Re: debian on a mac?
"Monique" == Monique Y Herman <spam@bounceswoosh.org> writes:
Monique> So, question for people who have used this architecture
Monique> before: If I buy a system from Apple, how hard would it
Monique> be to reconfigure it for dual-boot? Single-boot debian?
Monique> What is the Mac way to resize/move partitions? What does
Monique> one use for a boot-loader? I know that OS X is based on
Monique> BSD, but I don't know how easy it is to get, say, xfree86
Monique> or gnome compiled and running on it.
Monique> How much functionality should I expect from debian on a
Monique> mac compared to my x86 setup? Are packages as readily
Monique> available?
<disclaimer>
I don't run Debian on a Mac, so perhaps this is off topic ;-)
</disclaimer>
Here is another take on your idea: We (my wife and I) own two Mac's -
a G4 desktop, and a 15" Powerbook. I use a Debian x86 desktop most of
the time, my wife uses the Macs most of the time.
I never got around to installing any dual boot system on the Macs,
though originally I had planned on it. I simply use OS X when I use
them. You can install XFree86 off Apple's web site, the developer
tools (gcc and friends) are a free download, and the fink project
(hosted on sourceforge) uses a dpkg based system to port software to
OS X (fink is not Debian, but you get apt-get, dselect etc. and a
bunch of packages). The core OS X (Darwin) OS is a basic Unix system
and comes with most of the utilities you'd expect.
Right now I'm writing this on a Mac G4 desktop which I am using to ssh
into my Debian Linux box with X Forwarding - so I am using the Mac
simply as an X Terminal. That is because my wife is playing PySol on
the Debian box with it's 21 inch monitor and three button mouse ;-)
I'd suggest you try OS X if you buy a Mac before you give up and go to
Debian or some other Linux distribution. OS X is a Unix (it even comes
with emacs, vi and ed out of the box), but just a little wierd.
Cheers!
Shyamal
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