I had hoped to start going over the actual Linux
install, but then realized that I needed to go over some more
things before we start. Next time I will start the installation.
Promise.
There are three main ways (but many more possibilities) to
prepare your "Old World" Power Mac for Linux.
- The first is with a single hard drive.
- The second is by using two hard drives on the same controller.
If you're using a PCI card, the card must have an Open
Firmware BIOS on it.
- The third way is with two hard drives on separate controllers.
The Linux drive can be connected to a non-Open Firmware controller
this way.
One Hard Drive
If there isn't any free space on the drive, then the drive must
be repartitioned, and Mac OS will have to be reinstalled. I
recommend the following setup with a single drive:
Example: My son's PowerBook
WallStreet has a 40 GB drive. A second drive isn't practical
(drive bay hard drives use a slower bus than the primary hard
drive) unless it's external, so I partitioned it with a 5 GB
Mac OS partition and a 32 MB ProDOS partition using the Mac OS
install discs. I left the remaining space free. I then used the
Linux installer to create the Linux Swap partition and the primary
Linux partition.
The Swap partition is akin to the "Virtual Memory" used by Mac
OS. However, instead of being able to change its size on the fly,
it's a fixed size on it's own partition. The general rule of thumb
is to make the swap partition twice the size of your physical RAM.
So if you have 256 MB of RAM, then a 512 MB swap partition would be
created. I don't really recommend making a swap partition larger
than 512 MB, though, because it's a waste of space.
The main Linux partition is the "root" partition called "/".
This is where the system is installed. Unlike the Windows
convention of using drive letters or the Mac way of naming your
drives or partitions, partitions in a Linux system are mounted onto
the root partition.
On my son's PowerBook, I created a 5 GB "/" partition and used
the rest of the free space as the " /files" partition. I did it
this way so that if I wanted to reinstall or replace the Linux
install, all of his videos and stuff wouldn't have to be backed up
and reinstalled later.
Why Use a ProDOS Partition?
Linux doesn't always support being able to read/write to Apple's
HFS+ file system. With the "Old World" Power Macs, whenever you
update your kernel, you have to copy your "initrd" (initial RAM
disk that sets the system up to boot) and your new kernel to the
Mac OS partition so BootX can boot the newest version. I named that
partition "/boot" on the PowerBook. HFS+ support is available in
Linux, but some distros don't include it. And why take a chance of
messing up your Mac OS installation?
What About the File System?
I highly recommend using a journaled file system. One of the
strengths of Linux is it's diversity. The main journaled file
systems are ReiserFS, Ext3, XFS, and JFS. openSuSE defaults to
using the ReiserFS. Most other distros use Ext3.
Why Use a Journaled File System?
A journaled file system saves a list of every modification to
the file system. In the event of a power failure or crash (it does
happen, even with Linux), the journal is read during reboot and the
system is cleaned up. This is very fast and very easy.
When using a regular file system, you have to repair it
manually, and this can be a pain (trust me, a real pain). Ext2 is
the main regular file system used under Linux, but it isn't
journaled.
Once SuSE started using ReiserFS by default, I never had to
worry about a system crash. I would reboot, and the system would be
set up and ready to go. I might lose something I had been working
on that was unsaved (it happened to me recently), but everything
else was just fine.
Two Hard Drives on One Controller
You could be using two SCSI drives on the stock MESH (Macintosh
Enhanced SCSI Hardware) controller or two drives on an Open
Firmware capable PCI card - SCSI, IDE, or even Serial ATA (with Mac
OS 8.x and newer). If so, I recommend installing the Mac OS on the
primary drive with a ProDOS partition and using the second drive
for Linux. Or, depending on the drive sizes, you could also put a
Linux partition on the first drive like the "root" partition (same
as the above example) and use the second drive for storage.
I generally use a large drive for storage and have it labeled
(or "mounted") as "/files". This allows me to take that large drive
from machine to machine and just add/remove it from each system as
I need to copy files to and from it.
Two Drives on Two Separate Controllers
This is how I plan to go over the install in my next article. I
intend to use a Power Mac 7500.
It will have the stock 1 GB SCSI drive with a Mac OS partition
and a 32 MB ProDOS partition.
The second drive will be installed on a Adaptec 2940 PCI card
that does not have an Open Firmware BIOS. The Mac OS will not be
able to use this drive at all, but Linux will be able to see it and
use it just fine. The machine will have the following specs:
- Power Mac 7500 with a Sonnet G3/400
- 256 MB RAM
- ATI Rage II 4 MB PCI Video Card
- 1 GB SCSI drive connected to the NCR Controller
- 24x SCSI CD-ROM connected to the NCR Controller
- 4 GB SCSI drive connected to the Adaptec 2940 PCI
Controller
- Opti USB v1.1 PCI card
- Optical 5-button USB mouse
- 20" Apple Multiple Scan 20 monitor
This machine will basically be setup for Web browsing, so a
large hard drive for Linux isn't needed. Also, since I have a DSL
connection, the stock 10 Mbps ethernet controller will be more than
adequate.
Linux itself will take about 2 GB total, depending on what
software is installed. I don't intend to install OpenOffice or a
lot of unnecessary software, since this will be designed mainly for
use as a secure Web browsing machine.
The Mac OS drive won't be used except for booting into
Linux.
Why Use the Secondary NCR Controller Instead of the MESH
Controller?
First, the NCR controller is faster than the MESH controller.
Second, since I will be using openSuSE for
the install, it automatically activates the NCR controller - but
not the MESH controller - so using the MESH controller would
require an extra, unneeded step.
Finally, since we will need to be able to copy the kernel and
the "initrd" files to the ProDOS partition, we will need the Mac OS
SCSI drive available for Linux to use.
Next Time
Next time we will get started with the installation, and I'll
have screen shots showing what to expect.
After getting the 7500 up and running, I will go over installing
the popular Ubuntu distro onto
my Beige G3.
No Flash
There is one thing that's unavailable at this time for Web
browsing while using Linux on your Power Mac. That's Adobe's Flash
Player. Personally, I despise Flash, since it's mostly used for
advertising. The rest of the time, it's not implemented very well,
and the websites that use it tend to be slow and unnecessarily
cumbersome.
In my opinion, it's just annoying, but a lot of people use
Flash-based websites, such as YouTube, on a regular basis. Nick.com and cartoonnetwork.com use Flash
for their sites.
Adobe is supposed to be working on Flash Player for Linux, but
it's unknown whether they will offer support for Linux on the
PowerPC any time soon. There is an online Macromedia Flash
Player for Linux/PPC petition you can use to encourage Adobe to
get it done.
If you frequent Flash-based websites, using Linux on your Power
Mac may not be for you. 
