Running Linux on an Apple Mac

Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel and founding father of the GNU/Linux revolution, has switched his computer to an apple.

My main machine these days is a dual 2GHz G5 ( aka PowerPC 970 ) - it’s physically a regular Apple Mac, although it obviously only runs Linux, so I don’t think you can call it a Mac any more ; )
Oh, and part of it is that I got the machine for free. I’m really a technology whore.

So there’s the catch that Linus isn’t running apple’s OSX along with the computer. He claims that he’s interested in trying a new processor architecture for kernel work.

Linus started work on the Linux kernel nearly two decades ago and intended for it to only run on x86 (Pentium/Athlon) architecture. Now he’s experimenting with another.

I’ve heard several people tell me they’ve removed OSX from their apple so they could install a Linux distribution that they preferred. Lucky for them Linux has wide support for different platforms. In fact, Linus added:

And don’t read anything really deep into that - Linux supports 20+ architectures, and the fact that I personally think that two of them are more likely to be the most relevant really doesn’t mean all that much. It’s just a personal quirk of mine.

Linus Torvalds now lives in Portland, OR and continues work on improving the Linux kernel.