Ubuntu Linux, Yellowdog Linux and Mac OS X, all on one PowerBook?
This article details the trials and tribulations of turning a perfectly good Apple PowerBook into a tri-boot system with Mac OS X, Yellow Dog Linux and Ubuntu Linux.
Mac OS X is built of two components, Darwin, the BSD-based Unix underpinnings, and Aqua, the beautiful graphical user interface we Mac heads have all grown to love. However, there are other operating systems and other work environments that can be installed on an Apple system, based on popular open source Linux applications. If you’re looking for Intel-based versions of Linux, there are dozens and dozens, but the PowerPC chip cuts those options down quite a bit. I decided it’d be interesting to install the most popular Linux for PowerPC - Yellow Dog 4.0 - and an up and coming Debian-based Linux distro that’s getting quite a bit of buzz in the community: Ubuntu Linux.
Unlike Microsoft’s VirtualPC application, these operating systems can’t be installed within Mac OS X, but rather have to be installed adjacent to, or instead of Mac OS X. I decided to install all three on my new 1Ghz Aluminum PowerBook G4 system. With 1GB of RAM and a 60GB drive, I figure there was plenty of space to steal 8GB for the two Linux installations and still have plenty to continue running Mac OS X with all my favorite applications.
This meant that to get started I needed to...
Mac OS X is built of two components, Darwin, the BSD-based Unix underpinnings, and Aqua, the beautiful graphical user interface we Mac heads have all grown to love. However, there are other operating systems and other work environments that can be installed on an Apple system, based on popular open source Linux applications. If you’re looking for Intel-based versions of Linux, there are dozens and dozens, but the PowerPC chip cuts those options down quite a bit. I decided it’d be interesting to install the most popular Linux for PowerPC - Yellow Dog 4.0 - and an up and coming Debian-based Linux distro that’s getting quite a bit of buzz in the community: Ubuntu Linux.
Unlike Microsoft’s VirtualPC application, these operating systems can’t be installed within Mac OS X, but rather have to be installed adjacent to, or instead of Mac OS X. I decided to install all three on my new 1Ghz Aluminum PowerBook G4 system. With 1GB of RAM and a 60GB drive, I figure there was plenty of space to steal 8GB for the two Linux installations and still have plenty to continue running Mac OS X with all my favorite applications.
This meant that to get started I needed to...
posted by Dave Taylor at
8:54 PM
