08-27-2003, 07:04 PM

I'm considering getting Yellow Dog Linux, but first I have a few questions.

1. Can I install it over OS X? Without reformating or deleting anything over my hard drive.

2. Is there a risk of data loss?

3. Can I choose whether to boot OS X or Linux?

4. Will it make my performance worse

5. Is it an easy uninstall if I don't like it.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. Thanks.

08-27-2003, 08:45 PM

You will need a seperate partition to install Linux. In fact you will probably need 2. I'm not familiar with yellowdog linux, but I know MacAddikt has it installed, or did anyway, hopefully he'll chime in here with some more info.

As far as the right place to put this post, I guess this isn't the place to put it, but I don't know where else it should go. Which brings up another topic, alternate OS's for Mac Hardware.... We'll discuss this idea somewhere else, sometime.

08-27-2003, 09:00 PM

I'm assuming it would be a bad idea to boot of an iPod(Tell me if I'm wrong). Maybe I'll just save up some cash and get a cheap firewire drive.

08-27-2003, 09:35 PM

Was thinking the same thing

You probably could boot off your iPod, but I don't like messing with mine. I like to keep it as what it's supposed to be.

I would highly recommend getting a firewire drive setup. I just did this a couple weeks ago. I bought a firewire/usb ( for compatibility with PC's ) enclosure, THIS ONE for $100 at Circuit City, and then I got a 160 GB HD for like $120. I just saw at Best Buy that they have 200 GB drives for like $140. That is a great deal.

Back to Yellow Dog... I am gonna get it and install it on my iMac. Supposedly it is a port of the Red Hat 9.0 distro. I like the RH9 distro, so I would say you should be all set with using it. Supposedly YD smokes on G4's, so we should be in for a treat

08-30-2003, 11:44 PM

visit linuxiso.com for the answer to all your questions. you can also download a pdf install manual for yellow dog from their website.

08-31-2003, 11:49 AM

I installed Yellow Dog a couple of days ago. It's OK. If you are looking to run Linux than it is definately functional. The only drawback that I saw was that the nvidia drivers weren't up to par. Even though my resolution was set at 1440x900, there was nowhere near the real estate available that is in OS X. I tried to run a game that was preinstalled, and the video was all messed up, which is what led me to believe that the drivers were to blame.

Other than that, it worked as advertised. The install was pretty straight forward ( I have installed RH quite a few times, so I was already familiar with it ). I had trouble with the GUI installer not recognizing my 17" iMac display, and displaying garbage, but there is a text based install that took care of that.

Also there isn't much support out there. They don't have a support forum, they have a mailing list, which some people prefer, but I find to be totally "dark ages", and not being able to search is a major issue I have with mailing lists.

So in the end, I will not be keeping it on my machine, as I bought a Mac because of OS X, and not because of the hardware, which is the reasoning behind a lot of people installing Linux on their Macs.

Good luck on your Linux jouneys

09-01-2003, 09:21 PM

Just listened to a "Your Mac Life" with the guy who developed YDL, he says it's impossible to boot off a firewire disk. Did you do it (with a upgrade or something)?

09-01-2003, 11:03 PM

I didn't install it on a FireWire disk. I installed it on the HD in my iMac.

09-02-2003, 12:00 AM

Originally Posted by Mike

Just listened to a "Your Mac Life" with the guy who developed YDL, he says it's impossible to boot off a firewire disk. Did you do it (with a upgrade or something)?

ITS POSSIBLE. Not on some macs tho.

02-24-2004, 09:51 AM

So does this mean you can repartition a hard drive and have a mac dual booting OS X and Linux? Do only certain distros work?

Can anyone explain this a little better?

02-26-2004, 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by thef0x82

So does this mean you can repartition a hard drive and have a mac dual booting OS X and Linux? Do only certain distros work?

Can anyone explain this a little better?

yeah i also want to do this.. how would i go about repartioning my hd, i know in my pc all i did was use partition magic pro 8.0, is there such a beast for mac, and also, i have suse 9.0, would this run on mac