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

Travis Casey efindel at earthlink.net
Fri Oct 28 03:26:05 EST 2005


On Thu, Oct 27, 2005 at  8:17 AM, Kathryn Andersen wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 27, 2005 at 07:52:14AM -0400, Elwing wrote:
> > On Oct 27, 2005, at 7:39 AM, Kathryn Andersen wrote:

> > >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)
> > 
> > what development environment are you using?  if it's simple LAMP or  
> > even python/ruby development - OS X has those either native (Apache,  
> > PHP) or through fink and darwinports)
> 
> But it's a *hassle* if the two systems aren't exactly the same, because
> they will never *work* exactly the same, wheras I want to be able to

[snip a bit]

> Wheras right now, I'm running the same (GenToo) version of Linux on both
> systems, with the same versions of everything; the main difference is
> that the server has more stuff on it and runs faster (since the laptop
> is only a Pentium III and doesn't have much memory either).

My own thought is that that's a good way to be able to go for doing personal 
stuff, but when developing software (including web software) that's going to
be used by others, I'd actually prefer to have it running on different systems...
because that way you can find out about any hidden system dependencies
*before* they come along and bite you (e.g., when you have to upgrade
a system because of a security hole, or you need to port to a new machine
running on a different architecture, etc.)  So there's good things about both
ways of doing things, depending on just what you're doing.

> > >- 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)
> > 
> > Since when does Perl need Linux?  I run it happily on both XP and OS  
> > X with no problems

OS X includes Perl, Python, PHP, and TCL by default.

> Vim?

Just as on most Linux distributions, MacOS's "vi" is actually vim.
 
> > >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.
> 
> Does Max OS X have unison?

heh... that's actually the first question on the Unison FAQ list, and the answer 
is yes.  Current versions of Unison work on MacOS, and support Mac "resource 
forks".
 
MacOS also has two packaging schemes for non-included Unix software
available:  fink (fink.sourceforge.net) is essentially a port of Debian's 
apt tools to MacOS, while darwinports (darwinports.opendarwin.org) is 
BSD's "ports" facility for MacOS.  (I understand that BSD ports is similar
to the setup GenToo uses, but not having used GenToo myself, I can't
confirm).

On the side of running Linux on Mac hardware, I've heard that support is
still limited to nonexistent for Apple's 802.11g wireless ethernet hardware
on Linux, but can't confirm that.  I have booted the Ubuntu LiveCD on my 
Mac Mini, though, and everything but the wireless ethernet seemed to work...

--
Travis Casey
efindel at earthlink.net


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