Linux support for Mac hardware (Re: [Techtalk] Linux Laptops)

[Kathryn Andersen]

On Thu, Oct 27, 2005 at 11:21:16AM +0100, Juliet Kemp wrote:
> Mac OSX is FreeBSD-based, so you do get a command line & all the rest of
> it.  And a lot of Linux software is ported to Mac (go look at
> http://fink.sourceforge.net/ , and there's also a lot that's more
> directly ported).  You can run X on Mac, although it's a bit slow.  What
> are you planning to use the laptop for?

Thinking about how I use my current laptop...
- as a development machine for my website (which really means that I
  need Linux, and the same version of Linux as my server/desktop)
- for doing work on when travelling (such as on the bus to work every
  day) which is a mixture of
  - perl development (which again would need Linux)
  - writing (which only needs an editor)
All of the above need a way to sync the contents of the laptop with
the desktop.  At the moment I use unison, which does just what I want.
 
Which basically gets back to the question: how well does Linux work on
the PPC?  Is it more or less reliable than an x86 machine?  The upside
of x86 is that it's popular, therefore stuff gets fixed.  The downside
of x86 is that the hardware keeps getting changed and not supported.
Is Apple hardware more stable, or is it a moving target cloaked in
mystery?

> I have Linux on the desktop (Debian for my own machine, RHEL for the
> ones I admin at work), Solaris for the two servers, & a Powerbook
> laptop, and the Powerbook is *great*.  My experience of Linux & laptops
> has always been that there's a lot of hassle, whereas the Mac Just
> Works, and is a pleasure to use, as well.  I'm recommending them now to
> all my users who talk to me about laptops.  

True, it's so *nice* to have something that Just Works...
But I assume that it's Mac OS X which Just Works, and not PPC Linux,
yes?

Kathryn Andersen
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