[Discuss] GNU/Linux Distro for Mac?

[omegahalo at gmail.com (Chris O'Connell)]

I'm with Ben on this one.  I've experimented with various flavors of Linux
on my Macbook Pro.  Fedora seemed to be the most successful, but even then
the machine ran really hot and the battery life suffered.  Odd things that
you expect to work, such as the headphones jack, don't and you lose
gestures.  I think you also lose the a use of the ambient light sensor for
the backlit keyboard and screen.  This might have changed as the last time
I attempted Linux on my Mac was about 3 years ago.

I think there's plenty of Linux on a mac already, you've got the terminal
and shells.  The mac's just got a smooth interface with all the bugs and
hardware incompatibilities that generally plague the Linux desktop ironed
out.


On Fri, Aug 2, 2013 at 6:41 PM, Richard Pieri <richard.pieri at gmail.com>wrote:

> Will Rico wrote:
>
>> I have a colleague at work who uses a Macbook Pro Retina at home.  Since
>> we
>> use GNU/Linux for our office PC's (Ubuntu and Mint currently) he has
>> become
>> a fan and would like to give GNU/Linux a whirl on his Mac.  Is there a
>> distribution that is particularly suitable for Macs?
>>
>
> I recommended Yellow Dog in the PowerPC days. Today I recommend FreeBSD
> over Linux on Mactel kit for two reasons.
>
> Reason one: Linux desktops suck. All of them. Linux itself doesn't suck
> (some things about it do suck -- but that's a different rant :), but the
> array of desktops? They all suck and, based on where Gnome and Ubuntu are
> going, they're getting worse not better.
>
> Reason two: Every Intel-based Macintosh ships with a FreeBSD-based
> operating system already installed on it. All that's missing is an X server
> and a Ports collection. The former can be had by installing XQuartz, and
> the latter by installing MacPorts. That will get you about 98% of what
> you'll find in a Linux distribution without having to deal with proprietary
> hardware drivers and desktop environments that make Windows 8 look swell.
> Unless you want to: MacPorts has Gnome 2 (maybe 3), KDE 3 and 4, and Xfce
> 4.6.
>
> --
> Rich P.
>
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-- 
Chris O'Connell
http://outlookoutbox.blogspot.com