Linux/BSD on a Mac (was Re: [plug] Linux on an Alpha?)

[Peter Wright]

On Wed, May 10, 2000 at 10:07:37AM +0800, Darrell Horrocks wrote:
> Hi All
> 
> Anyone got a location where I can get information of the
> BSDs-v-Linux?  Is BSD another (more or less) distribution with a
> different kernel(s)?

No.... okay, let's see if I can explain this in a few words.

FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD are all spinoffs of the 4.4BSDLite code
which was the latest iteration of the classic BSD (Berkeley Standard
Distribution) Unix. First was something called 386/BSD which as far as
I know is now dead - FreeBSD spun off from that, focussing on x86
systems, NetBSD also spun off, focussing on portability across many
architectures, then OpenBSD spun off from NetBSD and focusses on
"security".

They're all quite groovy and very usable Unix-ish systems, much like
Linux, but they are _NOT_ related to Linux. If you're not a low-level
programmer or a anal sysadmin, they're just as powerful and usable as
Linux (if not more so), just different.

They can use GNU utilities, as Linux distributions do, but don't have
to. I think gcc (the C compiler) is probably the most widely used
"GNU" application on *BSD systems. They also generally use XFree86 for
XWindows, just as most Linux machines do. They can also run Linux
binaries (at least x86 Linux binaries, at least on x86 systems :).

> Can someone point me in the direction of some information regarding
> this, particularly with regard to differences in hardware support,
> applications supported etc?  I have been trying to do so using the
> *BSD pages, but finding it hard to snorkel through ALL the
> information.

Sorry, but hang on to that snorkel, you're gonna need it for a while
yet.

> I ask this because I want to get linux working on a very old
> powermac, but was told I would need to use netbsd.

You probably will. :)

I actually found NetBSD 1.4.1 (the latest release is 1.4.2) quite
straightforward to install - this is from someone whose main
experience is in (successfully) installing Slackware Linux, Debian
Linux, Yggdrasil Linux, Redhat Linux, Mandrake Linux, OpenBSD (with
some difficulty)... and (failing to install) FreeBSD. Although that
last was on a laptop with a dodgy floppy drive.

> Any other pointers?

NetBSD is the best for supporting weird/unusual architectures and
would _probably_ be your best bet. Try to get as far as you can with
the installation documentation 

http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.4.2/mac68k/INSTALL.html

or perhaps

http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.4.2/macppc/INSTALL.html

... one of those should be right.. I don't know enough about Mac
architectures (and you didn't say exactly what your machine was, just
that it was "old" :).

...and then _politely_ ask for help on the comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
newsgroup if/when you have problems, being as clear and specific as
you can, hopefully with the problem(s) narrowed down as much as
possible. Much like the Linux gurus, they don't appreciate people
coming on to the group just saying "it won't work on my Mac!!!"
(etc...), and because there are much fewer NetBSD gurus than Linux
gurus, they tend to be not terribly helpful with such types.

> Darrell

Hope that helps somewhat...

Pete.
-- 
http://cygnus.uwa.edu.au/~pete/

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