Menu

Darwin without OS X

Help
frankie_DJ
2006-06-07
2013-06-04
  • frankie_DJ

    frankie_DJ - 2006-06-07

    Hi everyone,

    I recently moved into the new research group at school and I got  a G4 machine to use with OS X installed, version 10.3. I was surprised to see how slow G4s with OS X are. It is a 400MHz processor speed, but my old machine at home, which is a 350MHz Pentium , with Slackware 10.0 installed on it, can run circles around it. Not to mention that this G4 has 768MB of RAM whereas my home machine only has 128MB.

    So I figured OS X is taking all that speed and I decided to run bare Darwin + GNU stuff, with some light window manager.

    My question is: where do I start? Any links with instructions would be appreciated, BUT FOR STARTERS,
    how do I run bare darwin without OS X???

     
    • proclus realm

      proclus realm - 2006-06-08

      Our PPC OS installer has been withdrawn until we are able to build a version which is unencumbered by proprietary drivers.  Darwin OS installers are available on the internet, but they are unfortunately so encumbered.  If you would like to use the free software part of Darwin instead of the Mac OS X interface, that is fairly easy to do.   Just decide whether you wish to delete Mac OS X, or not.  (We typically do ;-).

      Our Office-1.1 for PPC disc is an excellent to for getting you underway with the a GNU GUI, as is our on-line package collection, which is available from the download page of the main website.

      http://www.gnu-darwin.org/index.php?page=downloads

      If you need any further assistance with this, you should feel free to write back you post to our email forums.

      Regards,
      proclus
      http://www.gnu-darwin.org/

       
    • galtthedestroyer

      yes I need further assistance.  I've tried for two weeks now to burn the ppc gnu-darwin cdr.  I didn't post earlier bc I felt like a stupid noob for not being able to burn it.  but what I really have wanted to know this whole time is:  WHY!?! why a cdr? 

      at first I tried to find a program that could burn it.  after a while I finally found filext.com that listed filetypes, their extensions, and known programs to run them.  in the comment it said cdr files are actually iso images and I could just rename it.  wel lthat's strange?  k3b doesn't seem to like it whether renamed or not.  I've tried roxio for windows, roxio for mac also with no luck.  I've tried downloading the file again in case it was corurpt the first time. 

      I would buy a cd.  I'd love to in fact.  but the G4 I"m putting it on is funny (OSX crashes a lot).  ubuntu worked fine on it though.  I"m hoping that darwin will run fine bc it was aqua (etc.) that TRULY made it crash so much.  SO if darwin doesn't work on it I don't want to have spent $20, especially when the gnu-darwin team is MAKING IT SO DIFFICULT TO GET / INSTALL THIS DISTRO FOR NOOBS! 

      I wish I had the skills / knowhow to just get the packages and compile them but I don't, yet.  I'm getting there.  but YIKES, if you really want to be free software evangelists and / or have any hope of having some kind of presence next to linux then:

      PLEASE MAKE IT EASIER FOR A NOOB TO INSTALL

      I HAVE some suggestions:
      1.  the gnu-darwin website is extremely disjunct and confusing.  if I was a web developer I'd offer to redo it for you.  I can however list how / where / why it's so disjunct if you would like to ask.
      2.  HOST A TORRENT of gnu-darwin (iso not cdr!) for crying out loud.  I would love to get it and then seed it for you.  LOVE TO!  the linux mirror project and / or linux tracker have non-linux distros (BSD) on them already.  maybe try there! 
      3.  for those of us that can't seem to burn the cd for various reasons, who don't know how to compile our own code yet, and when the net-install script isn't working, there seems to be some kind of "ports" based install process?  if so could you maybe put up some kind of recipe on how to do so? 
      4.  in fact, for all of your howtos, check out gentoo-wiki for a guide on how to best write guides.  if ever I need to know how to do something for any distro I look there first. 

       

Log in to post a comment.