MkLinux DR 2.1 DR 3 Power Macintosh 6100

[just.in.time]

Hi,

A while back I acquired a Power Macintosh 61xx series machine.  Along with it came the MkLinux book by Rich Morin.  In this book, two CDs: MkLinux DR 2.1 and MkLinux DR 3.

Has anyone here tried using MkLinux on their system?  Any point to doing so, or best to just stick with Mac OS 8.1?

I’ve used various versions of Linux on my MacBook Pro, as well as lots of experience with Raspberry Pi systems.  However, my understanding is that installing Linux of 2008-ish to now is very different from installing Linux of the late nineties/early 2000s.  Namely, the latter is a much more involved process.  Any truth to this?

Finally, would I be able to compile any modern-ish software on the DR 3 release?

Thanks

 

[dcr]

I’ve used various versions of Linux on my MacBook Pro, as well as lots of experience with Raspberry Pi systems.  However, my understanding is that installing Linux of 2008-ish to now is very different from installing Linux of the late nineties/early 2000s.  Namely, the latter is a much more involved process.  Any truth to this?

FWIW, I have no experience with MkLinux, but I used Slackware Linux on a 386 in the late nineties/early 2000s and I recall that being a relatively easy install.

 

[Gorgonops]

However, my understanding is that installing Linux of 2008-ish to now is very different from installing Linux of the late nineties/early 2000s.  Namely, the latter is a much more involved process.  Any truth to this?

I played some with MkLinux on a friend's 6100 back in 1998 (I think it was DR3) and, really, there's not much to it. It only ran on a small subset of Macintoshes and the installer did a competent job of determining what machine out of those you had so unless you have some particularly unusual hardware installed it should be mostly plug and play. (To get dialup to work I ended up copying over some PPP scripts from my Slackware box because the GUI configuration tool on MkLinux was completely brain-damaged, but that was par for the course back then.)

Finally, would I be able to compile any modern-ish software on the DR 3 release?

Well... sure, kinda, but don't get your hopes up too far. DR3 from a userland perspective is basically Redhat 5.0. It uses gcc and glibc2 so it'll be far easier to compile stuff for than, say, something truly ancient like A/UX. But anything graphical or with lots of modern dependencies is probably going to pretty much be a lost cause.

It looks like the last full distribution of MKlinux was an R2-pre tree that petered out sometime around 2004. If I were going to install MKLinux I suppose I'd try that instead of DR3. Reads like they updated quite a few of the included applications but the underpinnings sound roughly the same. (Still a 2.0 kernel!)

Honestly, there's really no reason to bother other than for historical larfs, but if that's what you're after by all means take it for a spin.

 

[just.in.time]

Thank you both for the input. Looks like I’ll probably just stick with 8.1 for now

 

[PowerPup]

In order to use MkLinux, you still have to have Mac OS installed in order to have the MkLinux bootloader extension/control-panel to execute. So you don't have to give up on using Mac OS 8.1 to give MkLinux a try. I put a 4GB HDD in my PowerMac 6100, and partitioned it 2GB for MkLinux and 2GB for Mac OS. It is indeed an ancient collection of GNU software, (I think it included Gnome 1.4 for GUI?) But it's still fun to boot up and dabble with now and then.

 

[dcr]

Oddly enough, in searching for a completely unrelated set of disks tonight, I was surprised to come across my MkLinux book and 2-disk set I had obviously forgotten I had.