Thinking of buying a notebook, and just want to ask for some advices here.
What do you guys think? An Apple Laptop or a "normal laptop" (sorry but I dunno how to state it...) with linux on it?

Here are some points to think about:
1. I haven't used mac before so would like to learn about it.
2. MacOS X is based on BSD(?), which is a UNIX-based OS.
3. I know there is a distro, yellow dog which runs on a mac, but do I still need linux if MacOS is a UNIX-based OS?

Thanks for the advices.
Please correct me if I did any mistakes.

If you choose a mac.
http://www.maconlinux.org/

I run a HP ze 4230 and it runs both Redhat 9 and Suse 9 flawlessly.

hmm, i think alot of the major distributions for the ppc mac come with MOL as an option, albeit not necessarily the latest.

If you order your Mac from www.yellowdoglinux.com, it comes with both Mac OS X and Yellow Dog Linux pre-installed. The next time I order a Mac, that's the route I'm going.

both installed? <blinks twice>
wow.

One thing, if you want to dual boot, watch hdd space..

titanium_geek

Saying you use UNIX because you use Mac OS X is like saying you use Dos because you use Windows XP.

Not to mention apple makes crap hardware and that they are incompatible.

I've used OS X and the way I see it, it's pretty much a FreeBSD machine that uses the MAC GUI instead of X Windows. If I were to get a Mac, I wouldn't install Linux because there's no need. Anything you want to do can be done with FreeBSD. There's a program that comes with Panther that will let you run your X programs in the Apple GUI, and you can boot up to the terminal.

The first part of what Baldorg said is probably true. You don't see the Unix unless you look for it; however, I don't think there's anything wrong with the hardware. Most of the stuff for Linux is open-source, anyway.

The only thing wrong with the Mac is the price. I've never actually bought one, but I'm planning on it sometime in the future.

I, myself, don't mind paying a little extra to get a quality machine.

I own several linux boxes (including a Transmeta laptop), one OSX box, and work with many UN*X machines. I have yet to try Panther, but my impression of OSX is that it's not ready for networked/muli-user environments. For single user (or multi-user non-networked) it's great.
Desktop Macs are overpriced, but if you actually compare laptop prices, you'll notice that the Macs are right in the middle of the road for priceower/features.
Apple hardware is, in my opinion, some of the most reliable computer hardware available to the typical consumer. You have to go with Sun hardware to get better.
Now, if you want to learn how a UNIX operating system works, OSX is not the way to go. Most of your operations will be done using GUIs. . .

You could get either;


Yellowdog Linux for the mac lappy,

And any other i386 distro for the non-mac lappy

There are alot of distros out there that have PPC versions on thier websites if you want to download the ISO's. I just recently tried the Knoppix live cd for PPC( or was it debian, can't rememeber right now) and it worked great.

Linux is just as good on PPC.

[QUOTE]
Now, if you want to learn how a UNIX operating system works, OSX is not the way to go. Most of your operations will be done using GUIs. . .
[QUOTE]

except when things go wrong.. then Mackers come crawling to find out how it's done. :]

titanium_geek

lol I haven't come crawling here for anything that wasn't fixable through the GUI. I might have come here for answers to unix questions I had for my own education but never because something went wrong.