive under Ubuntu?

[Edited on 6-7-2005 by berniej]

[Maverick]

Mounting is done with the mount command.

When mounting, you must tell the mount command what is the device or partition you want to mount and what is the mount point. The mount point must be a directory that already exists on your system. For example, to mount your floppy:
$ mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

In this example, /dev/fd0 is your floppy drive, and /mnt/floppy is the mount point. Now when you access /mnt/floppy, you'll actually access the files on your floppy.

Usually /dev/fd0 is your floppy drive, although some distros are configured so that /dev/floppy is the same thing as /dev/fd0. Usually your CD-ROM is configured the same way: /dev/cdrom is your CD-ROM device (or, more specifically, /dev/floppy is a symbolic link to your actual floppy drive, and /dev/cdrom is a symbolic link to your CD-ROM drive).


So i presume hd0 would be what your hard disk would be, thus just type in:

mount /dev/hd0 /mnt/osx

for example. don't forget to create the folder osx or whatever you want to call it first.

good luck. I will try it later myself and see how it goes.

[Edited on 6-7-2005 by Maverick]

[berniej]

Thanks maverick... I'll try this later.

[Maverick]

it was my pleasure. I'll try it later too when i get home.

[dude_funk]

I'm also itching to try Ubuntu Linux on my Clamshell iBook SE.

The only thing that's stopping me is that I think Ubuntu's installer CD would need to re-initialize a partition. This means that I would need to back-up my entire second (non-Mac OS X) partition where I keep data/files.

Is there a way for me to install Ubuntu on a partition without re-initializing? What type of filesystem does Ubuntu Mac use, HFS+ or does it have its own?

Thanks in advance,
Christian

[berniej]

@dude_funk: I think you'll find answers at the ubuntu website -- specifically at their PPC forum.