What distribution of Linux you recommend.

I'm Mac user and i dont know a thing about Linux, but i really need to use one application in Linux.

So basically i need plain vanilla Linux that can mount Sony GPS-CS1 and then run GPSBabel. GPSBabel for Macs dont work currently in PPC Macs with Sony GPS-CS1.

Is it possible to install Linux to thumb drive? How much it takes space?

If i install it to my Mac hard drive, does it require own partition? I dont want to create new partition.

Which one of these GPSBabel files i should choose:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...ease_id=489289

Is there a way to automatically run GPSBabel every time i boot Linux, so it runs and downloads data automatically to Mac hard drive?


"GPSBabel has been tested on a variety of Linux distributions including Red Hat, Fedora, SuSE and Debian on architectures including IA64, IA32, Power, and ARM."

have you read this fix for mac users?
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=694612

You can install Linux on a floppy--it all depends on what you need it to do. For GUI applications, you need more space. I don't know the requirements of your particular app.

any operating system needs a partition of its own.
Why not?

Also, you could always install on an external USB drive.

Yes, but that is different problem.

The problem is:
http://macgpscs1.blogspot.com/2007/03/march-update.html

"Although Sony do not advertise it as being Mac compatible, it should mount as a removable disk on a Mac. However unless you have a Core 2 Duo Macbook, then your version of Mac OS X 10.4.9 has a bug that stops the GPS-CS1 from mounting."

"A workaround (other than using a PC to download the files and then transfer them to your Mac) is to boot your Mac in Ubuntu - you can do this from CD. The GPS-CS1 mounts without problems in Ubuntu."


So i'm looking for some small, super easy to install and use Linux distribution. I think i want to install it to 500MB thumb drive or if that cant be done, then to CD.

Good installation instructions would be nice too.

if you want to install linux one that you can carry around with you get knoppix which you can burn to a CD and it will boot the whole OS from CD.

It seems to me that the above quote is suggesting that you boot you Mac from an ubuntu live CD without installing it to the hard drive. This article claims that the live CD works with macs and has a link to the download page.

http://www.communitymx.com/content/a...ge=4&cid=C5776

I downloaded Damn Small Linux and burned it to cd:

1. Insert a blank disc.
2. Start Disk Utility.
3. From the File menu, choose Open Disk Image and select the ISO to be burned.
4. In the list of volumes, you will now see an item representing the ISO file. Select it.
5. Click the Burn button and follow the instructions.

because it first must be booted from cd then install from there to usb flash drive:
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/i...SB_Flash_Drive


Burning succeeded because cd has files.

But if i try to boot Mac using option OR c down, it dont list this cd at all???

How to boot to this cd or is there any Linux distribution that can be installed to thumb drive without creating cd first?

You can install even Damn Small Linux without burning it to a CD with some virtualization client. I used QEMU to boot the image and installed DSL on my new DSL image file and from that virtual installation I installed it to my thumb drive.

Thanks, but that sounds too complicated to me. I'm Linux/virtualization client/qemu/... newbie.

Another way I think is to uncompress the image file to your filesystem and use Grub or some other bootloader to boot the uncompressed kernel from your filesystem instead of CD. Then you theoretically wouldn't need to burn the CD and use virtualization.

Or you could just burn the CD as it is the easiest option

Thanks again. I did burn it but when i try to boot from cd using option OR c down, it only lists Mac internal HD.

I'm sure there must be Linux distribution, which has easy OS X installer and which can install directly to usb flash drive.

Is yours an intel mac or ppc mac?

if intel, almost any will do, if ppc, look to debian, ubuntu, yellow dog etc. that are compiled for your processor.

It is PPC.

I'm still looking for easy instructions how to do this.

get knoppix!!! :P you can boot from CD and its a whole linux os.

Please tell us where to get from Knoppix for PPC?