cc0259099 wrote:

> Hi All:
>
> I'm considering a switch from Mac OSX to Linux because of extreme
> frustration with Apple customer support. A long time customer and
> supporter of Apple, never a fan of Windows, I'm hoping to load Linux
> on my powerbook as the first step in the transition away from Apple.
> Might as well keep using the powerbook until it dies and/or apple care
> runs out.
>
> I'm not a programmer. I'm a home and small business user who needs
> email, www, newsgroups, music and dvd playing/burning capability,
> accounting (Quicken), word-processing, simple digital image
> manipulation and address book functions. In other words, I'm a
> typical computer user, and to be honest I've been very happy with
> Panther OSX.
>
> My initial research shows that Yellow Dog has the easiest install,
> good
> support, and should run easily on my 12" Powerbook and older Pismo
> Powerbook.
>
> How likely is it that I'll be satisfied with Yellow Dog Linux on my
> Mac?
>
> Will the Linux OS take over every function currently handled by
> Panther?
>
> If Linux alone won't do what I need, is it easy to keep Linux and
> Panther side-by-side, either in separate partitions or on the same
> hard drive?
>
> Are there any particular advantages for me in switching over to Linux,
> aside from no longer giving money to Apple? Eventually, my plan
> would be to run Linux on a non-Apple machine.
>
> Is this a futile exercise, there being no escape from the frustrations
> of bad customer support in this day and age???
>
> By the way, here's the issue that prompted this: I ordered a
> powerbook on line for my daughter and received an empty box-- Apple
> customer service has been rude and useless-- 9 days after the empty
> box arrived, Apple has done nothing and essentially refuses to do
> anything until
> their 'logistics' department has finished an investigation. Their
> customer service has been so awful that I can't in good conscience
> continue to buy their products. Unless, of course, the alternatives
> are worse....
>
> TIA
> Michael

If you have no experience with linux, and you've had no problems with
responsiveness from OSX, then, while I'd encourage you to try linux as
a hobby, I don't think I'd recommend it for normal business (unless of
course you already know your way around the system).

Linux on the x86 is a huge market, and its fairly easy to find easy to
install/configure distributions which would probably fit your needs.
On the PPC (mostly Mac) there are a smaller number of available
distributions, and a significantly smaller number of users.

That said, I'm pretty happy with Linux on PPC. It has allowed my to
turn an apparently hobbled Mac G3 tower into a fairly fast, responsive
little linux box. The only problems I've seen are closed source
programs, and certain applications making extensive use of assembler
instructions on x86.

--
Daniel Boline
Dept of Physics, Boston University