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News & Opinion
History
Software
News & Opinion
Why I Refuse to Use Linux on My Mac
My Mac Collection's Taylor Almond echoes the thoughts of many Mac
users who have also tried running Linux on their PowerPC hardware:
"In the time that I've been a PowerPC Macintosh user, I've noticed a
strong fascination with removing OS X from Macs and replacing it
with various flavors of Linux. While this may help your Mac run a
little faster, here's my justification for refusing to do so."
"First and foremost, Linux's UI is a snooze-fest . . . you're not
going to enjoy the view.
"Have you ever used the terminal? If you answered, 'no' or 'what's
the terminal?', then you've got a rude awakening coming. While certain
flavors of Linux (like Ubuntu) have become more user friendly in the
past few years, you'll likely be typing commands into the terminal at
some point or another."
"Looking for help with a problem on PowerPC Linux? . . . While there
are a lot of Linux users out there, there are far more users on OS X
. . . so when you need help with something on Linux, there
are far fewer websites and individuals to get help from."
"...you're probably thinking, 'This guy would rather use an OS from
2007 (or earlier) instead of an up to date OS like Lubuntu or MintPPC
Linux?' I understand the point; and I agree that these Linux flavors
continue to receive up to date software, but 'up to date' doesn't
always mean better.
"I have yet to see a Linux software suite as user friendly as iLife
or a Linux office suite that's as widely compatible as Microsoft Office
for Mac. I'd much rather use Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 than
OpenOffice any day of the week....
"Do you still watch Flash video on your Mac? Say goodbye to that.
While PowerPC users have been getting by using the outdated (and
insecure) Flash Player 10 for the past couple years, there is no Flash
on PowerPC Linux . . . period."
"One cannot simply install a PowerPC build of Ubuntu, Lubuntu, or
MintPPC and expect it to work perfectly.
"Before installing a Linux build on your PowerPC, you'll need to
make sure your specific Macintosh model is supported. It's quite a
let-down to go to the trouble of installing Linux just to find out that
my AirPort card isn't supported, or that my graphics card doesn't
support hardware acceleration.
"To wrap things up, don't think I'm a Linux hater . . . because
that's not true at all. Open-Source platforms like Linux bring a new
level of ingenuity to the tech world (I own an Android phone for this
very reason); but Linux on PowerPC Macs is just not an enjoyable
experience."
Publisher's note: This article won't make the Linux lovers at
PowerPC Liberation happy. The reality is that if you want the best
Linux experience, you run it on x86 hardware, not that old G3 or G4 Mac
that can so capably run Mac
OS X 10.4 Tiger. That said, if the old Mac is no longer in
active duty, you might want to try Linux on it just to see whether it
might give some new life to an old, retired Mac. In that case, see the
Lubuntu Install Guide at PowerPC Liberation, as this is probably
the best distro to start with. dk
Link:
Why I Refuse to Use Linux on My Macintosh
Mac OS X Tiger PPC Page on Facebook
Looking for a Facebook page with more specific support for Mac OS X
10.4 on PowerPC Macs? Check out Mac OS X Tiger PPC, which bills itself
as "a community page for Mac OS X Tiger PowerPC users. Share apps
or help resolve issues."
It also reminds us that when Apple introduced Tiger in 2007, it
called it "the world's most advanced operating system." And it's still
useful.
Link: Mac OS X Tiger PPC
Sharing Files Across OS X, the Classic Mac OS, and
Linux
If you have a home or office network and a mixed environment with OS
X 10.4 Tiger, 10.7 Lion, Mac
OS 9, and Linux to share files on, you have several options, and
Dan at PPC Luddite has some helpful advice:
"If you don't mind rebooting and need to move large files quickly,
Target Disk Mode is a good option. Target Disk Mode works on any
Mac with native FireWire. Just start up holding the 'T' key, attach it
to another Mac via FireWire, and it will automount as an external hard
drive on Macs running Mac OS 8.6 or later, and on any recent Linux
distribution, too.
"Another option is AFP (Apple Filing Protocol). This is the
'Personal File Sharing' option in OS X's Sharing preferences. After
Tiger it was changed to just 'File Sharing,' which is also the name of
the corresponding control panel in OS 9. In Linux, you need to
install the Netatalk
package for AFP client and server capabilities, no post-install
configuration necessary unless you want to do something
fancy;)
"For sharing between OS X machines, just activate the File Sharing
option on the server side, then on the other Mac choose 'Connect to
Server...' from the Finder's Go menu, enter its router IP address
(afp://xxx.xxx.x.xxx), followed by the server machine's administrator
name and password. To connect a Linux machine, go to the network folder
in your file manager and where you see your host's network icon, double
click it and enter name and password. If you don't see the icon you can
also enter the IP address in the text field.
"When adding OS 9 to the mix, there are a few caveats. Apple has
been deprecating legacy AppleShare and AppleTalk services like crazy,
so a lot of the older stuff doesn't 'just work.' I can say that I can
network with Tiger and Linux hosts using the Network Browser
application in OS 9. And when using OS 9 as a server, make
sure the TCP/IP box is checked in OS 9's File Sharing control panel.
With Snow Leopard, I could only connect to an OS 9 server, not the
other way around."
"And a last note about Netatalk on Linux, there's a bug which causes
it to sometimes use 100% CPU after the server side disconnects, forcing
you to kill the background process. Maybe one of these days they'll fix
it:)
"There's also SSH and SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol). The server
side is activated in OS X with the Remote Login option in the Sharing
preferences. Linux systems usually have the client and server software
automatically installed with the openssh-client and openssh-server
packages. As far as clients go, Cyberduck is a great SFTP client for
OS X (3.2.1 for Tiger available in their changelog section).
There's Filezilla or
bareFTP for Linux, or you can even
connect through a file manager. And there's an OS 9 SSH client
called Nifty Telnet
SSH.
"There's also ftp, but that's too boring to write about...."
For all the details, see the full article.
Link:
Sharing Files Across OS X, Classic, and Linux Macs
The Rebirth of ResExcellence
Old timers are sure to
remember ResExcellence, a site that goes way back to 1997 (the same
year we launched Low End Mac). The idea behind ResExcellence was
helping you hack your Mac by editing resources - mostly done using
Apple ResEdit app - to make it work the way you wanted it to.
According to the site's new home page, it's coming back in 2013
under new ownership and taking a new approach while trying to remain
faithful to its roots. And the old site archives are
still available.
Welcome back!
Link: ResExcellence
History
Looking Back at the 20th Anniversary Mac
Stephen Hackett
of 512 Pixels remembers the most expensive Mac of the past 20
years:
"At Macworld San Francisco in January of 1997, Apple announced the
20th Anniversary
Macintosh. Built to celebrate the company's birthday which had
occurred the previous year, the machine was constructed with
gold-colored plastics, fabric and leather. It shipped on March 20, 1997
and a retail price of US$7,499.
"Apple manufactured only 12,000 TAMs, with a release run of 11,601.
The remaining 399 were kept by Apple for use as spare parts. The
machine was only for sale in the US and UK, as well as Japan, France,
Germany."
"The machine
came with a leather CD case and a leather holster for a matching pen
and pencil set, and also included the unheard of luxury of a man in a
tuxedo coming to your house to deliver, set up, and help you learn how
to use your new computer.
"While it might not look like it by today's standard, when released,
the TAM was shockingly thin. At 14.9 lb. and just 10" deep, it seemed
impossibly thin. It's obvious that the TAM was Apple's most
forward-thinking machine of the late 1990s.
"The arrangement of the LCD, vertical optical drive and overall
orientation was re-used when Apple introduced the first iMac G5 in
August 2004. The use of a trackpad with a desktop system has also come
back, in the form of the Magic Trackpad."
For more on the TAM, follow the link below.
Link: On
the 20th Anniversary Mac
The Macintosh That Saved Apple
512 Pixels' Stephen Hackett remembers how the iMac saved Apple:
"On May 6, 1998, Steve Jobs took the stage
and announced the iMac G3, a consumer counterpart to the G3-powered
Power Mac and PowerBook, the only remaining computers in Apple's lineup
after he had slashed all other machines, including the popular Performa
line.
"'The back of our computer,' he said, 'looks better than the front
of the other guys'. It looks like it's from another planet. A good
planet. A planet with better designers.'
"'iMac comes from the marriage of the excitement of the Internet
with the simplicity of Macintosh,' he said. Internet usage was 'the
number one use' consumers wanted, and the iMac was built to make that
easy.
"The iMac started the 'i' revolution. Jobs said the i stood for:
internet, individual, instruct, inform, inspire.
"In addition to the consumer, Apple aimed the iMac at the education
market, one of the company's few remaining strongholds in the market at
the time.
"With the iMac, Apple returned to Jobs' vision of an all-in-one
computer, with all of the guts in the same case as the display. In a
world of messy PCs, the iMac stood out as a simple, elegant computing
solution.
"While most of the computers at the time were beige boxes -
including Apple's other desktops - the iMac G3 was Bondi blue, curvy
and translucent."
Hackett goes on to look further at the original iMac as well as the
"fruit flavored" tray-load models that followed it and the whole range
of slot-load iMacs, the last of which were discontinued in 2002.
Link: The Macintosh That Saved
Apple
Egg Freckles Remembers the SuperDisk
Thomas Brand reminisces about when the first iMac made its debut in
August 1998:
"The iMac was . . . the first Mac to lose the venerable 3.5 inch
floppy. A data transport medium that had become synonymous with
personal computing since the introduction of the first Macintosh in
1984."
"...the 3.5 inch floppy has adorned the face of every desktop
Macintosh until the arrival of the iMac. Its low-cost contributed to
the success of Sneakernet, and by 1988 its capacity had more than
tripled [from 400 KB - ed] to 1.44 MBs. Perfect for sharing data
between colleagues and friends. The 3.5 floppy remained the default
file sharing medium on the Macintosh for nearly 15 years.
"But by 1998 the average hard drive could carry thousands of
floppies worth of data . . . 1.44 MBs on a durable plastic
disk didn't go as far as it once did, and early iMac adopters were
scrambling to find a USB compatible alternative in the days before
always-on broadband, burnable CD-R, and disposable USB flash
drives.
"The Imation
SuperDisk was just one such alternative. Capable of holding either
120 or 240 MBs1. SuperDisk drives were backwards compatible
with 1.44 MB floppies, and released around the same time as the first
iMac. They even came in matching Bondi Blue with pinstripe
accents."
"Despite it's larger capacity, and backwards compatibility, the
Imation SuperDisk saw very little success among PC manufacturers,
thanks to the Zip drive's three year lead. SuperDisk still managed to
become a popular peripheral among early iMac users because of its USB
compatibility, and ability to read standard 1.44 Macintosh formatted
floppies.2
"The SuperDisk was a favorite among few, but an interesting anecdote
in the Mac's past. It brought backwards compatibility to some, and
helped pave the transition to Apple's forward looking
future3."
- The LS-240 SuperDisk has double the capacity of the LS-120 and the
added feature of being able to format regular floppy disks to 32 MB
capacity. However, this higher density comes at a price - the entire
disk must be rewritten any time a change is made, and can only be read
in a compatible LS-240 SuperDisk drive.
- Apple Macintosh users' primary complaint was that the SuperDisk
drive cannot read the GCR 800 KB or 400 KB diskettes used by older
Macintoshes.
- SuperDisks are still supported by Mac OS X, and got an updated icon
in 10.8 Mountain Lion.
Link: SuperDisk
The PowerBook G3 Era
512 Pixels' Stephen Hackett takes a look back at the era of G3
PowerBooks:
"...the PowerBook G3 line of notebooks helped revive Apple in the
late 90s and the first year of the 21st century. Apple took the power
of the G3 processor and put it in a mobile workhorse. Let's look at
exactly what the company did with these machines:
"In many ways,
the original PowerBook G3
was a stopgap machine. Only available from November 1997 to May 1998,
the machine was basically a PowerBook 3400c with a 250 MHz G3
processor, faster motherboard and quicker RAM. (In fact, this machine
is sometimes nicknamed the 3500.) These upgrades made the Kanga twice
as fast as the the 240 MHz PPC 603ev-based 3400c."
"The Kanga is the only G3-powered Macintosh that is not officially
compatible with OS X.
"Introduced in
May 1998, [WallStreet] was a very
different animal than the original PowerBook G3. With options for a 12"
passive matrix LCD, a 13.3" TFT LCD, and a 14.1" TFT LCD, the
WallStreet sported a brand new design that was both thinner and lighter
than the PowerBook G3 before it.
"Available with 233 MHz, 250 MHz, or 292 MHz G3 processors, the
upper two models were a good bit faster, thanks to a full megabyte of
L2 cache."
"This model [WallStreet II or PDQ] was an
answer to supply and heat problems that had plagued Apple with the
previous machine. By standardizing the bus speed (to 66 MHz) and the
screen size (to 14.1 inch), Apple had the ability to ship fewer
options, making production run much smoother.
The 233 MHz was initially sold for $2,799, the 266 MHz model for
$3,499, and the 300 MHz model for $3,999. Unlike before, all three
models included a backside cache."
"The WallStreet II was the last Old-World ROM notebook to ship from
Apple.
"Also known as
the 'Bronze Keyboard'
PowerBook, the third-generation of the PowerBook G3 Series
[Lombard] went for sale in May 1999. It was two pounds lighter than the
WallStreets and nearly 20 percent thinner.
"This laptop dropped ADB support, came with just one PC Card slot
and was the last to include built-in SCSI."
"These notebooks required Mac OS 8.6 or later, but can run up to Mac
OS X 10.3.9.
"The last PowerBook with a G3 processor ironically dropped the 'G3'
in the name.
"The Pismo was
introduced in February 2000."
"The machine brought lots of new technology to the PowerBook line,
including FireWire 400 and Clamshell Mode.
"The Pismo required Mac OS 9.0.2, and can run up to Mac OS X
10.4.11."
"...it's easy to see just how important the PowerBook G3s were to
Apple. The machines bridged the gap between old-school and modern Macs,
and each generation included significant progress in Apple's mobile
technology.
"When it comes to expandability, nothing beats these machines. With
two bays, users could swap in floppy drives, optical drives, and even a
second battery. In fact, with after-market batteries, Pismo users can
see up to 16 hours of battery life."
"...these PowerBooks aren't super useful these days. If you're set
on using one, a loaded Pismo is the way to go. I had one up until a few
years ago when the logicboard died. I parted it out, and every once in
a while, I scour eBay for a replacement. There's just a charm about
these machines that current Apple notebooks lack."
Link: On the PowerBook
G3
Software
TenFourBird 17 Email Client for PowerPC
Released
TenFourBird is a mail user agent for PowerPC Mac. It based on
Mozilla Thunderbird and TenFourFox.
Latest version is 17.0.
TenFourBird is free and offers separate builds for various PowerPC
Mac processor series.
Link: TenFourBird
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