An open-air bazaar of free-source:

• environments -- BSD/GNU/Linux, Gnome/KDE
• networking -- DNS/BIND, Apache, sendmail (and its clones)
• scripting -- Perl, Tk, etc.
• projects and How-To's

Sushi, because free-source offerings are like a box of sushi.

SushiDot, because it hints of Freshmeat and Slashdot.

How-To multiboot any iBook between Linux, OpenBSD, and OS9/OSX. The install steps are roughly:

1. create 3 HFS+ partitions with the OSX installer's Disk Utility (or OS9 equivalent); the 1st partition should be reserved for Debian GNU/Linux because it will create the multiboot partition.
2. install OS9/OSX on one of the other partitions. (We put OS9 and OSX on the same partition to simplify things.) df or pdisk /dev/disk0 -dump will give you an idea of how all the partitions are actually numbered.
3. as explained, use OS9/OSX to get Debian's install files and copy them to the (mounted) 1st partition -- which is technically the 9th; reboot and use the iBook's firmware to start the installer, which splits the partition into three: bootstrap, swap, root -- more if you want. note: the other partitions' numberings have thus increased by 2 -- or more.
4. Debian writes yaboot onto the bootstrap partition; yaboot lets the user boot into either Linux or OS9/OSX (and OS9/OSX can boot between each other or run simultaneously).
5. similarly, use OS9/OSX to get OpenBSD's ofwboot and bsd.rd files; copy them to the (mounted) unused partition; df or pdisk /dev/disk0 -dump to get the partition's number; start the install via the firmware. the install uses pdisk to change the partition's name/type, and OS9/OSX will no longer mount it once changed. write down the partition's offset/length, which will come in handy when slicing it with disklabel (the next step in OpenBSD's install).
   • alternatively, install NetBSD. (OpenBSD's install notes are shorter and easier to read because old world firmware isn't supported.)
   • either way, transfer a copy of ofwboot to the Debian system and put it in /usr/local/lib/yaboot/
6. run ybin to update the boot partition with any changes to yaboot.conf. ours contains:

   boot=/dev/hda9
   root=/dev/hda11
   bsd=/dev/hda12
   macosx=/dev/hda13

7. bugs:
   • booting between OS9 and OSX will bypass yaboot until the user boots via the firmware; (e.g, boot hd:9,yaboot)
   • the OpenBSD kernel always prompts for the root device (wd0a). the kernel loads just fine, but the kernel can't seem to find the root filesystem. this is also a problem with NetBSD, which suggests a custom kernel.

While OSX needs better support for free-source and especially X-windows apps, with Debian and OpenBSD installed (as "GNU classic" environments of a sort, in Apple-speak) our iBook has no problem running these apps any more. And configuring X-windows for the iBook was straightforward on both Debian and OpenBSD:

1. with Debian, just dselect your window manager and its dependent packages, such as:

   xserver-common      xfonts-base      xbase-clients
   xserver-xfree86     xfonts-75dpi     xutils
   xfree86-common                       xterm
   xdm

   then answer DebConf's questions (ATI, /dev/input/mice, medium: 800x600, 85Hz, 24-bit) to get a working /etc/X11/XF86Config-4. run xdm to take care of the rest.
2. OpenBSD's base packages for X include a working XF86Config, but only at an 8-bit color depth. (and its X packages are relatively bloated, not having a dselect to fine-grain the choice of fonts, window managers, and such.) if you didn't install these packages initially, be sure to use tar xzpf to unpack them now. -- support

Last modified: 8/10/2002