The first thread

[dbraverman88]

Well, since *NIX enthusiasts are watching this thread, let's make this our Linux/UNIX forum until the mods decide to give us one

I have been running Linux on i386 for a number of years, but am looking to get started with Linux on a 68k. I have a LC III that, when I have time, I am going to put a mbo from a LC 475/Quadra 605 into. Installed on the board is 16 MB RAM and a 25MHz full 040 (not the 040LC). I plan to keep OS 7.x on the internal hard drive and put a *NIX on an Apple 800MB external SCSI drive and dual boot.

www.distrowatch.com lists three options for a 68k box: Debian Linux, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.

I have found two pages to get started with NetBSD:

http://www.netbsd.org/ports/mac68k/

http://www.netbsd.org/ports/mac68k/theobald/

Matt Theobald's page looks like a great tutorial on installing NetBSD. I read it through and it looks complete.

For Debian Linux I found:

http://www.debian.org/ports/m68k/

For OpenBSD I found:

http://www.openbsd.org/mac68k.html

I would like to do a pole:

1. Which one(s) do you use?

2. Which one is the easiest to install?

3. What is the best web page to look at to get started in 68k *NIX?

4. Which one has the best 68k hardware support?

5. What do you use your 68k *NIX box for?

Thanks,

David

 

[funkytoad]

Well, since *NIX enthusiasts are watching this thread, let's make this our Linux/UNIX forum until the mods decide to give us one

I can provide hosting! I have plenty of server space and bandwidth!

 

[MultiFinder]

I would like to do a pole:

1. Which one(s) do you use?

2. Which one is the easiest to install?

3. What is the best web page to look at to get started in 68k *NIX?

4. Which one has the best 68k hardware support?

5. What do you use your 68k *NIX box for?

Thanks,

David

1. I use Debian on my Classic II (16MHz 68030, no FPU, 10 megs RAM) on an external 800 meg (non-Apple) SCSI drive that's partitioned for 100 megs Mac OS (7.1), 600 megs ext2, and 100 megs swap.

2. No idea, as Debian is all I've used so far. The installer can be a bit of a pain at times, but then, it wouldn't be Linux if it didn't require you to look at the coding to figure out what the options do

3. Dunno. I just started fiddling and eventually got it working. I've been working on a write-up of it for awhile now.

4. Debian boots up on my Classic II. That's about all I ask of it. It suports the CPU, RAM, Display, and Keyboard

5. I use mine to basically just play around. It's not really fast enough to do much of anything useful (it takes about 10-12 minutes to boot, and another 2 or so to log in), so it's more just to impress people.

 

[macgreg]

I have mucked around with NetBSD 68k a bit - got a IIci and a Centris 650 working (not using latest NetBSD though).

I have used MkLinux on a PowerBook 1400. I also got MkLinux booting on a Performa 5400 off a 250MB Zip disk (it ran a few times anyway).

 

[John8520]

ooooh! Thanks for linking to that NetBSD howto by Matt Theobald, I've been looking for it for quite a while!

When my Q700 arrives (tomorrow morning ) I think I might have to get that a try, problem is, it's got stock RAM (4MB) so I could try squeezing along with that, or I could get a 16mb upgrade kit and bump it to 20mb. Such kits seem to run around $15 shipped, which I suppose is reasonable.

 

[QuadSix50]

ooooh! Thanks for linking to that NetBSD howto by Matt Theobald, I've been looking for it for quite a while!
When my Q700 arrives (tomorrow morning ) I think I might have to get that a try, problem is, it's got stock RAM (4MB) so I could try squeezing along with that, or I could get a 16mb upgrade kit and bump it to 20mb. Such kits seem to run around $15 shipped, which I suppose is reasonable.

Yes, Matt Theobald's page was a wonderful resource when I gave NetBSD a try. It's one of the more important links in my bookmark arsenal.

 

[chris]

http://www.mac.linux-m68k.org/docs/gettingstarted.php

is uberhelpful for setting up 68k Linux, makes it very easy. NOTE: Most of the links are broken. The items you want to download are

http://superb-east.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/linux-mac68k/Penguin-19.sit

for Penguin Booter,

http://superb-east.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/linux-mac68k/vmlinux-2.2.25-20030905.gz

for the kernel,

and http://ftp.mac.linux-m68k.org/pub/linux-mac68k/initrd/filesys-ELF-2.0.x.gz

for a RAMdisk image.

Follow the directions on the page. This will give you a very basic command prompt, not many functions. It has vi and that's about all of use that's on it. You can technically add more but at this point I have no idea how.

I know the directions are a bit unclear, if requested I'll post some with more detail.

OTHER NOTE: I used it perfectly on a LCII with 68LC040 accelerator. With 10mb of RAM it is quick to boot and use.

 

[dbraverman88]

Chris,

Thanks for the links. I'll take a look.

At a minimum, I would like to be able to run the following:

a shell (probably bash or tcsh, though some minimilist systems use ash)

emacs (a huge hog of disk space but it does so much including the ability to have multiple text windows)

vi

the gnu compiler suite (gcc)

screen (so I can have more than one shell running)

a scheme interpreter

a perl interpreter

a web server (probably apache)

a source control package (probably cvs)

a RDBMS

a mail server (sendmail or qmail)

Does anyone have a m68k machine that can take more than one ethernet card? I don't (I have 2 SE/30's, 3 LC III's, and a IIsi) but if you do, that machine would make a great router. You can build a router out of a 80386sx (and I really mean an actual 80386sx, not just the i386 archetecture) so why not a 030 or 040? If anyone wishes to build a router, that would be a fantastic project.

I would not try to run XWindows up front, but imagine: running X on a 030 or a 040?

Thanks,

David Braverman

 

[ChristTrekker]

At a minimum, I would like to be able to run the following:a shell (probably bash or tcsh, though some minimilist systems use ash)

emacs (a huge hog of disk space but it does so much including the ability to have multiple text windows)

vi

the gnu compiler suite (gcc)

screen (so I can have more than one shell running)

a scheme interpreter

a perl interpreter

a web server (probably apache)

a source control package (probably cvs)

a RDBMS

a mail server (sendmail or qmail)

I can speak directly to some of these. I've installed bash on my NetBSD boxes (*csh sucks), used gcc to build Perl, Apache, and Lighttpd. (For awhile I was kind of the unofficial binary repository for NB/mac68k because application binaries didn't get built for all platforms during the NB 2.x era.) NB has vi standard. I never had need to run cvs or a db, so I don't think I ever built those. Maybe I did MySQL...I really don't remember now. I think sendmail is part of core NB because I'll occasionally see console messages about it.

I would not try to run XWindows up front, but imagine: running X on a 030 or a 040?

On an '040 it's not actually too bad! Slow, as one might expect, but X was developed in the era these Macs were built after all. I run my Mystic CC in X all the time. I don't task it with much else (mostly intended as an X terminal - remote apps) but it does run many of the simpler Xscreensaver modules quite well, and thus makes a pleasant geek art piece. I worked out NetBSD-specific kinks in Aleph One (the open-sourced Marathon engine) with hopes that someday I'd be able to play internet Marathon matches on my Q840. The framerate might be low, but I'm hopeful that currently ongoing work with the mac68k framebuffer code will make it possible.

 

[alk]

Speaking of X on a 68k... Is there any practical window manager for that hardware?

I enjoy using a command line, but I'm a GUI guy. I get bored quickly if there aren't any shiney things for me to look at. ;-)

[Edit: Chris, how did you slip in there? I swear your reply wasn't there when I hit submit... Anyway, do you use XFree86?]

Peace,

Drew

 

[ChristTrekker]

Speaking of X on a 68k... Is there any practical window manager for that hardware?

I prefer Blackbox most of the time, and it is very usable on 68k. (Install the Latinum theme from themes.freshmeat.net and it feels kinda like home.) IceWM is also good, and not quite so austere (though it does have that Windows-like "taskbar" design). The only desktop environment I found usable at all on 68k was Equinox...KDE, Gnome, and even Xfce are just faaaar too heavy. For 68k, stick with just a simple window manager, and a lightweight one at that. There's always twm too, but using that is akin to masochism.

 

[pee-air]

Does anyone have a m68k machine that can take more than one ethernet card? I don't (I have 2 SE/30's, 3 LC III's, and a IIsi) but if you do, that machine would make a great router. You can build a router out of a 80386sx (and I really mean an actual 80386sx, not just the i386 archetecture) so why not a 030 or 040? If anyone wishes to build a router, that would be a fantastic project.

I have two 68k Macs that will do multiple ethernet devices. One is a Quadra 950, which has builtin ethernet plus IIRC five nubus ports. The problem with the Quadra 950 is that netbsd and openbsd won't run on it yet because of the iops. Debian will run on a Quadra 950, but it will be slow. And that's not even the biggest problem.

With 68k Macs, you're pretty much limited to half-duplex 10Mbit ethernet devices. This means that you're router will become a huge bottleneck for your internet access. Not so much because of the slow 10Mbit interfaces, which will likely be faster than your broadband connection anyway, but because of the incredible spike in packet collisions that you will experience. Any kind of a load on your 68k Mac router will result in so many retransmissions due to collisions, that it would make web use unbearably slow.

 

[pee-air]

I prefer Blackbox most of the time, and it is very usable on 68k. (Install the Latinum theme from themes.freshmeat.net and it feels kinda like home.) IceWM is also good, and not quite so austere (though it does have that Windows-like "taskbar" design). The only desktop environment I found usable at all on 68k was Equinox...KDE, Gnome, and even Xfce are just faaaar too heavy. For 68k, stick with just a simple window manager, and a lightweight one at that. There's always twm too, but using that is akin to masochism.

If I'm not going to use a desktop environment, which I don't use on 68k macs, I prefer fluxbox. It's blackbox's bigger brother. It has considerably more features and a blackbox like taskbar that is actually functional -- unlike the taskbar in blackbox.

I've also tried afterstep on an LCIII running NetBSD. It ran fairly well and was sort of pretty to look at. Unfortunately, it sticks all of these "things" on the screen that eat up your desktop real estate. That's not too good on a 640 x 480 screen.

Of course, you could always disable all of those afterstep doodads and what-nots, but if you did that, there'd be little reason to choose afterstep over, say, twm. Save you wouldn't have to manually place your windows on the desktop when you launched an application.

The thing that I didn't like about icewm was that it refreshed the menu everytime you clicked on it. That just bogged things down on a slow machine. It was even an annoyance on a fast machine.

 

[chris]

OK, X on the 68k Macs would probably work, and work well, if there's a port of kdrive to 68k. I don't know if there is, but if so then that's awesome, if not then can someone port it?

For those who don't know, kdrive was previously called smallx, and it's designed to run well on low spec, low RAM machines. I've used it on a 386 with 6mb of RAM and it doesn't exactly fly but it works.

 

[chris]

Don't be dissing twm!

I actually happen to like TWM, but it wouldn't work with a 1-button mouse. At all. You could simulate a second and third button but that's a half-ass solution. I'd suggest a slightly older WM if you want really functional GUI.

New MLVWM anyone?

 

[ChristTrekker]

If I'm not going to use a desktop environment, which I don't use on 68k macs, I prefer fluxbox. It's blackbox's bigger brother. It has considerably more features and a blackbox like taskbar that is actually functional -- unlike the taskbar in blackbox.

Please elaborate. What exactly differentiates FB from BB?

The thing that I didn't like about icewm was that it refreshed the menu everytime you clicked on it. That just bogged things down on a slow machine. It was even an annoyance on a fast machine.

I've never used IceWM for any extended period. I like the idea of the feature, but agree that it is a performance hit. If it's significant, it's one I could forego. If it were configurable (update every time, update every 10 minutes, never update) that might be helpful.

 

[QuadSix50]

One more for TWM on older systems. It's very spartan, but eventually you get used to it. I also wonder how something like ION would be like on an old 68K Mac running a *nix.

 

[Maconthemove]

1- Which GUI could I run with a SE/30 with 60+mb ram and a 9gb hd? Is there PPP so that I can dial-up? Are Apple modems hardware modems?

2- Which linux distribution works with the Duo Dock?

 

[ChristTrekker]

Which GUI could I run with a SE/30 with 60+mb ram and a 9gb hd?

Assuming you're talking a Unix GUI, anything X11 is going to be slow on a SE/30, regardless of RAM, and since X11 is going to be about the only game in town, that is what it is. Suggestions earlier were Blackbox, Fluxbox, twm, maybe ION or ratpoison.

Is there PPP so that I can dial-up?

Never done dialup on a *nix, but I know it can be done.

Are Apple modems hardware modems?

Almost definitely. I don't think the idea of "winmodems" came about until the Win95 era. Before that, it was always hardware AFAIK. I keep my old 56k ext. modem around just on the off chance that I end up moving to the sticks, so I could use one of my 68k Macs as an always-on 'net gateway.

Which linux distribution works with the Duo Dock?

The Dock itself won't run *nix, it will run on the Duo.

The (very old) document on the NetBSD website says video is unsupported (i.e. you have to log in via a serial console - not very useful) but the mailing list says that has been fixed. Still no support for the Dock, but some microdocks are supported.

The Linux 2.6 kernel will run on a Duo, but I have no idea which distros actively support mac68k machines.