Re: [tlug] Linux-compatible Mac laptop?

["Niels Kobschätzki" <n.kobschaetzki@example.com>]

On 4/12/07, Jonathan Q <jq@example.com> wrote:
> On 4/12/2007, "Scott Robbins" <srobbins@example.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >One downside of Macs, that everyone forgets till it bites them, is their
> >proprietary hardware problem.  For instance, my wife's airport card
> >seems to not be working.
> >
> >If it were a PC, I could easily boot a Linux CD and see, swap cards,
>
>
> The fact that it's a Mac doesn't mean you can't boot a Linux CD on it
> :) There are several PPC distros out there to choose from :) When it
> gets to old to run the latest/greatest OS X you can even just convert to
> a capable Linux machine. If you boot a Linux CD and the wireless still
> doesn't work, that's not a confirmed diagnosis, but it's an indicator.

<snip Linux on Mac and hardware>

I think he means the chipset of the Airport Exprexx-card which is
proprietary and the reverse engineering seems to be quite hard that's
the reason popping in a Linux-distri of your choice won't help to
check if the card is defect or if the OS is the problem (but for that
you'll have a lot of other choices to see what the problem - e.g. full
backups from your system which are bootable (on older laptops only
with FW-HDD afaik…))

Niels