Why YDL? Why Linux? Why YDL instead of OS X?

[Suzanne Payne]

--On Saturday, February 8, 2003 7:45 am -0700 rjgoos@ydl.net wrote:

> I'm sure I'd be asked...why mess around with YDL, since OS X is now
> BSD-based?   I've got one answer:  runs on several pre-G3 machines...but
> what else could I  offer?

Yup I'd agree with that one.  I've tried getting NetBSD (my chums more 
knowledgable than I are BSD snobs, so that was what I started with!) to 
install on older macs with little success.  YDL does seem to be easy peesy 
to install!  I'm toying with trying it on a nubus machine (8100)...just 
*because*!!!  Let's face it, if you've been involved with macs for some 
time, you'll have a store cupboard full of 'redundant' machines, which all 
work perfectly well, and it's a crime to chuck 'em. (I have a particular 
fondness for 6100s....)  Old PeeCees can be easily pressed into doing 
something useful via Linux (a Pentium 166Mhz is acting as my 
firewall/router as I type) and it's great that I can now use my old macs as 
well.


> Why would anyone use YDL, for example, on an
> iMac, since OS X is   available?
> As for me, I am experimenting with YDL on this old 7200 simply to get
> myself  introduced to the world of Linux/Unix, on a machine that has no
> other purpose.   If I screw something up and accidently erase the hard
> drive...nothing lost but  time.  I wouldn't dare experiment with my iMac
> at work, or my wife's iMac here at  home.


Mhmmm...yup.  I agree with that too.  My Wallstreet is an experimental 
machine for me to 'play' with unix and if I screw it up, I just reformat. 
The Wallstreet, like an iMac, will run OSX perfectly well, but the reason 
I'm trying YDL on it is because there's BSD, there's Darwin, and there's 
OSX!  OSX still (despite sourceforge's best efforts) locks things, or 
simply doesn't support third party stuff.  The one that I'm struggling with 
at the moment is third party wireless cards.  The pre-airport macs all have 
to have third party wireless cards, which are unsupported by pure OSX, and 
rarely (ever?) come with OSX compliant drivers.  Linux has been around 
longer than OSX and there's a lot of stuff out there for it (and for BSD) 
that simply won't compile under OSX (let me qualify that....there's a lot 
of stuff that *I* can't compile under OSX!).  And it's worth installing 
Linux for Mahjongg alone!! :)

Don't get me wrong, I'm very fond of OSX (you know you're becoming a unix 
geek when then one thing you really, really miss under OS9 is the 
terminal!) but with each different OS I play with I learn new things: 
sometimes unintentionally...my week long effort to install NetBSD on the 
Wallstreet and a Beige G3 meant I learned more than I ever wanted to about 
Open Firmware!  With each update of OSX there's been a noticable decrease 
in speed on my old G3s (10.1.5 to 10.2.3 was really quite a step), so for 
the older OSX compatible machines, they may not be able to keep up soon, 
but YDL flies.

Fundamentally, they're simply different beasts.  Why should you install 
both?  Because you *can*.

Just my 2p!
Suzanne