Linux OS comparison for PPC

[Kluster]

I'm looking into Linux for ppc arch. So far it seems the only viable Linux OSs for ppc are yellowdog, gentoo, and ubuntu. Gentoo would be the obvious choice if it has as much support for ppc machines as it does for x86 machines... What are your experiences and opinions on the support these OSs (or unmentioned OSs) have for ppc machines. Thanks for your replies.

[JoseJX]

Well, you're missing debian from that list. :p

Yellow Dog is basically RedHat ppc, so expect a similar experience there, the others basically are all the same as their x86 counterparts, with the exception that none of us have the benefit of x86's binary drivers, flash plugins, etc.

If you like Gentoo on x86, you'll like Gentoo on PPC. Plus, I'd like to think we have the best support out of all of the major PPC distros, but I'm a bit biased. ;)

[pindar]

There was a thread about the advantages and drawbacks of several linux distros over at the macosxhints forum. Maybe this can be useful?

[davidgurvich]

Gentoo works very well, Debian sarge is good (love the new installer), avoid SUSE (very good on x86). Actually preferred sarge to ubuntu.

[e-ipi]

I'm looking into Linux for ppc arch. So far it seems the only viable Linux OSs for ppc are yellowdog, gentoo, and ubuntu. Gentoo would be the obvious choice if it has as much support for ppc machines as it does for x86 machines... What are your experiences and opinions on the support these OSs (or unmentioned OSs) have for ppc machines. Thanks for your replies.

Aside from Debian, you also neglected Slackintosh. Since you ask, I think that's the best ppc distro. As the name suggests, it's a nearly perfect clone of Slackware for ppc. Like Slackware, it's slightly conservative (though not as conservative as people tend to think). It's nice and stable, but leaves quite a few things for the admin/user to do. Whether that is a good thing or not is a matter of taste.

[th0th696]

Although, I am a huge fan of installing debian on aging machines to be used as servers (compiling on old machines can take days). However, my desktop computers consist of a mac mini (OSX), an AMD64 box (Gentoo), and a beige 266 G3 minitower (Gentoo) that runs kde 3.4, gaim, open-office. I mainly use that machine for chatting (gaim), as the bigger packages (openoffice) are dreadfully slow. But I can say I am impressed how the standard kde apps deal with limited resources (read: they are usable if not snappy). The main reason I keep gentoo on that box instead of installing debian to make updates bearable? Well, really gentoo just feels better, not only will you find more real world packages and options for those packages, they seem to be infinitely better configured (I say infinitely as it's usually just a use flag away if it's not already perfect). That being said, if your hardware is old, updates ARE going to be a pain. I mean even if with the latest and greatest hardware updates are slow on gentoo (because your actually compiling the stuff), but on old hardware I've seen updates move up to multi-day affairs.

Also of note is that Apple is no longer making ppc machines, so it is likely to see distros dropping out of the ppc sector (this is already true for a few of the distros on penguinppc.com). Where others are dropping out, I foresee debian and gentoo sticking with us for quite some time. And if Terra Soft survives this intel transition Yellow dog linux (my first ppc linux a long time ago) should be around as well.