After spending a few months as a download available only to YDL.net members, Yellow Dog Linux 3.0.1 ISOs are now freely available. The distro now includes HFS+ support and the 2.4.22-based kernel.
Yellow Dog Linux 3.0.1 Free for Download
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I am sitting looking at 3.0.1 cd’s I burnt about 1-2 weeks ago.
Maybe I just do not make enough google, but what is HFS+ ?
Is it the Mac correspondent of NT5 file system ?
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1150.html#HFSPlusBasics
My interest is I am still trying to make up my mind about to buying a simple IMac-EMac or the new Apple G5 64bit single 1.6Ghz, I’m still an ignorant about Apple tech details.
– Another question in my mind is: does this YD Linux run on 64 bit mode ? (like SuSE AMD64 version) ?
– Anyone used to x86 32bit Linux tried it (YDL) on 64 bits ?
(I think an Emac running Linux 2.4 is just as good as the G5 1.8 Ghz @ $1800 … so many doubts in here to make a good decision…)
ahh its just as well. the 3.0 cds never worked when i burned them. i said the hell with it and just got mandrake 9.1 for ppc. I do admit Gentoo might have been better in some sense but mandrake does a good job for me. Right now from what ive read YDL does run on the g5s but not all the features like firewire 800 are supported. I dont even know if it runs on full 64 bit mode yet. ahh what a shame.
hfs+ is the filesystem OS X uses.
for a while you couldn’t access an OSX partition via GNU/Linux..
Now it has been made possible, but the read time is a bit slow.. although I didn’t notice a difference.
The OS that i believe is working on a 64bit port is gentoo linux. It is very well documented.
http://www.gentoo.org/news/20031111-g5.xml
this states it runs in 32bit mode right now, but it supports it. OS X.2 also runs in 32 bit mode, the code has not been optimized for it. Or i think i may be wrong, but good luck on your purchase.
or a while you couldn’t access an OSX partition via GNU/Linux.
OS X.2 also runs in 32 bit mode
Yes, I know that. OS X and the CPU(s) can run natively 32 bits software.
Even Linux x86 couldn’t read NT file sysytems some time ago. Now the x86 still can “only” read, but not write to, NT FS (due to the proprietary FS license – like in the mp3 and the digiatl camera storage, where Microsoft will charge some fees for the use of the propreitary FAT FS = greed people 😉
It’s just that Linux ports get there faster (like SuSE and Windows on the AMD64).
Thanks for Gentoo note (I’m too lazy to compile a Linux from scratch so an already optimized system would be good for me in the future – I could do it, I think, but it’s too time consuming for my patience).
Even if you could get Linux running on the G5, you probably want to wait a little longer for them to sort out the fan issue. IIRC, because the G5’s fans are controlled by software, and Linux doesn’t know about the fans, they end up running at full speed. If you don’t want a hurricane sitting on your desk, better not install Linux on a G5 just yet.
“Now the x86 still can “only” read, but not write to, NT FS (due to the proprietary FS license – like in the mp3 and the digiatl camera storage, where Microsoft will charge some fees for the use of the propreitary FAT FS = greed people ;-)”
Actually, you can write to NTFS from Linux. Just use Captive.
http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/
HFS+ is not only the file system that OSX used, but is the file system that MacOS has used since MacOS 8.1.
Apple, _still_ being somewhat of a secertive company, hasn’t produced full specificiations for updated versions of HFS+. Even Darwin doesn’t have a full modern HFS+ implementation. I have no clue what Apple gains by doing that… it’s not that HFS+ was particularily innovative for the time, and that they had to keep trade secerts, as Apple had to keep compatability with HFS, which has been used since MacOS 2.0 or so (before that was MFS, which was actually quite like HFS, but nested folders were not allowed)
Well, when I wiped the hard drive on my iMac to install OS X 10.3, I also installed YDL 3.0 on a separate partition (thanks for the assistance Eugenia). I’ve found it to be a nice Linux distro, although it doesn’t use the CD-ROM eject key on my keyboard, and it won’t play music CDs 🙁
I have found YDL to be very fast. I have a 1.7 GHz Celeron system (512 MB RAM) running Debian unstable, and quite frankly, the iMac (800 MHz G4 with 768 MB RAM) seems to run Linux as fast or faster.
One more thing: Yum rocks!
because the G5’s fans are controlled by software, and Linux doesn’t know about
I knew about the several compartments of the G5 and their fans for each compartement according to hard drive, VGA and CPU tempratues (nice); I didn’t knew about Linux not having the proper controls just yet (that’s a Apple secret ?). My main purpose would be to compile applications from source and use the latest with the G5 power (if the power is there).
Thanks, I do appreciate quiet machines (I have a x86 one), makes you concentrate better and longer.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/
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I have no clue what Apple gains by doing that… it’s not that HFS+ was particularily innovative for the time,
By the way, since this HFS is here for a long time can it do journaling like ext3-Reiser ?
“By the way, since this HFS is here for a long time can it do journaling like ext3-Reiser ?”
Yes, you can do journaling with HFS+. I do not know about HFS though. I think that journaling is part of the “+” distinction between HFS and HFS+.
Up untill a week ago this pismo had a yellow streak, as well as the Mac offerings. But X died (after a year or so of use) and the only thing I could reinstall was debian as the YD installer didn’t like the OSX partitions.
Upshot, YDL was nicely integrated but lacking in a couple of areas. Software installation is one, yum is NOT apt, and apt debian is still the best way to get stuff.I know apt runs for YD, but despite the slightly less polished debian 3.0 install my overall impression after going back to debian is positive.
But then again, Mac owners are KNOWN for their aesthetic values
You can do journaling with HFS+, but it isn’t enabled by default, because it has a 10-15% performance hit. Journaling was introduced with OS X 10.2.2. HFS+ itself is much older, dating back to OS 8.1. The “+” doesn’t indicate journaling, but rather an incremental improvement over the original Mac HFS filesystem (which is older than dirt). HFS+’s main feature was that it reduced the cluster size on 1GB+ drives from 32k to 4k, by making some fields larger. This was exactly the same thing that happend from FAT16 to FAT32.
On a tangent, HFS+ really needs to be drug out and shot. Even Microsoft has gotten rid of FAT. Its slower than competing filesystems like Reiser3/4 or XFS or UFS2. It doesn’t have arbitrary attributes like XFS or NTFS. Its journaling was added afterwards, which causes the performance slowdown. Its aggressively single-threaded, because of the catalog file. Yesh…
I just started the installer of YDL 3.0.1 on my dual 2GHz G5, and the fans are just as quiet as they are when booting into MacOS. Sadly right now I still have some work to do for which I need my OS X. I will install YDL 3.0.1 on my machine later tonight though, and try my hand at reviewing it tomorrow. The first bug I found already: if your OS X is set to 1600×1200 resolution, the YDL installer won’t boot and produces a kernel panic. Setting the resolution in OSX to 800×600 resolved this issue.
You can do journaling with HFS+, but it isn’t enabled by default, because it has a 10-15% performance hit.
Journaling is enabled per default in Panther, and the performance hit has been mitigated.
Nifty. Still doesn’t change my opinion of HFS+, but that’s nice to hear. I hope they upgrade to Panther on our lab machines — I’d like to try it out
I only widh they would make the X installation more like Intel’s in the installer (as Mandrake does for example.) I ended up with a completely non-usable X system because the set-up would not let me test and re-test the settings. It’s all fine if you have bog standard Apple hardware, but my IMS TwinTurbo in my Oldworld Mac was a nightmare to get going!!! (Tip for others – 15bit colour, Frame Buffer device.. the old imstt et alk drivers doen’t seem to work on YDL 3’s version of XFree)