Yellow Dog brings Linux to blue Power Macs

Yellow Dog has become the first Linux distributor to officially support Apple's latest generation of Power Mac, the blue'n'white G3. Though the company warns that the modified PowerPC Linux kernel is in development and may not yet prove fully stable. Yellow Dog Linux, released earlier this month as Champion Server, is aimed specifically at PowerPC 750-based Macs. However, the blue'n'white G3 version has remained unusable thanks to its use of ATA is its primary hard drive chain. Support for that chain comes from a port to PowerPC of the CMD646 driver and its integration into the PowerPC Linux kernel. Meanwhile, fellow Mac Linux distributor LinuxPPC is offering an in-development version of its kernel which works with blue'n'white G3's equipped with external SCSI drives and the Adaptec 2940 SCSI add-in card. The next race will be to add support for the G3s' FireWire ports. The Yellow Dog kernel currently supports only the machines' USB connectors. Yellow Dog's updated Champion Server installer is available here, the blue'n'white G3 kernel here. LinuxPPC's modified kernel can be found here. ®