[Ham-Mac] Mac Linux

[David Kelly]

On May 7, 2005, at 4:03 PM, Larry Weil wrote:

> I just obtained a Mac Linux installation disk, and want to  
> experiment with this.  The timing is good, I am also putting a new  
> hard drive in my mac (a G4/800/Quicksilver 2002), and will set  
> aside a partition on the drive for this.
>
> I'm wondering how much experience any of you have with Mac Linux?   
> The first question I have is how large a partition should I make  
> for this?  The, once I install this, do I boot from that partition,  
> or does Mac Linux run as an application the way Virtual PC does?
>
> Also, does anyone have any opinions on the Linux version of  
> Echolink as compared to EchoMac?
>
> I really don't know much, I just want to experiment a bit and do it  
> in a way that won't affect my basic operating system (OS X v 10.4,  
> a.k.a. Tiger).  I just picked up the disk this morning at a  
> hamfest, it came with no instructions, they just burned a disk for  
> me right there.

I don't think its a bad idea to experiment with Linux, but don't  
forget you have real Unix under Tiger's GUI. Be sure to take the X11  
and X-Code options when you install/upgrade to Tiger.

I keep several systems running FreeBSD because there are things  
FreeBSD can do for me every bit as well as MacOS, but on discarded PC  
hardware, and that I can freely clone as many of those FreeBSD  
installations as I wish. For instance FreeBSD makes an excellent CVS  
repository. Also a very good firewall/gateway and mail server. Tasks  
the Mac could do too, with exactly the same software, but there isn't  
any point.

Hard drives are cheap. Buy several, they install in a Mac very  
easily. My first hard drive was a 20 MB (note *mega* byte) Seagate  
which cost only $700. Then I was very pleased with that bargain as  
only recently 10 MB drives were selling like hotcakes at $995. Bought  
a 160 GB (giga) SATA drive last fall for $95.

--
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly at HiWAAY.net
========================================================================
Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.