[PLUG] Best live CD for a MacBook
Keith Lofstrom
keithl at kl-ic.com
Wed Oct 10 16:18:16 UTC 2007
On Tue, Oct 09, 2007 at 06:29:59PM -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> A student in one of my classes has a brand new MacBook and she is
> keenly interested in exploring Linux. When I explained about live CDs
> she became even more interested. I know zero about Macs, but I know
> there are some people here using Linux on Macs. I have a genuine Dapper
> Mac CD I can give her, but are there any other distros out there that
> have live CDs for MacBooks?
While some people have said "the Mac is better" or "install a
virtualizer", this is not about /replacing/ but /exploring/. The
best thing about live CDs is that you can see your machine temporarily
(and reversibly) change personalities, and that is cool even if the
new personality is inferior to the existing one. Most people react
to Knoppix/Ubuntu/Fedora live CDs with "Wow! My machine can do that!?"
It is a powerful argument for open platforms, and against the
monopoly-vendor "our way or else" nonsense.
Even though Ubuntu is not providing Mac live CDs anymore (sigh), the
older Dapper CDs should work OK. Provide her with that, and you can
lead her through this introduction to Linux. If there are hardware
problems (and newer hardware running older live CDs may exhibit this),
then try the Fedora Live CD, or others. Since you (John) know Ubuntu
better than Fedora, you are a better guide for Ubuntu.
However ... if it is a new X86 Macbook, it may not run an old PowerPC
Ubuntu disk. Although regular X86 Ubuntu/Fedora/whatever might run
on an X86 Mac when it is installed, I suspect the boot loader on a
Mac may not know how to handle a "foreign" CD. You will have to
investigate that.
Keith
--
Keith Lofstrom keithl at keithl.com Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs
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