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

[Kathryn Andersen]

On Thu, Oct 27, 2005 at 01:26:05PM -0400, Travis Casey wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 27, 2005 at  8:17 AM, Kathryn Andersen wrote:
> > 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.

True.  I'm of two minds about whether I want the extra work or not.
 
> > > >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.

LOL.

> Current versions of Unison work on MacOS, and support Mac "resource 
> forks".

So it can talk between a Mac system and a Linux system, yes?
  
> 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).

Both sound good.
 
> 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...
 
Hmmm.
What's the likelihood of that improving in the future?

Kathryn Andersen
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