It can't run on Mac

For a Mac system you need a PowerPC Linux distro. The best I know of is YellowDog (I think), Gentoo, or if you want an insanely confusing installation - go for Open or Free BSD. =P

I would use Gentoo though, because it has GREAT documentation on how to install Gentoo Power PC along side Mac OS X.

http://gentoo.org :-)

Cliekid

cool cool. i'll try that

Tell me when you've gotten Yoper up and running as well, good luck with that. Its confusing the first time around - but once you do it a few times everything goes smoothly :-)

And also, I've never messed with a Mac with Linux - so I can't help you there. :-)

Try the Gentoo LQ Forum, as well as the Gentoo IRC channel on Freenode.net for assistance.

Cliekid

sweet...i have a feeling i'll be talking to u a lot about yoper. i have a habit of asking inane questions. lol

Thats what this forum is for :-)

You can MSN me @ cliekid@gmail.com

That way we don't spam this forum to death :-)

Cliekid

Linux runs on PowerPC (mac), but you need a distro that is compiled for ppc. yoper is compiled for 6x86 which means Pentium II and upwards. AFAIK there is no mac version.

I have to disagree with Cliekid. Creating a /home partition does not create more problems.
Not creating one causes more problems than it solves. First of all, if you decide to install a
new distro, then your data in your /home stays intact. You only have to reinstall the root partition.
If home is part of / then you have to wipe it too...

The data in home is not comingled with the data in root, therefore you should have less fragmentation
of the filesystem.

Here is the partitioning scheme I use for a 20Gb drive:

/boot = 100Mb
/ = 8Gb
<swap> = 1Gb
/home = everything else

I have yet to run out of room on the filesystem. Even on my 160Gb system I set up only a 10Gb
root partition and it's at 5.7G used. The root filesystem really doesn't grow much unless you do a
lot of error logging. And if you ever get close to running out of room, you could always use
/sbin/parted to resize the partitions. Or create a seperate /var/log partition and move the logging
data there to free up some room on the root fs. Linux is totally flexible in this regard.

Your /home partition starts out at a very small size. Maybe only a few hundred K to start. It grows
as you download files, mp3's, applications, create documents. etc...

Your home directory is typically located at /home/<username>

When you are logged in as yourself. Open a shell (terminal) and type in "pwd", this will print out the
directory you are currently in. Or, type "echo $HOME", it will list your home directory regardless of
where you are in the filesystem. To learn more about your environment, type "env".

HTH,
/Les

A problem with a /home directory.

Say you store most of your files in /usr and /var, and you only have a few things in /home. I find that an effective waste-o-space, and it will in turn limit the amount of possible packages you can use in the long run. And if backups are such an issue of your /home directory - yet its all on one drive just "seperated", then it still isn't full-proof "protection" from data failure. If you want to store files, get an alternate drive and mount it at /backup or something so you can actively back up files.

Since installing another distro would wipe the /home partition anyways - I see no purpose of it other then becoming a hassle and seeing speed decreases and file system issues.

Cliekid

If I was running a web server then yes I would be putting most of my files in /usr and /var.
In that case, I would partition my filesystem to have it's own /usr and /var filesystems. I've
built enough servers to know the difference. But that's not the case, we're taking about
joe_user here. Average joe_user spends most of their time in /home, running as joe_user.

Build your filesystem the way it best suits you. Initially (to a new user) that may be unclear
as to how to proceed. Most new users will experiment with several distros before they find
one they like.

If they have a seperate /home their data can survive multiple installs. Unless of course they
use a distro and choose the auto install everything approach. In which case everything would
be wiped. But then we wouldn't be talking about partitioning an fs in this thread... ;-|

A good distro will allow you to deselect the /home partition from formatting during a new
install, thereby preserving your data in that directory.


Also, "tarun_s" made a comment about passwords being stored in the /home directory. No,
they are not stored there. They are stored in /etc, which is part of the root filesystem. All
critical system files will be stored somewhere on the root filesystem (unless you decide to
put them elsewhere, but I don't recommend that).

/Les

Yep..

Also some other files may be scattered throughout /usr (Backups) and things like that of critical configurations. I always tend to put my files, even as a user though, in /usr/bin/personalfiles =P

I find it...safer that way =P

-Cliekid