Mastodawn

I just stumbled upon a wonderful archaeo-website, mostly frozen in 1999, and personally meaningful: https://www.mklinux.org

This is the homepage of MkLinux, the long-defunct but historically important effort to port Linux onto PowerPC Macs. A pre-Jobs Apple co-funded this open-source project as an experimental step towards what would eventually become Mac OS X.

It was my first Linux. And I remember in a flash how people would pronounce it "McLinux”, and how I hated that so much, arggh.

Welcome to MkLinux.org

This is the official site for MkLinux, a port of Linux to the Power Macintosh, running Linux 2.0.xx on the OSF Mach 3 MicroKernel. This was originally a project by Apple Computer, Inc. and the Open Software Foundation.

Is “pre-Jobs" the right word for the bleak dozen years for Apple between Jobs's departure and return? “Inter-Jobs”?

jim nelson Mar 20

@jmac To me, there's no such thing as a pre-Jobs Apple. It's like saying "pre-Jesus Christianity."

I would call those bleak years between his tenures "The Great Interregnum."

Draken BlackKnight Mar 21

@_jimnelson_ @jmac
I have my own opinions about crApple. On the one hand, their security IS top notch but you have to manually enable it for it to be effective (e.g. Lockdown Mode, Advanced Data Protection). On the other, I wouldn't exactly call them "private." Just ask @ashleygjovik for details if she's allowed to give them out.

@jmac "the interregnum"

Simon Brooke Mar 20

@jmac Did MKLinux not stand for 'Microkernel Linux', and was it not an attempt to build a NeXTStep like operating system on top of Linux?

NeXTStep used the Mach kernel, which genuinely was a microkernel; Linux (particularly in those days) was much more monolithic, and I always wondered how the project of using it as a microkernel would work.

fluffy 💜Mar 20

@simon_brooke @jmac I mostly remember mklinux for two things:

1. Oh cool you can run Linux on a Mac now
2. Holy balls this is slow

@simon_brooke Yup, that's what the "Mk" stood for. I think it was best-documented option for getting Linux on a Mac at the time, though, so naturally people read it as "MacLinux" but spelled weird.

I came across this last night because something made me curious about the origins and status of GNU Hurd, which—I learned—is also built around a Mach microkernel. And this stirred up some deep memories of doing terrible things to my poor Performa 6115.

pyrrhlin Mar 20

@jmac @simon_brooke I think I have a MkLinux book and CD somewhere. But I spent far more time on LinuxPPC, and then later some time on Yellow Dog.

@simon_brooke @jmac my understanding was that they carved Linux up into a series of cooperating servers running under a Mach microkernel. So the “Linux” in mkLinux was a fairly radical fork, not just e.g. a vmlinuz image built from an upstream source tarball.

(I ran mkLinux on a PowerMac 7100 back in the day. It required heaps of RAM because it didn’t support dynamic linking.)

irrational method Mar 20

Wow, this brings back some memories... Also my first Linux on an old Performa 6116 that my family had.

Tom Stepleton Mar 20

@jmac I remember how you could crash an MkLinux install on a PowerMac 7200 by enjoying its pleasant booOOP! console beep a few too many times.

@stepleton That's how you know you're on the bleeding edge, baby

Blake C. Stacey Mar 21

@jmac "McLinux" = sounds not just cheap and trashy, but like a lazy attempt to make a name that sounds cheap and trashy

"M K Linux" = evokes CIA experiments with psychedelic drugs

@jmac
Peak, and I do mean this, UX design*.
Inside 10 seconds on the site, I knew everything I needed to know. What was the site about. Why was I there. Where could I find what.
I did not need to scroll for 2 minutes to read five sentences of text that are 100 % marketing BS with zero information.
Just great!

*On a desktop, and not checking accessibility.

jn (big endian energy)Mar 22

@jmac AFAIK, "osmk" is still part of the source directory structure in Darwin today :)

@jn Yes! I love it.