Linux Bible® 2010 Edition: Boot Up to Ubuntu®, Fedora®, KNOPPIX, Debian®, openSUSE®, and 13 Other Distributions

Chapter 22. Running Yellow Dog Linux

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Digging into Yellow Dog Linux

• Installing Yellow Dog Linux

Yellow Dog Linux is a Linux distribution for Cell (Cell/BE) and PowerPC (PPC) platforms. Offered by Fixstars Corporation (www.fixstars.com/en/products/ydel), Yellow Dog Linux runs on older Mac machines (G4/G5) as well as cool gaming systems and machines with PowerPC architectures (such as PlayStation 3 and IBM QS2x systems).

Unlike other Linux distributions that aim primarily for the Intel/AMD (x86) platform, Yellow Dog Linux focuses on the world of PowerPCs. Although it's not the only Linux distribution that provides PowerPC versions of their releases (Fedora and Ubuntu have dedicated PowerPC developers, as well), Yellow Dog has always been a leader in that area.

Terra Soft Solutions originally produced Yellow Dog as a port of Red Hat Linux for Mac PowerPC users, and Yellow Dog's new owner (Fixstars Corporation, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan) has expanded its offerings into the Enterprise. Yellow Dog Enterprise Linux runs on IBM ZS2x Cell blades and Sony ZEGO BCU-100 systems. Fixstars Corporation has also moved Yellow Dog's porting base to the CentOS Linux system, so it can rely on source code that was first built by Red Hat, Inc. for enterprise applications.

This chapter introduces you to Yellow Dog Linux and explains how it is moving forward to cater not only to those who love Apple's older PowerPC hardware and are drawn to Linux, but also to those wanting an enterprise-quality ...