h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Morning.

Having foolishly bought an iMac and become completely sick off their too idiot proof OS I am about to install Mandrake Linux PPC.

When this is installed will I be fully Linux compatible and be able to use all Linux software that is out there or am I putting myself on the small island that is Linux PPC users ?

Can I join your LUG?......

The majority of linux programs will work. If you're working from source code then the compile should be all you need. If you're picking up binaries, make sure you get the ppc version rather than x86 version and you'll be fine.
I've had linux (debian) running on an old PowerPC 4400, so it's quite do able.
Like any new instalation take heed of the warnings about partitioning disks with data on.

but if your imac is a g3 or g4, then you can upgrade it to "OS X", which runs a bsd kernal with a linux compatability layer, the mac gui on top of that (while still letting you parallel run x-windows) and also lets you run older "fat binaries" for the mac platform.

It might be worth a look if your hardware is compatable, and you have already bought the mandrake, to see if it is sensible for you to dual boot linux PPC and OS X.

This will give you full source-level compatability with anything that isn't x86 specific, while at the same time making you backward compatable with other mac hardware.

StarOffice 5.2 and WordPerfect won't run as they don't have PPC binaries available, and the source is closed. Watch out for OpenOffice though (the open source StarOffice).

If you want to run emulators for recent machines other than PPC things, you'll probably find it hard. Other than that, Freshmeat is your oyster.

Is OSX POSIX-compliant?

as it is running the darwin freebsd core, and that is posix compliant, then yes, it is posix compliant.

That means that the vast majority of open source software written for Linux should work under OSX, if you have an appropriate compiler, 'make', and a Bourne shell.

It is of course entirely possible to download the entire GNU development tools for Mac OS X - they don't generally come with it, but they are available. And you can get a version of XFree86 that runs without a root window, so the windows mix in with your Mac OS X desktop - although they don't use the eye-meltingly gorgeous Aqua GUI

Alternatively, I've heard running full Linux distros on Macs is an extremely good thing to do.

You could write a WM or a theme for GNOME (or something) to look like it, I suppose, if you were up to it. Or you could ask someone. Mind you, Netscape 4 (and other things) would use the same old ugly Motif widget set no matter what Unix you ran it on.

Would it be possible to run Mac apps under Linux or FreeBSD, on Mac hardware?

Or you could get one of the many many ready-made ones...

It is already possible to run mac apps under OS X using the inbuilt tools. There are also some emulators for bsd / linux that emulate verious apple machines, but the mac ones usually need the same processor. (like wine)

No, I said Mac apps under *Linux*, not OSX.

Oh, I believe that's possible too, and apparently it works fairly well. I've never looked into it myself though, so I may be wrong.