Erik’s Blog

As I’ve probably mentioned way too many times across my multiple blogs and friendly spams (forgive me), I now have a MacBook. Naturally, my old G3 iBook pales in comparison. However, I don’t want to get rid of it because it’s still a cool machine.

Soooo… For no particular reason I decided to do the unthinkable: remove MacOS X from my de-commissioned iBook and try to install a free, open source UNIX.

At this point, folks whose eyes are glazing over and folks who are rolling their eyes at yet another UNIX on Mac story, I’m going to be merciful and let you continue with your lives without suffering the details of my journey. The rest of you, click somewhere on this page to get the rest of the story.

In the old days I would have spent weeks dinking with various OSes. Those days pretty much ended in 2003 when I left the PC world and — a few months later — the entire tech industry, both with guns blazing. I’m a changed man. Still a techie at heart, but… Life is too short and all that.

The obvioius first choice in OSes was OpenDarwin, an attempt to take the open source code from the core of MacOS and make an actual installable, usable operating system out of it. I figured if anything is going to run like a dream on an iBook, it’s OpenDarwin. And for all I know it works great. However, the project was recently killed by its owners. Apple’s name was mentioned in the reasoning for its demise. Lack of interest among the general public was another. I suspect the latter is the real issue and the former is just pissing and moaning. Just my opinion. Who knows? And really, who cares?

Being a BSD kinda guy I figured another BSD would suffice. There are numerous PowerPC versions of BSD, notably NetBSD and OpenBSD, and the only desktop-worthy free BSD in existence — FreeBSD — has a PowerPC port in the works. I’d consider FreeBSD. The others are server OSes as far as I’m concerned. Big yawn.

So I moved on. And in the process, hell froze over.

Why is that? Because — gulp — I actually entertained installing a version of Linux. Not just any, but one that has its roots with the Linux company that I loathe the most: RedHat (sorry, I’m not giving those guys a link). Faced with this, and knowing that for every port of Linux I know about there are probably five that I don’t know about, I kept looking.

After a bit of searching I came across Ubuntu. Everyone gushes over this thing. It’s supposed to be the most consumer friendly non-corporate Linux. It’s dog simple to install. It’s purty. Etc. So, WTF, I did it. I downloaded the ISO, made a CD, and installed Ubuntu.

Folks were right: it truly was simple to install. And although it’s not quite as purty as I was told, it’s not ugly either. I have to give the Ubuntu folks credit for not only making it easy to install but also weathering the hell-storm of techno-weenies who loathe anything that smells like “dumbing down” their precious Linux. I’m sure the Ubuntu folks have had to deal with that. It’s not fun. In fact, it’s infuriating. But I digress.

I didn’t take a screenshot while it was installed because it didn’t remain on my iBook long enough for me to bother. Ubuntu is probably a screamer on PC hardware but it’s a DOG on my G3 iBook. Dragging a window around the desktop would result in one main window and lots of fragments of edges of windows chasing it around in waves. The mouse was choppy when it moved, too. SSSSLLLLLOOOOOOWWWWW. And before anyone says “well, what do you expect? It’s a G3,” I’ll mention that MacOS runs beautifully on my iBook. Video is accelerated, too. T’ain’t the hardware, fellaz.

And the icing on the cake: my Airport card wasn’t supported. Not an Airport Express, which I know for a fact is not supported on Linux yet; an OLD Airport card, one that IS supported, or at least is supposed to be supported. Ubuntu saw it but wouldn’t do anything with the encryption key stuff I entered for it. And yes, I know which security protocols are supported on Linux. I use one of them. The card still wouldn’t work.

So, one eye rolled toward the heavens and the other rolled toward the four ISO images of Yellow Dog that I downloaded. Holding my nose, I installed Yellow Dog.

I’ll save you the agony of another diatribe. I’ll say this instead and you can mentally fill in the rest: not only was it slow, but it was bloated and it didn’t even have the decency to SEE my Airport card, much less configure it. And for those familiar with the bloated sow that is KDE, it used KDE. At least Ubuntu used GNOME, which if I recall correctly was still a pig three years ago but it was a noticeably faster pig.

As I mentioned, in the old days I’d stay up for days straight messing with this crap, stubbornly pursuing getting it all to work. But after only one day of dinkage I called it quits. My iBook once again runs the ONLY useful UNIX desktop OS in my opinion: MacOS X. It’s fast, it’s clean, it gives me just about everything I can get on a Linux system, and most (all?) of the open source software I give a damn about is either ported natively to MacOS (read: VIM, MySQL, Apache) or runs under MacOS’ version of X11.

So really, why did I bother? I guess I had to satisfy my curiosity. What came out of this: I realized that after all these years Linux hasn’t progressed on the desktop as much as folks think it has (although Ubuntu seems to be moving in the right direction), and a world where open source and proprietary software can exist side by side is much, much more benefitial to my sanity than a pure open source/FOSS play. I will still keep my eye on the PowerPC port of FreeBSD because one of these days MacOS will be end-of-lifed on the PowerPC platform and I’ll need something to run on it, and sorry folks, I guess I still have a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to Linux. If my iBook hasn’t turned to dust by then I may switch.

Only if the Airport card is supported, though… Heh.