Another heartening note is that Terra Soft Solutions is an Apple Authorized OEM Value Added
Reseller with permission from Apple to install Linux on Apple hardware, retaining any hardware
warranties provided by Apple.
The latest Apple hardware uses x86 chips in the form of Intel's Cure Duo processors.
Yellow Dog Linux will not work on these systems because that's not Terra Soft's mission.
See the section "Going Forward with Yellow Dog" for more information.
Mac OS X, in the form of Aqua, is considered one of the most advanced graphical user interfaces
on the market today. With a sophisticated interface available on the Apple platform, a user might
question putting Linux on Apple hardware, but there are many valid reasons to install Linux on the
PowerPC architecture, including:
Cost of applications - Commercial applications usually have a higher price of ownership
than their open source counterparts for similar functionality. For instance, the latest
word processor on the Mac OS X platform can cost hundreds of dollars, whereas the
open source alternatives are generally free. The free software available for Linux far
exceeds that available for the Mac OS X platform.
While some of the more popular open source programs are available for Mac OS X, they
may require a port of the software, as opposed to a recompile. Porting applications is a
more complicated process and usually requires expertise in operating system programming. Porting is
outside the sphere of this book.
Extended hardware life - Linux is well known for its low operation requirements. You
can use Yellow Dog Linux on machines that aren't necessarily supported by the latest
Mac OS X version and still run the latest Linux applications.
Uniformity - Linux is widely deployed, especially for back-office functions. By using
Yellow Dog Linux (often referred to as YDL), you can mix PowerPC hardware with Intel
hardware in the same production environment, with application and operating system
uniformity, thus reducing costs associated with the support of two different operating systems.
Because Linux is open source and widely available, you also reduce your depend-
ence on one entity for your operating systems.
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