[nmglug] Caveats to using a 12" Powerbook as a GNU/Linux laptop?

Gary Sandine gars at laclinux.com
Thu Apr 29 15:48:14 PDT 2004


On Thu, 2004-04-29 at 16:21, Sam Noble wrote:

> Umm, so what's the split on Debian packages that will run? (I'll admit
> to blissful ignorance here...) I've been thinking that software which
> works on i386/linux would mostly all run. But I suppose it makes sense
> that many/all of those packages have to be ported/built on the ppc
> linux.  So are there lots of things that just aren't there? How 'bout
> some key examples (in addition to flash)?

You know, flash is the only one I can think of.

It was pretty difficult getting started (because of marginal hardware
support when it was new), but it has settled down now that the hardware
has aged, and everything works well (I'm referring to my toilet cover,
er ibook).

I now see that I was careless and did not realize you were talking about
powerbook and not ibook.  12" powerbook with Nvidia chip seemed to be a
nightmare for (Linux) folks when it was first released (by mailing list
traffic).  They were beginning to limp along when I unsubscribed from
the debian-powerpc list.  You better check the debian-powerpc archives
(AFAICT Debian is in the lead for powerpc support) before doing this. 
Um, I take it all back.  Sorry.

-- 
Gary Sandine <gars at laclinux.com>





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