Installing Linux On The New Apple iBook

Jack Moffitt writes: "I just bought one of the new apple iBooks, which I then proceeded to install debian on. There are some installation problems, but it works well. I wrote up my thoughts and notes here. Sound isn't working, but I've started driver research and work. This is probably the best Linux laptop one can buy right now, so go get one!" He includes an excellent rundown on installing Debian, and talks about what's known (and what's being worked on) to get sound to work. Does this mean that Ogg Vorbis tracks will soon play through the new iBook's speakers?

umm..

why is this one of the best linux laptops one can buy if it doesnt even have everything working? im totaly confused.

There is an ibook kernal available

I don't remember the site off and, but it's the same guy that made the kernel I use on my Pismo Powerbook G3 and it works like a champ.. Sound, airport card, and all..

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Documented? A miracle!

The good news is a lot of this seems documented. There are pin and bus specs for the Micronas chip, and the i2c and i2s buses are documented as well by Philips.

In this day and age, this is a miracle! It seems like it's becoming harder and harder to get companies to disclose enough information to actually write proper hardware drivers. For Linux, this is obviously an issue, because hardly any hardware developers supply their own drivers.

So far, it looks like Apple hasn't been all talk in their support of the community, and this may bode well.


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The Best Linux Laptop....

...unless you want sound and other misc. frivolties.

Who needs sound anyway? Back in my day, we only had sound it put a boombox beside the computer and put in a Wierd Al tape. And we Liked it!
Back in my day, you were considered a god if you had a newfangled computer with a built in speaker that made beeps and boops. And we LIKED it!
Back in my day, the SID chip on a C-64 was only for snobs and rich sissy boys who needed fancy stuff like color and sound on a PC. We didn't need it then and we dont need it now and we LIKE it that way!.

D
Mad Scientists with too much time on thier hands

Ogg Vorbis on iBook

Installing Linux just to play Vorbis files seems a bit long-winded when you could just install a player capable of playing them [panic.com] on Mac OS.

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The BEST Linux laptop one can buy?

Forgive me, but I tend to disagree with this quite heavily. While I wouldn't say it's the best, the Dell Inspiron 8000 [dell.com] blows this out of the water for compatability. I'm partial to Mandrake 8.0, but any distribution is supported on this machine, and the ATI M4 Mobility or nVidia GeForce GO video, ESS Maestro3 sound, and Intel EEPro100 onboard ethernet are all supported out of the box. Hell, even the Lucent Winmodem is one of the supported models on www.linmodems.org [linmodems.org] and works great. Dell's support is great, their options are extremely configurable, and I've been enjoy watching my DVDs with Xine on trips for a while now. I'd recommend this laptop to anyone for Linux use, and would definitely pick it well ahead of an iBook.

Ahem.... best?

"This is probably the best Linux laptop one can buy right now"

Wow, this guy has taken the "CmdrTaco School of Loaded Statements". :) There's an adage in the computer game reviewing industry that is summed up nicely in a writer's guideline I received recently: "Do not spend two-thirds of an article picking a game apart and then, in the final paragraph, say 'But it's fun. Four stars.'" A majority of his "thoughts on the iBook2 page" revolves around various parts of the laptop not working in Linux, the (trivial) problems of dealing with a 1-button mouse in X, and the benefits of playing DVD's -- in MacOS 9.

"Even without every piece of hardware being completely functional, this is one of the best laptops for linux use that I have ever seen or used."

Right. Well, my two cents. I purchased an Inspiron 4000 from Dell, installed RedHat 7.1, and EVERYTHING worked right out of the box. Sound card, networking, everything. Didn't even have to go through the command line setups. And getting DVD playback in Linux was easy after downloading a program to do so. And I've got more than one mouse button. :) That's a great Linux laptop, in my mind.

Why bother? Run OS X.

To me, running Linux on an iBook seems pretty silly when Mac OS X is available. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's Linux and it's free and it's the Right Thing to Do, because it Can Be Done... but c'mon, you can get pretty much any software you'd expect under Linux via Fink [sourceforge.net] and the Darwin Ports [utopianet.net] collection. Run a nice window manager and rootless X, and you can get pretty much any app you like.

And then you can start looking at Cocoa and all the nifty things that are going to be coming from the NextStep/OpenStep legacy... IMHO, Apple's gotten the job done in creating a solid, usable UNIX desktop, as well as a mature, unified app framework.

Blah. Anyway, if you want Linux, don't waste your money on Apple hardware. Just stick with some cheap ol' Intel stuff. Go buy a used Sony Vaio, like my old one I'll be eBay'ing soon. :)

As for Ogg Vorbis, it's coming out of my iBook speakers right now. I use
Unsanity Echo [unsanity.com], and sometimes Audion [panic.com].

Sweet

Now I can replace my refined desktop interface, hardware support and native applications with LinuxPPC! I've been trying to cripple my iBook unsuccessfully for the past couple months.

Thank you /.!

Linux Hardware Database or Linux for Laptops

Personally, I'm partial to the IBM Thinkpad a20p [datapower.com]. Sound and DVD works, X at 1400x1050 works, suspend to disk works, etc., under Red Hat 7.1

Why not check laptop ratings at the Linux Hardware Database [datapower.com]? For the most comprehensive resource I've found, visit Linux on Laptops [linux-laptop.net]. Individual laptops aren't rated, but you'll learn if anyone's had success with the hardware you hope to use.

Helevius

Compaq Armada M700 / 7800

I agree. I've got both a Compaq Armada M700 and Armada 7800 (Pentium III 700 and Pentium II 300, respectively) and thus far I haven't had a problem getting anything linux-related to work perfectly on them. How can this not-completely-functional Apple be considered the perfect Linux laptop when there are plenty of completely-supported x86 notebooks / laptops out there? I don't understand...

-Steve

Re:Why bother? Run OS X.

Blah. Anyway, if you want Linux, don't waste your money on Apple hardware. Just stick with some cheap ol' Intel stuff. Go buy a used Sony Vaio, like my old one I'll be eBay'ing soon. :)

The point is, if you do get an iceBook (say, because the hardware or OS X appeal to you), then why not run Linux on it also? Why do those holy wars always have to involve exclusion?

I am tending to agree

I just bought a new iBook as well, for the same reasons on the referenced page. I couldn't find a comparable x86 laptop in the same price range, and being a poor college student price was critical.

Since this is my first PPC machine, I chose to take the easy path and install a PPC-only distribution... I chose Yellow Dog 2.0, and I had an easier time installing than Mr. Moffitt indicates. Everything worked "out of the box" for me (pardoning sound, which as he mentions is still forthcoming) except for suspend, which locked up the laptop on resume. A little bit of web research revealed that resuming the new ATI Mobility chipsets was more difficult than some other chipsets, but the problem had been solved in 2.4.x; I snarfed one of BenH's [penguinppc.org] fabulous kernel trees and built 2.4.6. Suspend was fixed, just like that.

Yellow Dog isn't as up-to-date as the distros I'm used to using on x86, but with a little legwork I'm getting it pulled into mid-2001. ;-) The Ximian LinuxPPC 2000 RPMs work fine (although the installer and Red Carpet do not), and a quick rebuild of the jed RPMs [ohio-state.edu] got me up and running with a good editor.

I haven't found any documentation on how to turn off the AirPort card when it is not in use (I'm not sure about these 802.11 cards, but I know that regular 802.11 cards suck battery power like its their job; turning the slot off when they're not in use is a big bonus), but the battery life still seems to be 4 hours or so of light usage, less under heavy load.

I don't have the latch problems Mr. Moffitt mentions, either... The magnetic latch thing is SUPER cool in my opinion. It's cool just to mostly close the lid and watch the hook jump out. ;-)

All in all I'm very pleased. Time will tell if my pleasure is well-placed, I guess.

Ethan

Nice hack but...

While LinuxPPC is a decent OS (I prefer OpenBSD) my LinuxPPC discs went to the back of my closet once OSX came out. Certainly it's a nice hack, but will Adobe make Photoshop for it? (no, Gimp is *not* quite Photoshop, despite what the zealots say)

Apps are what the machines need, once the companies start releasing their flagship[0] Mac products for OSX I think this will be relegated to the "cool hack" pile

grub

[0]- IE is not what I'd call 'flagship' :)

Re:The Best Linux Laptop....

And who needs to burn CDs? Certainly not all those Apple customers who bought OSX!

Unless they are running 10.0.2 or newer...

How about the Open Source camp beating Apple to it?

You will need to invent time travel to do it. They got it out within two or 3 weeks of the release.

To be fair while they support a lot of CD-RW drives they don't have all of them. You could beat them to supporting some of the less common ones... they also still don't support DVD video (you can read DVD file systems though), so you can try to beat them to that also.

Re:Documented? A miracle!

Oddly they have been doing worse at getting the DVD video playback working then I expected.

Rumour has it that most of the problems Apple is having with DVD support in OS X is related to the fact that the MPAA is very concerned about the possibility of intercepting the decoded data stream through their player (since OS X is considerably more "open" for tricks like this with the UNIX layer). I don't know if there's any truth in this rumour but it does explain the serious lag time for DVD support. Playing DVDs isn't that difficult (especially when they already have a DVD player for OS 9) so perhaps this really is the reason why it's taking so long.

Another thing to note is that if you take a screenshot in OS 9 while playing a DVD you get a big magenta rectangle where the DVD screenshot is supposed to be. Is there a technical reason for this or are the MPAA really that paranoid?

- j

Re:Why bother? Run OS X.

"Apple's gotten the job done in creating a solid, usable UNIX desktop, as well as a mature, unified app framework."

One could argue that Microsoft has pulled that off with NT/2000/XP, considering how much stuff they've stolen ... I mean, "borrowed" from Unix. Nah, I really shouldn't say that. I actually sorta like XP.

I think my main complaint with OS X is that the minimum hardware requirements were way too low. I purchased it for my original iMac (upped to 128 MB RAM) and it still runs excrutiatingly slow. It's all the window manager. Of course, the funniest thing I've seen is killing the window manager in a terminal window and not being able to get it back in OS X (in that OS, the window manager is everything). :)

Re:No sound yet, so this is the best Linux laptop?

The ibook is $1300 ($1800 including CDRW/DVD drive). An Inspiron I tried configuring to your specs was $2200.

Re:What's it do that OS/X can't?

As far as I can tell, the only proprietary ports on the iBook are [...] the airport card slot, and the power adapter port..

The airport slot is a standard PCMCIA slot *inside* the machine (I tested it, it recognized my flash card adaptor when I put it in there), and an antenna connector that fits the Lucent 802.11 cards.

As far as power connectors go they aren't exactly standard on PC laptops either, but this one is a little more bizarre then just a randomly sized normal DC power connector. They use what looks like an audio phono plug. I'm not sure why. It is a little easier to plug in in the dark then the connector on the Sony, but it isn't a big deal.

Why would you bother running linux on an ibook?

iBooks come with a proper unix already installed. What would be the point of running linux on it?

That's like buying a BMW and replacing the interior with that of a twelve-year old nissan bluebird with minor fire damage.

"Look! It looks like a Nissan!"
"You are a dumbass. Please drive through."

Re:The BEST Linux laptop one can buy?

I hope they improved the TV out on the iBooks.. I have a Pismo Powerbook G3, it also has TV out, but even on my 27" Sony Wega TV with S-Video you can't see text at all above 800x600.

Of course not. It has nothing to do with the quality of your powerbook or the size of your screen, and everything to do with the inherant limitations of NTSC video, which quite frankly, sucks. The video out of any computer is going to be either 640x480 (with square pixels) or 720x486 (with rectangular pixels). There's nothing you can do to improve on that.

If you have the resolution set higher on your machine, pixels are being blended before they go out to NTSC.

Re:Compaq Armada M700 / 7800

How can this not-completely-functional Apple be considered the perfect Linux laptop when there are plenty of completely-supported x86 notebooks / laptops out there? I don't understand...

I think he may be refering to a couple things:

1) The iBooks are pretty cheap and offer great hardware for the price: $1299, for the cheapest model, but $1499 for

128MB SDRAM memory
10GB Ultra ATA drive
DVD-ROM drive w/DVD-Video
8MB video memory
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
56K internal modem
RGB video output
Two USB ports
FireWire port

2) The battery life is around 5 hours, and the thing weighs under 5 pounds.

3) It can run OS X as well. W/ Linux and OS X on a laptop, you have a lot of productivity tools. I think you can even dual boot with the iBooks but I'm not positive.

It's a nice machine for under $1500

Sounds like torture.

Nothing wrong with tinkering and getting more hardware supported, but is it a good idea to recommend that anyone choose a new iBook as a machine to run Linux on?

Let's see. Out of the box you get a pretty laptop that comes preloaded with OS X, which is an open source BSD variant down low, with a lot of polished sophisticated commercial goodies up top like display PDF, the most seamless GUI/command-line config synchronization ever done on a Unix, and, well, the elegance that is the Mac UI. And you can run any legacy Mac software at near full-speed simultaneously.

And if ease of use and closed-source software give you hives regardless of how good they are, you can load up XFree86 and a swiftly growing number of your favorite "Linux" apps while you're at it. You've already got Perl, gcc, Emacs, vi and their friends ready to run. Don't like tcsh? Load up bash. Don't like their terminal-window app? Load up another. Want to recompile their (well-configured) Apache? Go ahead. And you have solid Firewire support and the most hassle-free USB plug-and-play support around, bar none.

But then you load up Linux and drop the sound support, the decent video playback, the easy CD burning and video editing, the display PDF, the Mac application support, the polished configuration tools, the decent web browsers, any hope of running a usable office suite any time this year or next (since you're not on an x86).. and the only UI that works well with the one-button trackpad you've got. There are dozens--maybe hundreds--of x86-based laptops out there in all shapes and sizes that are better-suited for running Linux than an iBook.

This is a nice hobbyist project, and certainly getting the new hardware supported by Linux is a good thing. But it's a lousy use for a new iBook.

Re:No sound yet, so this is the best Linux laptop?

with the difference in price, he could also buy about 20 3 button mice! Of all the complaints people make about Apple 'I couldnt use a 1 button mouse' is the absolute lamest. Please.. here is my cluebag.. dig in. Now that you have one, walk to ANY computer store... buy a USB mouse, with 3 buttons, and even a scroll wheel if you want! If your running OS9 get usboverdrive. If your using OSX, just plug it in, it will work. A one button mouse is only a handicap if you cant figure out how to purchase a new mouse.

Im sure I will now be modded down into oblivion, but I still think you guys could find something better to complain about than lack of a 3 button mouse. I like Apple and even I can find better things to complain about as far as they are concerned.

Why are we having this conversation?

In past discussions on Slashdot, I have had the opportunity to quietly raise my finger from the corner of the room and whisper "Why not run Mac/OS X?" only to get completely bombarded by Linux zealots who tell me that, in addition to OS X being a terrible operating system (which it isn't, of course) they say "Hey I've already got a K6 box that I built myself for $23.48. Why go out and buy a Mac for a grand or more?"

Well that argument doesn't seem to hold any water when somebody goes out and buys a brand new iBook and installs Linux on it, and then everybody TAKES HIM SERIOUSLY!? Come on, folks! OS X shipped with the machine he bought! And it is so clearly superior to Linux (in addition to being much easier to install) that installing Linux instead is just plain ridiculous.

So it boils down to one of two modivations: Doing it because it's possible, or doing it because it's Linux. Doing anything simply because it's possible is not only foolish but can be downright irresponsible. Doing it because it's Linux reveals that the decision to use Linux is not based on feature/function or any other sound, objective rationale but rather on some other unquantifiable, subjective notion like "Linix is COOL man!" or some such nonsense.

Which is fine in it's own right. Linux as hobby. I once saw a Ford Pinto mounted on top of four enormous tractor tires. Logical? No. Practical? No. Waste of time? Most definetely. But it entertained the builder and even entertains passerbys. A freak show, if you will.

But the owner of that Ford Pinto made no attempt at convincing passerbys that his vehicle was the BEST vehicle ever and anybody who doesn't have a Ford Pinto mounted on four enormous tractor tires is JUST PLAIN IGNORANT. Similarily, I just wish you Linux zealots wouldn't take yourselves so seriously. It's a hobby and you enjoy it: Fine. But keep in mind that there are frequently more practical and useful computing solutions out there than just Linux. And that there are people who use computers to get work done. Please quit trying to pass of Linux as the best solution for EVERYTHING. It's not.