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Author: anonymous
Date: Tue Jul 19 05:14:34 2005
Subject: KDE on Mac
Hi, This might be a stupid question but it's something I'd like to know. I am new to Mac but have been using Win/Linux for many years. I'd like to know if I can run the BSD distro of KDE or Gnome using the BSD core on OSX.
I'm not sure how much apple has screwed with the BSD core but I do know they've stripped allot out. I'd really love to use Gnome or KDE if possible. I don't like the OSX desktop. If not what free linux distros work with an old Beige G3. I know it's a dinosaur but it was a freebie. It was given to me for something to play with. Any sugestions?
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Tue Jul 19 07:14:32 2005: Subject: drag
Most things from Linux OS are portable to OS X. Generally you'll need to make sure that you have a X server installed. (although there is a effort to make a 'native' KDE version to OS X)
It helps if you install a package manager. Each program that makes up KDE has to be ported from Linux to OS X and by using a package manager it can help you install everything you need.
Check out Fink http://fink.sourceforge.net/index.php?phpLang=en , but there are others... Some people like others better then Fink.
Trouble would be performance. If you have less then 256 megs of RAM in the machine then I expect it would be painfully slow. As for OS X's compatability with FreeBSD (or whatever).. I don't think it's that great. I don't think you can use BSD binaries to run programs in OS X.. but you could possibly use 'Darwin' versions of programs. However, most usefull software has been ported to OS X for a while now.
If you don't want to run OS X at all and want linux then any Mac using a G3 ought to be new enough to easily support a newer PowerPC version of a Linux distro. The tricky part is going to be hardware support, especially on a beige G3 since they can have sometimes pretty funky stuff hardware wise. I remember struggling to get OS X installed on one and having it failing at different points because of the SCSI controller it used and not having a firmware update aviable for it.
Dealing with a bootloader is tricky compared to what it is in x86. It's very different.
If you want to try a "live cd" there is one for Ubuntu (which is Gnome-based, though) that way you can get a feel for how the hardware supported under linux. There is a Kubuntu (Ubuntu but with KDE focus) 'Live CD' aviable. http://mir1.ovh.net/ubuntu/releases/kubuntu/hoary/
Download the PowerPC version of that and burn it to a disk and it should boot up with a fully GUI enviroment from the CDROM itself. It's going to be a bit slower then running off the harddrive since cdroms (especially with the compressed file system) are generally much slower then disk. If you like it, then download the install stuff.
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