linuxppcguy
Member

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Beverly, MA
Posts: 125 |
Penguin Computing or VA Linux
quote: Originally posted by Vertigo
quote: Originally posted by homer
No matter...Linux will have it's day soon
Joking aside, I really don't think Linux will ever get popular anywhere near its current incarnation. Installation is hell. Some company should concentrate on making a really nice installer that partitions one's harddrives automagically, and takes the user through a step by step setup process.
However, I think Mac OS X will be the best of both Mac and *nix worlds. I can't wait to see the final spit-and-polished product that will come from Apple.
Well, for people buying a new computer but also wanting to run Linux, you can just buy a computer with Linux already up and running, from someone like Penguin Computing ( http://www.penguincomputing.com/ ) or VA Linux ( http://www.valinux.com/ ). That way, no worries about installation - it's already set up. Or if you're of the Mac persuasion, YellowDog Linux sells a hard drive with their distribution pre-installed - just pop it in and go. http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/
But if you're looking to install it over/with a pre-existing Windows/Mac setup, it's definitely tricky. I got my Mac clone in August 1997, ran MacOS on it up through version 8.6, and finally started running Linux as my primary operating system in August 1999. It took some finagling to get it working, but the Linux kernels now have really good support for pretty much any device that's out there, and new support is coming out all the time. But overall, it's much harder to install Linux than it is Windows/MacOS. Hopefully some of the efforts linux Eazel, Helix Code, and the commercial Linux vendors like Corel, RedHat, and SuSE will get things going in the right direction.
And Linux does support the USB Handspring Visor 
Peter Wood
http://www.cs.gordon.edu/~pwood/mymac.html for info on my setup.
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