Which Linux on Apple iMac?

Not strictly a notebook question but close enough (Apple iMac uses many mobile components, including CPU, chipset, and modified mobile GPU).

In my office, I will soon be getting the latest June 08 refresh of the Apple iMac (20", 2.4GHz, Montevina platform). I will be dual-booting, running Linux as my primary OS (will rarely use OS X, and if I ever needed Windows, I'd run in in a VM).

Any suggestions regarding the distro to choose? I googled a bit, there seem to be a few more issues (e.g., sound) than with your average desktop PC.

I am considering the following:
- Kubuntu Hardy (since there's a lot of info on installating Ubuntu on Apples);
- openSUSE 11.0 (which I like a lot and currently use on all of my machines);
- Fedora 9 (which I like, too, but I'm concerned that their bleeding edge X.org will cause issues with the iMac's ATI card)

I'm somewhat open to other big distros as well, as long as it's a release with up-to-date packages (i.e., RHEL or CentOS is not an option).

 

What CPU does it have?
It could be PowerPC, in which case your options are limited.

 

PCLinuxOS is a major one as well; although I haven't tried it yet (Ubuntu works for me), it has great reviews.

For a comprehensive list of most Linux distros out there, check out this site:

www.distrowatch.com

 

It's a Penryn, model is not officially released by Intel yet; reportedly it shows up as a E8135 but really is a version of the P9500 or P8600 that's custom-modified for Apple.

 

PCLOS sucks, If your going that route, go with Mandriva.

 

^^ Care to provide a half-decent answer? How does it suck? Have you used it, or even read the reviews?

 

DISCLAIMER: I've only installed (Gentoo) Linux on PPC Powerbooks, several years ago, so I"m not sure what issues exist for installing Linux on an Intel iMac, today.

Having said that, I would thing that Gentoo would be a good candidate. Engadget and MacSlash reported back in 2006 that Gentoo was one of the first Linux distros running on the iMac. Gentoo has actually been one of the Linux distros to provide historically good support for not only installing Gentoo Linux on PPC Macs, but also for development efforts, like Portage for OSX, now referred to as Gentoo Prefix, which is a project to port the Gentoo Portage package management system, to other OSes, like OSX.

Anyway, here's a very brief Howto for installing Gentoo on an Intel iMac, and note that it links to the author's blog where he kindly maintains a working 2.6.24 kernel config file for Linux on an Intel Mac. It might be a good starting point for configuring the Linux kernel, (under any distro), for running on an Intel iMac. The key difference, it seems, is managing the boot menu, and it's nice (in the Linux tradition), that there's a project just for that. The recommendation for Gentoo notwithstanding, any of the distros you mentioned would probably also work for your situation. There's even this wiki listing several Howtos for installing various Linux distros on Intel Macs. So choose the one you feel most comfortable with, and let use know what happens.

Good Luck..

 

I'll have to keep saying Kubuntu or Mandriva KDE.

 

I have installed it.
Its so out of date, for one.
Had to go to the CLI a lot more then in the latest Mandriva.

 

I'll just have to agree with that right now.....I think Thomas was referring to hardware support....I can't go wireless with it myself. They haven't had an update in ages. The forums seem to fading away....been over there lately? Yep, PCLOS is based on Mandriva which is based on Redhat....stick with the mother distro IMO.

 

Maybe you're better off asking in the mac forums? I think most of us run on pc hardware rather then Apple's hardware.

Apple's chipsets are the same Intel chipsets on PCs, so most distros should work, theoretically, unless Apple throws a curve ball in there (knowing them, they would).

As for distros, I'd say any really up-to-date distro should work, the kernel is what usually decides what is recognized and what isn't.