Bow Yow!

OK, so I gave up on Ubuntu. The installer kept hanging up and dumping me into a command line interface from which it was impossible to move forward with my limited Linux shell programming skills (maybe I'll get better?). So I took the alternate route, and checked out Yellow Dog. Turns out there was a recent release (5.0.1, Phoenix) just a week or so ago. I downloaded the 6 .iso CDs, then dounloaded the 4 .iso CDs for v 4.1 (Sagittarius) and the 3 .iso CDs for v 3.0.1 (Sirius), just in case. Yellow Dog seemed to have better support features (although warning that Old World Macs are unsupported beyond v 4.0) and guides for installing each version.

It seems to be working. The install image has been copied to the hard drive, and the 900+ application packages are being installed as of now. There was a little confusion with regard to the drive formatting; I am hoping all the formatter did was hit the Linux partition and leave the little Mac partition alone. I'll find out when it is time to reboot -- if it doesn't work, I can always go back to the Mac install CD, reformat the drive, and start over.

I guess this is why so many people are afraid of Linux. There are so many machines with so many flavors of installer that you have to hit the right combination. On the other hand, it's free, and the application suites are free, and in terms of performance, it makes old machines function like new ones.

Everything has tradeoffs.