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A Review of Yellow Dog Linux 3.0 |
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 As promised, here is HTML Samurai's review of Yellow Dog Linux 3.0 (running on a PowerBook G3)
Do you love your Mac? Do you want what is best for it? Do you want to be a better person, better employee, and/or a better member of your family and community? Because Yellow Dog may have the solution! (Not a guarantee)
Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) is an Open Source alternative OS for your Apple (PPC) hardware. I have used Linux on PCs for a while, and I really like most aspects of it. It is free, except for the fact that is is not 100% easy to use out of the box - especially if you are not familiar with Linux. As with any OS, you have to learn to use it. And in doing so, you will find things you like and dislike, things that are not what you thought they would be, and areas were it is totally lacking.
So without further ado...
At first glance it looked great! Not quite as pretty as OS X, but definitely well organized. For those of you that have used KDE or Gnome on Red Hat Linux 8.0 or 9.0 (YDL 3.0 was based on Red Hat 9.0), the interface will not really be anything new, other than the Yellow Dog logo icon used to open the main menu instead of the Red Hat logo - and the Panel (taskbar) has been located at the top of the screen instead of the bottom (by default).
After dealing with a few initial display problems I was having, I decided to tackle the issue of going wireless. Now, as anyone who has worked with Linux can tell you, while configuring various things in Linux, you will more than likely be spending a significant amount of time on the Internet researching: why doesn't this work, has it happened to someone else, what did they do to fix it, it is a known issue... the list goes on and on! And so did my research! In the end, it all came down to a couple of hours of actual work, I had to load a couple of modules (for PCMCIA), compile a driver (for the wireless card), editing the pcmcia.conf file (to include the driver), and start the card manager. Piece of cake, right? Sure... If I didn't have to do a couple of weeks worth of research, trial and failure techniques, and threatening to sell my laptop.
Actually the fix was not that difficult, I just wish someone out there would have had the same problem as I was having and could have posted the fix where I could find it. But no, I had to incorporate bits and pieces from here and there to get it working properly. Please keep in mind that this is a hardware issue, the PCMCIA is not 100% supported out of the box and there is NO built in support for the wireless card that I was using. An iBook with an AirPort card is supposed to work after the first reboot - but I don't have the funds to test that. :(
Now that my kick-ass laptop is doing everything I want it to, I will take a few moments to list some of YDL's Pros & Cons.
Pros:
Games - Excellent starters
Open Office - Full open source office suite (fully compatible with MS Office)
Graphics - Many viewers, editors, and creators, such as The Gimp
Internet - Mozilla 1.2.1, an AIM clone, an FTP client, an IRC client, and more
PDA Spport - It's there, but I don't have a PDA to test it...
apt-get - An RPM package installer
GUI - Easy to learn to use (but you have to right-click sometimes)
Menus - Very well organized
Servers - It's Linux, it'll serve what you want it to
Cons:
Games - Not many out there!
Screen Savers - Kinda cheesey and low end graphics
Support - Not as many users as other Linux variants, I had to use a lot of Red Hat support pages
Help Files - They'll help, if your problem is listed
Flash - There is absolutely no support to YDL. Please sign this petition to correct the oversight
So as you can see, YDL 3.0 is a full, well planned, and executed OS (not to mention open-source). I hope that this article will, if nothing else, inform you that there are alternatives. Use what works for you...
Anti-Flame Statement:
Those of you that have read my articles before have probably realized that I am not completely for or against ANY OS - except Windows ME, Hated it! I love the interface and ease of use of OS X, the customization and stability of Linux, and the games you can get for Windows. ;) I am into exploring options and finding what is best for me in whatever situation I may come across. My next project is setting up an OpenBSD machine as a firewall.
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July 1 2003, 2:17 PM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| iKen |
7/1/03, 4:00 PM EDT |
I have always thought about installing YD on a partition, but I don't really want to put that much time in to it...
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| Jonahan |
7/1/03, 4:48 PM EDT |
Yeah, that's the thing about Linux/BSD. For the amount of time you could do something in OS X, with Linux you have the added bonus of getting to spend 2 extra weeks on it!
That said, I can understand wanting to use it on an older machine that can't handle OS X. But I pity the foo'. Pity'um pity'um pity'um.
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| Jorge Quinonez |
7/1/03, 9:52 PM EDT |
What I'd really like to know is how YDL 3 compares to the other Mac PPC Linux distro: Mandrake 9.1. How about a review of "YDL 3.0 vs. Mandrake 9.1"?
Or can anyone point to a URL where there might be such a review.
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| Zack |
7/1/03, 11:24 PM EDT |
"But no, I had to incorporate bits and pieces from here and there to get it working properly"
That's the story for linux over and over again. No non-power-user is going to want to go through all that.
At least with Mac OS (and even mostly with Windows), things are fairly plug-n-play.
With Linux, the manufacturer rarely, if at all, writes a driver for a product. You have to wait for some programmer working for free to write it, and then it half-works with only half the features.
OSX all the way baby! All UNIX, ALL the time, WITH WORKING DRIVERS!
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| Zack |
7/2/03, 4:52 AM EDT |
The correct petition URL is http://www.wizdev.net/Flash-PPC.php
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| Coolbru |
7/2/03, 5:02 AM EDT |
"My next project is setting up an OpenBSD machine as a firewall."
Good luck to you. I use OpenBSD on my i386 server, and it's really excellent, way better than any Linux installation I tried, and certainly more secure out of the box.
You'll find there's generally less software for OpenBSD than other BSDs, but for a firewall, all you really need is OpenBSD's very own "pf" packet filter firewall, and it's easily configured through nothing more than a single SSH session.
Oh, and don't forget to buy your installation CDs - the OBSD guys deserve it - and follow it up with updates from the "-stable" branch of their CVS server. You'll also get used to the mindset of compiling everything from source! I have successfully recompiled new versions of the whole OS and rebooted into it entirely remotely on several occasions - try that with any other OS!
You'll also find that the whole environment has more in common with OS X than most Linux distibutions.
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| Jonahan |
7/2/03, 8:16 AM EDT |
This is an excellent review, and I believe that all the Linux/BSD OSes have their place. But if you have the horsepower, nothing beats OS X for time, simplicity, and what you can do.
Coolbru, you said that "I have successfully recompiled new versions of the whole OS and rebooted into it entirely remotely on several occasions - try that with any other OS!"
Why would you NEED to recompile your OS? And how long did that take? If somehow your install of OS X gets hosed, you can reinstall everything in well under an hour (depending on your machine, maybe much less) and it's VERY easy to do.
Plus, I'm no slouch at computers and know Linux fairly well, but it took me over a month to get an OpenBSD box up and running. It took so long to install what I needed that I gave up. I could've spent that time doing useful stuff If I'd have used a Mac instead.
I don't know, to each his own I guess, but I'm just about saving myself time and headaches (and time is money baby!) :-D
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| HTML Samurai |
7/2/03, 8:24 AM EDT |
Zack, I fixed that link - thanks! And you are right, for the most part, about getting things to work in Linux. However, most of the problems I am having are due to the hardware that I am using.
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This article is archived, so you may not comment on it.
(The good news is there's always the shoutbox, the forums or the contact form if you're socially-inclined at the moment!)
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