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Alan's Tips: Mac on Windows? Windows or Linux on Mac? Is it possible to run Windows or Linux on a ppc (g5)? Are there versions of Linux that provide the same simplicity and look as OS X does? And what about running the Mac OS on a “windows computer” or any other non genuine apple machine? 1) The main way people run Windows on a Mac system is using add-on software-- mainly Microsoft's (original Connectix's) Virtual PC. This runs the PC operating system of your choice on an emulated PC, running as a program under the Mac OS. Unfortunately, the current (and former) versions of VPC will not work on the new G5 processor-- they make use of processor instructions used in G4 and G3 systems that are not supported on the G5. Hopefully a new version that will work on the G5 will be available soon, but no one is promising any dates. There are several other PC emulators for Mac, but by all accounts, performance is much poorer than VPC (which is no speed demon itself)-- and I haven't heard any reports of these working on the G5 either. 2) While you can run many PC Linux distributions on a Mac in a VPC session, there are also a number of them which were compiled specifically for PPC processors and can be installed onto Mac hardware. These include Yellow Dog Linux, I believe there's a Mandrake version for PPC, and others. You may want to check http://penguinppc.org for more information. I'm not an expert on this, but I don't think any Linux distribution-- whether for Intel or PPC platforms 'provide the same simplicity and look as OS X'. 3) There are a number of programs for emulating Mac OS on an Intel platform; last I've heard, all were limited to emulating 680x0 processors, limiting them to running Mac OS 8.1 or earlier, and all (except for the ugly and limited Ardi Executor) require that you obtain a ROM image of a genuine Mac (680x0) ROM chip. Given those limitations, they can do quite a good job-- on modern hardware, running faster than the original Mac. I particularly like the free Basilisk II. More on that from: http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/B2Main.html 4) If you want to run the Mac OS on non-Apple hardware, there's also the option of picking up an Apple clone; during the period 1996-98 (more or less) a number of companies, including UMax, Motorola, Radius, and Power had licenses from Apple to make systems that could run the Mac OS. These used the various PPC processors of that era, and often provided faster, more powerful systems for less money than official Apple hardware. Apple had hoped that this would grow the market for Mac OS systems; instead, it mostly cannibalized Apple sales, costing them more than the licensing fees were bringing in. As a result, they didn't allow the various companies to extend their licenses, and the experiment with Mac clones came to an end around the time that Apple released their first G3-powered systems. Feb 27 2004 Search WWW Search www.zisman.ca Alan Zisman is a Vancouver educator, writer, and computer specialist. He can be reached at E-mail Alan