From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Nov 14 05:26:38 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id FAA27665 for questions-outgoing; Fri, 14 Nov 1997 05:26:38 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions) Received: from iglou1 (exim@iglou1.iglou.com [192.107.41.3]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id FAA27660 for ; Fri, 14 Nov 1997 05:26:35 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from patrick@cre8tivegroup.com) Received: from gateway.cre8tivegroup.com [204.255.227.117] by iglou1 with smtp (8.7.3/8.6.12) id 0xWLlM-0003wA-00; Fri, 14 Nov 1997 08:26:21 -0500 Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.0 [p0] on FreeBSD Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <346BBB6D.58B8@inetnow.com> Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 08:13:40 -0500 (EST) Organization: The Creative Group From: Patrick Gardella To: Joel Maple Subject: RE: Mac Cc: questions@freebsd.org Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Joel, Right now? Not really. The i386 processor and the Power PC processor are two different animals. Unfortunately, you are in the same boat I am. I have a Mac 6214. Apple is writing MkLinux (another flavor of Unix) to run on Macs. But, it doesn't run on Performas, yet. They say they will offer it soon though. You can look for that at www.mklinux.apple.com. You might also want to try getting Virtual PC. They claim that you can install OpenStep, or Linux on it, so you *should* be able to try to load FreeBSD. It emulates a Pentium (Pro?) with MMX. When I looked at it, the hardware they emulate is supported by FreeBSD. Let me know if this works! I'm going to try it, but I need to buy Virtual PC first. It will be slow though. We're talking 30-40% of your processor speed, especially on your 603e. If you want to try BSD, go buy an old Mac IIci. I got one for $200, including the 13" color monitor. Install NetBSD/mac (www.macbsd.org, I think). Or you can wait for Rhapsody to come out. It's based on NextStep, and will have the Unix underbelly that you can work with, along with the familiar Mac GUI. Or you could buy the Apple port of the MacOS for Unix and install it on a FreeBSD machine. I think it runs for about $600. Reviewers said that it runs better than the normal MacOS does, since it can take advantage of the benefits of Unix. It might not run everything you want it to though. There's been some talk of porting FreeBSD to the PowerPC chip, but that probably won't happen. Or finally, you could buy an old '486 or Pentium real cheap and install FreeBSD. That's the best way to learn FreeBSD. If you get tired of it, sell the computer. I don't think that will happen though. Patrick Gardella P.S. When you get FreeBSD running, try mlvwm. It's an X windows manager made to look like a Mac. It's beta, but works well. On 14-Nov-97 Joel Maple wrote: >Hello, > I just finished reading about FreeBSD and I am very interested in >it. But I couldn't find any mentioning of running it on a Macintosh. >Is that possible? I own a Performa 6290 with an IDE internal harddrive >and a 3 gig SCSI external drive, is there any possible way to run your >software on my hardware.