With the manifold virtues of the classic Mac OS and the introduction of Mac OS X, it is a fair question to ask why one should consider running Linux on a Mac at all. There are several affirmative responses.

The first is that Mac OS Classic, for all of its wonderful user-friendliness and flexibility, is not the most robust operating system in terms of stability, memory management, and multi-tasking. Linux excels in all of these latter qualities.

Secondly, while OS X offers the same functional strengths as Linux, coupled with a user-friendly interface, it, alas, does not support a substantial proportion of the installed base of older Macs, while Linux supports most PCI-based 601, 603, and 604 Power PC Macs and Mac clones, as well as G3 and G4 models. If you want to run a UNIX-style OS on one of these older Macs, Linux is the obvious choice.

For instance, SuSE Linux PPC's minimum system requirements are modest compared with OS X --32 MB of RAM (more is better of course) and a PCI Power Mac, including such modest machinery as the Power Mac 7200, the Performa 4400, the UMAX C-600, or the PowerBook 2400, in contrast to OS X's G3 and up only/128 MB of RAM threshold. This opens the UNIX world to a wider spectrum of Mac users, and it is presumably a better performer on machines like my slow WallStreet than OS X would be.

Thirdly, Linux is free and truly open source. You can buy one of the Linux distributions with a proprietary installation program and a ton of bundled software applications for $50 or $60, or if you really know what you're doing, Linux is downloadable for free off the Internet. Advanced users can test, use, alter, and copy Linux to their heart's content.

Fourth, running Linux on the Mac opens up a whole new world of software, much of it free, to Mac users. As the popularity of Linux gradually increases on the PC side, the selection of Linux applications can only get better and better. This week, IBM announced a cooperative joint venture with to put 500 software engineers to work developing Enterprise applications Linux.

Fifth, Microsoft loathes and fears Linux. That should bring a smile to the face of any true Mac-head, or indeed anyone who believes that OS diversity is a good thing , and that monolithic Windows hegemony is unhealthy and bad.

As many readers will be aware, the Linux kernel or OS core was developed by Linus Torvalds (Linux = Linus's UNIX) in 1991 while he was a student at Finland's University of Helsinki, and rather than making it proprietary, he chose to make it available for free to anyone.

Linux now enjoys roughly a 25% share of the server OS market, but only 5% or so of the desktop/laptop PC 0S market -- or about the same proportional installed base as the Mac OS.

Like its UNIX antecedent, Linux is command line driven, and doesn't have a standard graphical user interface, but it does ship with GUI architecture called X Free 86, which in turn is controlled by another piece of open source software called window manager that supplies a form protocol for things like windows, buttons, and menus, much like the Mac OS Finder or OS X Aqua do for the their respective OSs.

There are several Linux window managers available, but the two most popular are GNOME and KDE, both of which provide a taskbar, application launcher, notepad, calculator, CD player, and so forth. Both GNOME and KDE are open source, collaborative efforts. The GNOME project was affiliated cooperatively with the recently failed Eazel project spearheaded by a group of ex-Apple Mac OS veterans to develop a truly user-friendly GUI for Linux. Eazel's Nautilus GUI will continue to be developed as an open source volunteer project, but its future is currently a question mark.

So much for theory; what about practice? I recently installed SuSE Linux, one of the Power PC Linux distributions, on my WallStreet PowerBook, and I chose GNOME more or less at random (KDE also ships with SuSE Linux), but I have no real frame of reference for a preference. I notice that in an unscientific poll on the FreeOS Web site this week, KDE was the most popular window manager among respondents by a substantial margin.

Speaking of Linux installations, it is supposed to be the major hurdle to surmount for new Linux users, but I didn't find it too onerous. I've already written an article for Applelinks on my installation adventure, so I won't repeat myself here at any great length. You can check out the full details here.

Briefly: It is first necessary to reformat the Mac's hard drive and partition it. If you plan to continue using the Mac OS as well, you will need at least one good-sized HFS+ extended volume for normal Mac OS activities plus:
• One small HFS standard 30 MB partition as a Linux boot partition, which is necessary because information on the boot process is stored there by Linux
• A 128 MB Linux swap partition for the "virtual memory" in Linux in the A/UX swap format
• An A/UX Linux partition for SuSE Linux itself.

The next step with the WallStreet was to install OS 9.1 on the Mac OS partition in order to boot the WallStreet so we could use the SuSE Linux install CD. With later Power Macs that have the "New World" ROM, you can skip this step and just boot from the SuSE Linux CD itself.

Once booted, find the boot loader control panel on the SuSE install CD which is called BootX App. With this control panel you can remove control from the Mac OS and start-up SuSE Linux to begin the install process.

SuSE Linux comes with a graphical interface installation tool called YAST2, which guides you through the installation with the help of screen dialogs which include a field with instruction prompts and tips. It looks at the hardware and integrates the components it recognizes into the System. The process is shown graphically. When it is finished with a procedure it goes on automatically to the next one.

You also select a basic software package for your system. SuSE Linux ships with approximately 1500 applications, but to simplify things you are offered several packages to choose from.

You must choose a user login and password, as well as a "root" system administrator password.

At that point you're ready to let the installer do its stuff, and with the package we chose the installation run took about fifteen minutes

I haven't done a whole lot with SuSE Linux yet since installing it. I don't have a lot of spare time, and time is what is necessary to concentrate on climbing a fairly steep learning curve if I were to think of using Linux as a workaday system rather than just playing around with it. Another inhibition is that the WallStreet is my production machine, and while the Mac OS happily coexists with Linux on my hard drive (on separate partitions) one has to quit and reboot and each time one wants to change systems, which is time-consuming.

I would suggest that if you're serious about learning to Linux on your Mac, installing it on a machine other than your production workhorse, preferably on its own, dedicated hard drive, is advisable.

A suggestion I would strongly make to any distribution company wishing to attract Mac-users (or other newbies) to the Linux platform, is to put more effort into making the learning curve a bit easier to scale.

I'm something of a Mac power-user, but I'm almost completely ignorant of command line protocols, so for me, while SuSE Linux comes with a nice, big, 500 page print manual, from my perspective, a lot of it could just as well be written in Chinese or ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. There is a 13 page glossary, but it's still tends to rely way too heavily on UNIX jargon in its explanations, and is very general in focus.

A concrete example of the sort of thing Mac users are likely to find problematical is references to an "alt" Key, which is frequently used in Linux it seems. Mac keyboards have no key labeled "alt," and nowhere in the SuSE manual does the explain that the equivalent is the "option" key. This may seem a small, obvious, and trivial thing to a Linux veteran, but it is a frustrating riddle if you don't know the key, so to speak

What is sorely needed is a set of instructions written in plain English, or at least in Mac-centric English, to walk new Linux users through the basics. I suggest that the writing be done by Linux operation savvy non-programmers. My inference, after dipping my toes gently in but receptively into the Linux world, is that the mystery of why this free, powerful, and stable OS has been so slow to catch on with desktop users can be largely attributed to the fact that the initial learning curve is just too intimidating, and in some respects, gratuitously so.

To be fair to the SuSE folks, they note that their manual is "not aimed at replacing the existing literature on Linux," and they recommend "buying a few good books." Consequently, the "First steps with Linux" section is a mere 23 pages tucked away in the nether regions of the manual as what appears to be an afterthought, and I found it relatively unhelpful, again largely because it is larded with unfamiliar terms that the writers seem to assume a new user will understand. I don't understand a lot of it.

There are of course alternative resources for information on learning Linux, but it would be nice if an elementary guide for Linux dummies like me could be included, although I recognize that there are limits to what can be bundled with a package that sells for a modest $50.

Speaking of books "for dummies," there are of course several eponymous volumes available from IDG books, including "SuSE Linux for Dummies" by Jon "maddog" Hall and Jay Migliaccio.

As the book's promotion blurb puts it:

"Although SuSE Linux is an extremely popular operating system, wading through its complicated installation procedures and accessing its myriad applications has been an exercise in frustration for even the most adept system administrators -- until now! SuSE Linux For Dummies has come to the rescue with loads of information to help you get the most out of your Linux operating system."

Cool. Must get a copy.

Also available is "Linux® For Dummies®, 3rd Edition" by By Dee-Ann LeBlanc , Melanie Hoag , Evan Blomquist , a book that promises to show "business managers and home users just what can be accomplished with Linux and why it truly is a viable alternative to Windows."

Sounds great. Another likely volume.

Then there's "Linux® For Dummies® Quick Reference, 3rd Edition" By Phil Hughes and Viktorie Navratilova, a $14.99 Beginner-Intermediate level text with a lay-flat binding that sounds something like what I suggested above in the beginner's handbook line.

There are also quite a few online resources for Linux newbies, including, the auspicious sounding Linuxnewbie.org -- the place for people who are transitioning to Linux and are having a hard time learning how to operate, install, and getting around the OS.

The Linuxnewbie.org folks say they have devised a different system of learning Linux. Instead of following the boring HOW-TO's and reading MAN pages, acting as a portal and archive all of the tips/tricks and "HOWTO's" users have created or send in. These files will be laid out in an easy to read and understandable format.

SuSE Linux maintains what it claims is the largest existing Linux knowledge database at http://www.suse.de/sdb/en/html/, and a support database is also included on one of the six CDs that ships with the SuSE Linux package.

FreeOS.com is a resource center for Free Operating Systems whose aim is to promote the use of Free Operating Systems. On the FreeOS.com Web site one can find a one-stop solution for free operating systems, including information, articles, documentation, downloads, news, links - essentially anything related to all Free Operating Systems including of course Linux.

Another, business user oriented Linux support website can be found at linuxcare.com, which bills itself as being "the industry leader in designing and deploying open-source solutions, Linuxcare bolsters this OS with everything you need at all stages of the product life cycle."

Appendix

The Latest PowerPC Linux Distributions Plus Mac On Linux - The Linux Counterpart To OS X Classic Mode

Charles W. Moore

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