So about a year ago I installed Yellow Dog Linux 2.3 on my G3. Horrible experience. Had to use a text-based installer, it had no clue on the (builtin!) graphics card on that machine, partitioning sucked - all bad things. After installation things worked fine (although updating software was an Archilles heel - I couldn't figure out how to do it, but I didn't run that machine all the time, so it really didn't matter, right? 3.0 has a new updater functionality, while not as slick sounding as Software Update, sounds fairly braindead as well).

Anyway, installing Yellow Dog 2.3 was an experience I didn't want to do again, or inflict on anybody else.

Having not learned from experiance (or being a massacist - I'm not sure which), I finally got the urge to install Yellow Dog Linux version 3.0(.1).

Was it better? Yes. Think trained, skilled Ninjas in a fight against a guy who reruns of Friends. Very much better.

The installer automatically recognized my graphics card - I got a slick GUI installer (with help displayed in a sidebar for every step of the process). The partitioner was braindead (although I already had a linux partitioning scheme set up from my Yellow Dog 2.3 install, so I just had to erase that one). The "select what you want to install" was pretty (you could also set exactly what you wanted installed, but I left it at (mostly) the system defaults.

My hats are off to the Yellow Dog people - if this test install pans out I may have to find other machines to install this gem on... maybe even my iMac (which currently serves only as an CSV/Subversion server, and an alarm clock - and which I haven't updated to 10.3. The iMac does nothing else - I live on my powerbook - there's no use fighting that. At one point I wanted a strict separation between work machines and play machines - ok, I don't play a lot on the G5, but everything is on the Powerbook.

The only downfall in my mind was downloading the actual images to being with - but once i picked a non-primary server I was getting 100K a second for each of the three files!.

I'm in the middle of instation (read: copying all those files from the 3 CD-ROMs) right now, so I don't know much else. From what I've read it seems to have more packages installed (OpenOffice anyone? Modern versions of software packages? All these things and more, I guess.)

Anyway, maybe I can get some real work done while it installs... because, after that, I'll be distracted by the new, suddenly shiny, toy.

Halley: ... I've been thinking about how we all spend so much time having a life that seems to be the kind of life other people have... [Halley's Comment]