Linux Gains Ground on Macs
Volume Number: 15
Issue Number: 7
Column Tag: Network Administration
by Todd Stauffer
Mac Admins Have Linux Choices Similar to Their PC
Counterparts
Apple and Mac users have always had a love-hate relationship with Unix. It makes
sense -- Apple has always appealed to universities and scientific installations, where
Unix and it's variants have experienced similar receptiveness. Consider A/UX and
Apple's X-Server packages, for instance, both of which I remember getting Macs on
scientists' Macintosh desktops in the late 1980s.
And there's that little issue of huge server loads thanks to the Mac's creative tasks.
AppleShare may be gaining some speed and caching capabilities, but creative houses
have often turned to other outlets -- most recently Windows NT -- to handle the file,
print and even Web serving needs of the typical creative office. Mac OS X server may
stem some of that hegemony, but Linux can do something to help, too.
Long considered too risky for real work, Linux -- a freeware variant of Unix creative
by Linus Torvalds of the University of Helsinki in Finland -- has been steadily gaining
professional acceptance over the past few years. Seen as a Windows NT or commercial
Unix killer in some circles, Linux also promises to give the Mac OS a boost in the right
direction and might even give Mac OS X Server a run for its money among Apple shops.
The 'Why' of Linux
Why should Linux appeal to Mac administrators? In some cases, it definitely won't.
Linux is not nearly the friendly environment that the Mac OS is, although it does offer
unique graphical environments and reasonably easy-to-use applications. At its heart,
though, Linux is a command-line operating system with text-based applications and
configuration files that can be extremely powerful in the right hands -- and
extremely frustrating to the rest of us.
Linux... can be extremely powerful in the right hands -- and extremely
frustrating to the rest of us.
"It's definitely not for everyday users right now," said Jason Haas, marketing director
for LinuxPPC, Inc. "It's way too complicated to get set up and running. That's
something that will change in 1999.
In the meantime, intermediate users who "live on the Internet" can get started with
Linux right now. Haas claims that 60% of Windows NT administrators use Linux at
home. Likewise, Mac OS X is still an unknown quantity, Haas said, making Linux that
much more attractive for Mac OS and cross-platform system administrators and
Webmasters.
What it doesn't have in friendliness, though, Linux more than makes up for in
performance. Compared to the overhead required for Open Transport, the Mac OS APIs
and so on, Linux for Macintosh versions run considerably faster, with the LinuxPPC
version (which doesn't rely on the Mach kernel that's found in Apple's MkLinux and
other advanced OSes) is said to run 20% faster than MkLinux and Rhapsody DR3 (Mac
OS X Server).
Linux also offers a much more buzzword-compliant OS than is currently available
from Apple in the form of the Mac OS, including preemptive multitasking, protected
memory and multiprocessing. All this can take place in a text-based or a mix of a text
and graphical environment, allowing for efficient programs to be written with a
minimum of interface elements, thus taking up less RAM and processor cycles.
That leads to an incredible efficiency that means nearly any PowerPC-based machine
is a viable Linux box -- 604e and G3 based machines are screamers. But nearly any of
them will do, and they don't even need the specifications required to run the basics of
the Mac OS -- a LinuxPPC box can get away with 16 MB of RAM, 1.2 GB of hard drive
space and a 603e or better processor.
Finally, Linux is a very network- and Internet-savvy OS, offering the benefits of a
Unix-style client/server environment. That means you can literally log into a Linux
machine from across the Internet and run applications on that machine while viewing
the interface on whatever you're using to connect. Access your e-mail applications,
file directories and
What it doesn't have in friendliness, though, Linux more than makes up
for in performance
administrative tools from anywhere you can find an Internet connection. Users of
Timbuktu (which allows you to screen-share and control a Mac or PC from a Mac
workstation), will appreciate the fact that Linux can even be used over a modem
connection, since the application itself is run on the remote computer. That means
Linux is much faster than a Timbuktu session, especially over slower connections.
Combine all of this with the Unix-standard Apache Web server (available as
freeware), commercial Applixware productivity tools, AppleTalk support, Netscape
Navigator, tons of X-Windows and programming tools and you've got a powerful
argument for switching OSes on your PowerPC-based equipment -- especially if
you're in the market for a cheap, fast server. Remember -- Linux is freeware.
The Linux Experience
There are two different distributions of Linux for the Macintosh -- MkLinux, a joint