Chapter 26: Integrating Fedora with Apple Macs

Overview

In This Chapter

• Inside Mac OS X

• Using Mac OS X network services

• Accessing Samba servers

• Accessing AppleTalk (netatalk) servers

• Configuring an AppleTalk (netatalk) server in Linux

• Installing Fedora on an Intel-based Mac to dual boot

In the old days (like, a couple of years ago), you had to make Linux look like a file and printer server on an AppleTalk network in order to use a Linux server from an Apple Mac. While that is still true with an older Mac (OS 8 or 9), if you have an iMac with OS X, the whole world changes. That's because Mac OS X is a lot like Linux on the inside.

This chapter is for people who have (or want to have) Macs on their desktops and Linux as their servers. It covers a variety of server types that you can set up in Linux, then access from a Mac OS 8, OS 9, or OS X operating system. In particular:

• For Mac desktop users - The chapter describes how users can access shared resources from their Linux servers.

• For system administrators - The chapter explains how to set up an AppleTalk server in Linux using the netatalk software package. (Chapters 17 through 25 describe how to configure other types of native Linux servers that you can access from your Mac computers.)

The latest Mac computers have moved to Intel-based architectures. So now Apple operating systems are like Linux on the inside and the computer hardware is like the PCs that Windows and a majority of Linux systems run on. Because of this change, you can actually install Fedora on new iMac and Mac Mini computers. Procedures for installing Fedora Core on a Mac Mini are included at the end of this chapter.

I wrote this chapter in response to several readers of earlier editions of this book who wanted to replace their Windows servers with Linux servers. I hope this chapter will help start them, and you, on the road to taking full advantage of powerful networked Linux features from your easy-to-use Mac desktops.