[heelhookofglory]

I'm sick and tired of Lion's crap bugs features blah blah.

A long time ago I managed to install and run Linux on my old iPod touch (no reason, just playing) and I think at some point I installed it on an old Mac. Question is, times have changed quite a bit and I didn't know what I was doing then, really, so I'm now after some advice off the Linux geeks 

1: what's the best version / release etc., to install
2: will I lose any hardware features (is all RAM visible / usable etc), sound, HD space, hi-res display supported or will I end up with pixilated shit icons bigger than my nan?
3: can I install on a partition as I'm guessing Adobe haven't release Creative Suite under Linux yet 
4: what about running on a network, any issues generally speaking?
5: anything else I should be aware of bearing in mind it is a studio production Mac so I'm not going the full-hog so dual-boot is a must, really

Linux boot = messing about surfing the net etc.
Lion boot = messing about surfing the net etc. work

Ta!

 

[slackline]

1: what's the best version / release etc., to install

Define "best"?  That will depend on what you want from it, if its ease of installation then probably an Ubuntu based version (e.g. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwitchingToUbuntu/FromMacOSX although I've found Mint Linux to have more bells and whistles to ease the process, simple guide at http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/install_linux_your_mac).

If you actually want to learn more about using Linux though then I think the best distribution is Gentoo but as you mention below that this is a "Studio machine" it will likely be inappropriate as you will have to to a fair bit of tinkering to get it working (as you would be going through a learning curve which takes time, but gets easier, e.g. I can now fly through a fresh install as I've a fairly good idea of what I'm doing).

2: will I lose any hardware features (is all RAM visible / usable etc), sound, HD space, hi-res display supported or will I end up with pixilated shit icons bigger than my nan?

No you shouldn't end up with any loss of hardware features, providing all drivers for your hardware are correctly installed, and unless you're on bleeding edge hardware this shouldn't be a problem (on the provisio yours is an Intel-based Mac).

3: can I install on a partition as I'm guessing Adobe haven't release Creative Suite under Linux yet 

Yes, but dual-booting is a thing of the past now, just run a Virtual Machine under the Linux install you opt for and have it running M$/OSX Lion and use Creative Suite under that.

If you opt for dual-booting you need to ensure the filesystem of each partition can be read by the other OS's (and you'd end up with a minimum of three partitions, 1 OSX, 2 Linux, 3 Data)

4: what about running on a network, any issues generally speaking?

Highly unlikely to have any networking issues, just use DHCP to obtain IP address' automagically from your router, set the router to port-forward to your computer if you want to ssh in from outside of your home network, CIFS/NFS are easy to use and set up so you can see your drives from other devices on the network.

5: anything else I should be aware of bearing in mind it is a studio production Mac so I'm not going the full-hog so dual-boot is a must, really

Virtual Machines, e.g. VirtualBox or KVM (a bit more involved than the former).

[heelhookofglory]

on the provisio yours is an Intel-based Mac

Yup!

Yes, but dual-booting is a thing of the past now, just run a Virtual Machine under the Linux install you opt for and have it running M$/OSX Lion and use Creative Suite under that.

  Didn't even think of that, superb!

I'm sure I'll be back asking you more questions as, like you say, this will be a large learning curve I think! Will trial run it on my Mac at home after running full roll-back-able back-ups etc.

I'll have a read through all of the above properly later on tonight but just wanted to initially thank you for the knowledge. It seems Linux is even more capable than I thought, especially with all the VM stuff 

Cheers buddy!

[slackline]

Not a problem.

KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine) will likely give you best performance, but may be tricky (never used it myself, but have a friend who's trying it out at the moment on a Debian install and he mentioned he was having some troubles).  VirtualBox will be quick and painless.

I use Gentoo though so anything specific to other distro's I'm not too hot on (although have a little familiarity with Debian based systems, of which the Ubutntu family and in-turn Linux Mint are members of).

You can also do the reverse and try out any of these under a VM on the current install on your computers (although most come with bootable live CD/DVD's from which you perform the installation anyway, so you can boot from those and try them out without fucking anything up).

[heelhookofglory]

Yeah I'm going to take a look at a few of the different distros (didn't realise there were that many!). Just downloading Ubuntu as I type.

I think when I say 'best' I probably mean a combination of easiest to set up and which has the nicest interface. I will admit, I am a sucker for the OSX UI and really dislike the M$ look of some of them but I guess they can all be skinned pretty easily?

[slackline]

Desktop Environments (DE) and/or Window Managers (WMs) is another area where there are lots of choices.

The main heavy-weight players (i.e. resource intensive) are the DEs GNOME and KDE, both use different languages (GTK and Qt respectively) for the GUI.

You can be more basic and use a simple Window Manager such as Fluxbox, Openbox, LXDE.

Or you can find some middle ground such as Xfce4, which uses the GTK language of GNOME but isn't so heavy on system resources.

If you want a "nice" interface with lots of bells and whistles use Compiz as a window manager under GNOME/KDE/Xfce4 (its where most of the ideas and glitz for OSX GUI animations stem from).

Sticking with an Ubuntu based distribution will almost invariably be easiest to install (there >4000 GNU/Linux and BSD distributions, and even then thats probably not all of them).  Other common "easy" ones are Fedora and SuSE.

[BB]

Make sure you can access the internet from another machine while you perform the install. My own personal experience is that the forums and help docs are essential to get a linux install working.

[Bubba]

Yes, but dual-booting is a thing of the past now, just run a Virtual Machine under the Linux install you opt for and have it running M$/OSX Lion and use Creative Suite under that.ot going the full-hog so dual-boot is a must, really

I'd check that the VM solution you're thinking of running under Linux can support OSX Lion before going down this route. I had to jump through hoops to get Leopard working under Windows 7 (using VMWare) but Linux/Lion may well be different.

[slackline]

Yes, but dual-booting is a thing of the past now, just run a Virtual Machine under the Linux install you opt for and have it running M$/OSX Lion and use Creative Suite under that.ot going the full-hog so dual-boot is a must, really

I'd check that the VM solution you're thinking of running under Linux can support OSX Lion before going down this route. I had to jump through hoops to get Leopard working under Windows 7 (using VMWare) but Linux/Lion may well be different.

Hadn't realised that (never had the need or desire to try out OSX), but a quick search suggests running OSX under Virtual Machines may be against the T&C which may explain why you had hassle.

Apologies for the mis-information.

[tomtom]

Im not 100% why you're doing this... (not criticising - just not sure why..) As I see it, the main advantages macs have over other laptops is 1 the hardware is pricey but lovely (trackpads are great) 2. The OS is lovely to look at and use. You're taking away one of these... Is OS slumbering panda really that bad?

Anyway, have fun.. Every now and then I install unix on something, play around for a bit and realise I can do what I want to do more easily on windows things and go back..  I like the command line stuff in Linux unix though ESP for piping, grepping and doing stuff with text files... So often thought that the apple OS would be great with the unix command line shizzle and a lovely graphical interface... Bt never been able to justify the higher hardware cost...
Yours randomly,
Tt

[slackline]

Every now and then I install unix on something, play around for a bit and realise I can do what I want to do more easily on windows things and go back.

Thats called "familiarity" 

[tomtom]

Every now and then I install unix on something, play around for a bit and realise I can do what I want to do more easily on windows things and go back.

Thats called "familiarity" 

Its name is C#.net I've tried mono, and it fine, but bottom line is it's c.20-30% slower

[heelhookofglory]

Im not 100% why you're doing this...

To be honest I just fancy a change. I've done it before, many years ago, but soon reverted back to OSX and probably will do this time. Just having a play really whilst I wait for my A2 pulley to repair itself! 

Running the risk of starting a Lion discussion, I don't think it's that bad to be honest and I've already rolled it out into my production environment (with roll-back at the ready) and it's working great apart from Spotlight not searching SMB network drives -- which is a total pain. I'm not having as many problems as a lot of other people out there but I do run quite a minimal system i.e. without all the third-party shit which some people (our studio manager) stuff in there 

[mr__j5]

I like the command line stuff in Linux unix though ESP for piping, grepping and doing stuff with text files... So often thought that the apple OS would be great with the unix command line shizzle and a lovely graphical interface... Bt never been able to justify the higher hardware cost...
Yours randomly,
Tt

You can do all of this on windows if you want. There are a few unixy command lines available. I use cygwin, which installs all of bash and the useful file utils and on and on

[slackline]

+1 for Cygwin, one of the first things I install when having to work on M$-Win systems for any protracted length of time (you can even install Xorg servers and run a desktop  )

[tomtom]

Im not 100% why you're doing this...

To be honest I just fancy a change. I've done it before, many years ago, but soon reverted back to OSX and probably will do this time. Just having a play really whilst I wait for my A2 pulley to repair itself! 

[throws grenade into virtual OS debate room]

Thats generally why I've installed Linux before.. bored and fancied a fiddle

[/throws grenade into virtual OS debate room]

+1 for Cygwin, one of the first things I install when having to work on M$-Win systems for any protracted length of time (you can even install Xorg servers and run a desktop  )

Yup. Cygwin is good. I did some scripting in windows a year or two ago (posted here about it IIRC) and that was pretty grim!

[slackline]

There are better things to "fiddle" with you know

[tomtom]

There are better things to "fiddle" with you know

I dont quite understand. Do you mean making emoticons?

[heelhookofglory]

I dont quite understand. Do you mean making emoticons?

No, silly, he means shaking cans of fizzy pop at each other...