does linux work well for ibooks? anybody tried installing linux on ibooks?

Linux works on all iBooks. I used to run Debian-PPC on a "Wallstreet" Powerbook (roughly equivalent to the clamshell iBooks) and it worked very well. You might want to browse around here to get more detailed information:

http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/apple.html

If you have got the newest generation of iBooks (aka iBook 2.2), I am incredibly jealous. Fine little pieces of engineering and design there!

Håkan

oh... one more thing.. how does the speed of mac compare with intel or amd? what intel speed is the 800mhz ibook comparable to? im planning to get one of the low end ibooks and run linux on it.

im planning to use the ibook to run linux , mandrake 9.1 perhaps.. and some games.. would the 800 mhz / 256 mb do for those things? or wud it be sluggish?

i was wondering f any one could tell me what system macintosh is built off of is it around unix. linux a little bit?

i am proberly wrong but its worth a try

That's a pretty hard question to answer. I guess you could dig around the web for benchmarks, but in my opinion benchmarks don't really tell you anything about the experience of using a computer, you know - how fast it feels.
Don't stare yourself dumb at the numbers, that's all I can say. Go to stores and check out the different laptops you're considering. To me, that feeling of quality is more important than what company logo is on the lid.

I believe Mandrake PPC 9.1 would run pretty well on an 800MHz iBook. If I were you I would pop in some more RAM in it, up it to perhaps 512MB or so. Perhaps even more. I find that having a lot of memory matters a lot, especially on laptop computers for some reason. But that's just me.
I don't know how many games that work with PPC Linux. I guess most native Linux games would run pretty well since all the important libraries (SDL and so on) are ported to the PPC architecture, but don't count on running *any* Windows games on it.

Apple Macintosh OSX, currently at version 10.3, is build on a UNIX-like system - Darwin. It uses the Mach kernel and is based on the BSD 4.4 "UNIX" operating system. Darwin is open source, but most of the cool features of OSX is in the graphical user interface and that is not part of the Darwin distribution.
I like OSX - it's pretty, very user friendly (dumbed down a bit ), but you can easily pop up a console (or terminal or whatever you want to call it) and use it as a UNIX (or Linux) style computer. You have access to most common UNIX commands on OSX, and there are a lot of cool open source projects for the OS, in particular fink. Fink is a port of the Debian package management system that allows you to install almost any popular (or less popular!) open source application, even the whole KDE and Gnome desktops!

I am currently considering buying an iBook (around 800MHz for me too) or a used PowerBook G4.

Håkan

cheers thanks for the feedback

has anyone tried Yellow Dog...? I am thinking of buying a iBook and was just wondering.

I will say it works as well as any intel-compatible laptops. It is easier to check as they are relatively few models.

The only thing I was not able to get to work on mine is video mirroring but it worked fine on one of my friend PowerBook (it depends more on the graphic cards etc.). For modem, it required a binary driver done by Linuxant.

Recently, I know several people buying iBook and PowerBook and installing Linux.

Distros:
Debian
Gentoo (they have LiveCD)
YellowDog
maybe others.

I am using Debian but considering switching for Gentoo.

Processor speed: My iBook PowerPC G3 700MHz is slightly faster than my AMD 1200MHz for running the SpecJVM98 benchmarks. But these depends on applications etc. usually hard drive is bottle neck etc. Note: The new iBooks have G4 processors which are faster than G3s.

Note: PowerPC processors usually delivers more performance per energy consumption than intel-compatible processors. That's why the Mac laptops have longer battery life (about 3.5 hours mine for continuous average use).

If you consider dual-booting Linux and OS X, there is this:
Mac-On-Linux (VMWare like thing)
to run both OSes at the same time.

There is also Fink to install your favorite Unix apps on OS X if you intend to use it.


iTux

Thanks guys.

but a few more things..

"If you consider dual-booting Linux and OS X, there is this:
Mac-On-Linux (VMWare like thing)
to run both OSes at the same time."

but can they be separate? just like windows - linux with the bootloader handling stuff?

And.. does the ibook have wireless capabilities already or do i need to purchase the airport extreme thing?

Lastly... can any of you guys recommend some notebooks for me?
i dont need really fast notebooks, im more of a portability guy.. the lighter and smaller the better ( 3 pounds max. perhaps and a 12.1 inch screen max.. can be smaller), a long batterly life ( 3 hrs up ), 1 ghz cpu... around 512 ram... 30gb hdd, wireless lan... sound and cdrom. design, preinstalled software, brand aint important

and does transmeta cpu work well with linux?

You mean dual-boot? Yes of course. Even if you use Mac-On-Linux they are still separate on their own partition (not a virtual disk in a file etc.).

Unless Apple did some change recently, you need to buy the wireless card separately.

I didn't look much into products and prices in the last year, so I cannot really recommend anything in particular.


iTux

thanks :P

yellowdog 3.0.1 does not support the newest G4 iBook's vid card (radeon 9200 mobility). I found this out the hard way ... but there is also a note on the yellowdog HCL page.

how about mandrake? does it support all the hardware? including the wireless card?