I’ve been doing some investigation on what it would take to move my main work environment back to Linux (Ubuntu specifically).
For a bit of history, I moved off of Windows in 1997 and on to Linux – Debian mostly (Wow, I haven’t used Windows as my main OS for 10 years!). Back then it took a lot of tweaking to get Linux to work right. I don’t mean customizing, I mean tweaking to get it to even work.
While tinkering under the hood was educational and fun, it was a bit of a pain when it was time to do some actual work. I frequently found myself spending time working on getting my environment to work before I could do any work. I couldn’t get much work done that way so I moved to Mac about three years ago – specifically for the work flow, ease of use, and stability.
Now, however, Linux just works (in so much as Mac and Windows “just work”). Ubuntu installs easily, supports most hardware (WPA wireless with no tweaking on my part!), and comes with a slew of free programs.
It is not my intention to bash Mac or Leopard. I think they are both amazing feats of engineering and craftsmanship; however, Leopard isn’t working for me. I find it unstable, buggy, and disk thrashing – I want to use it I truly do, but it doesn’t want me to. It’s the nicest looking OS I have ever seen, and the improvements are theoretically cool, but for day to day work, it’s failing horribly for me.
So I have a few choices. Wait for an unspecified amount of time for bugs that are unacknowledged to be fixed, downgrade to Tiger, or peruse other options. Number one happens by default and number 2 and 3 are such a pain in the behind, that I might as well look at number 3 just to see (in case this kind of situation is going to become a trend).
My Leopard Workflow Problems
To cut off suggestions that I am over reacting, or making things up, here are a few things that have been happening since Leopard:
Everyday at least one application crashes while I am working on something. This was unheard of in Tiger, and one of the main reasons I moved off Windows 10 years ago. I haven’t lost this much work since I used Windows.
Sometimes every application crashes. It’s the darnedest thing, but every couple of days every single app will crash at the same time. The OS doesn’t crash, just every running program. I get an array of “Would you like to send…” windows, then everything starts working again (for a while).
My account got removed from the admin group for no reason.
My iPhone now only syncs 30% of the time (I suspect USB code changes, but I have no proof). The rest of the time iTunes beach balls and I have to force quit. Sometimes I have to reboot the OS just to get my very expensive phone to sync (and that is only good for one sync, then I need to reboot again).
My firewire iSight doesn’t work with some programs anymore.
The hard drive starts thrashing every once in a while causing the beach ball and I can’t work. I have to sit there and wait. Sometimes it lasts 20 seconds sometimes 4 minutes (one time 15 minutes).
Sometimes in Mail.app the create new message button doesn’t do anything, and I have to quit and restart the app just to send a message.
My wifes keyboard on her MacBook randomly stops working.10.5.1 seemed to fix this for her.
I have clean installed the OS four times (twice on my Powerbook, twice on my PowerMac), and both computers exhibit these behaviors. Odds are if it is happening on two computers it’s not just me.
It is important to note that I have more problems on my G4 computers then my wife has on her intel computer. So it could have something to do with that, but I can’t spend another $2,000 to buy a new computer when the two I have fall well within the specs for running Leopard.
Ubuntu Powerbook Install
I tried to install Ubuntu 7.10 on my PowerBook G4 as a test. Sadly this didn’t work out very well. After a bit of messing around, I got it to install; however, it had some random problems – the worst being that it lost all network interfaces after apt-get upgrade (NetworkManager seems to get horked after the first security update).
Some quick tips for anyone trying this:
You’ll probably need to be wired when you install because the network card needs proprietary drivers. I used a netgear pcmcia card I had laying around.
When you first boot the livecd, you’ll likely have to boot the kernel with flags. What I used was (enter this at the boot: prompt):
live-nosplash-powerpc resolution=1024x768 vga=795 video=ofonly
- If you get it to install (I had the computer freeze once during install), to right click press the F12 key. You can setup ctrl+click = right click by editing /etc/default/mouseemu and uncommenting out the lines:
MID_CLICK="-middle 125 272" RIGHT_CLICK="-right 29 272"
and then:
$sudo /etc/init.d/mouseemu restart
(via viraj.org)
The cool effects (comp-biz or whatever) worked very well on my PowerBook G4 with 1.25GB RAM.
The Apple function keys seem to work fine (volume, brightness, eject, etc)
There is no Adobe Flash support for Linux on PowerPC
Installing Ubuntu on an Apple PowerBook G4, for me, was like it was installing Debian back in the late 90s. It is not as easy as most other installs with Ubuntu, and not everything is going to work (You wont be able to just close the lid and have the laptop go to sleep anymore, you’ll have to shutdown every time). Prepare for a lot of file tweaking.
In the end, I think if you’re looking to move to Ubuntu, sell the Apple hardware on eBay and buy new computers with the money you get from that.
(For example, I am running Ubuntu on a Thinkpad T23, and it works flawlessly).
Yikes, I am locked in.
The one thing I learned from this, is I am currently locked into Apple stuff. I didn’t quite realize it until now though – it never really hit home. For example, if I moved back to Linux I would have no way of syncing my iPhone. I also have an Airport Extreme, and near as I can tell, I can’t edit any of the Airport settings from Linux. Let alone my iTunes purchases. Wow, I am toast.
I always imagined I could just install Ubuntu on my Apple hardware if it ever got down to it, but it seems that it is not that easy. By the way, hats off to the open firmware guys and yaboot – I was impressed that Ubuntu actually could install on and support most Mac hardware.
If you are running intel hardware, you are not likely in this same boat. You can probably use boot camp to easily dual boot or use vmware.
My lesson learned here is – single vendor lock in is limiting on your personal maneuverability, no matter how cool the products seem to be. If the company you are hooked in with starts putting out stuff you don’t like, the economy takes a dump and you can’t afford their stuff, or you disagree with something, your options are limited.
(Written on my Ubuntu Thinkpad T23 while I am installing Leopard for a third time on my Powerbook. Holding to the hope that the problems I am having were things I somehow did wrong.)