It is time for a quick update about the new Apple's Creature, the Mac Mini.
A bunch of people around the world already had the opportunity to play with it a bit. Someone finds it really nice, someone else not that nice and fast. We're not going to discuss that kind of stuffs here, I am just going to look at its support on Linux, as I always do everytime a new Apple model comes out.

First of all, have a look at this e-mail taken from the Ubuntu Linux mailing list:

Von: Kevin Russell
An: ubuntu-users
Betreff: Ubuntu PPC 4.10 Installed on new Mac Mini
Datum: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 09:04:16 -0800
I just completed an install of Ubuntu 4.10 on my new Mac Mini. It works
well. Xfree did not detect my monitor, and I don't currently have any
sound. I am new to Ubuntu and it was a very straightforward install.

Kevin
http://krussel.com/mini


This is good news, the sound problems relay on ALSA support for the device, of course (and could het solved soon). Ubuntu installing just fine means, with every probability, Debian installing just fine too, as the installer is the same new great Debian installer.

This news is not surprising, as, like many people said since the first hour after the release of this eye-candy piece of hardware, the Mac Mini shares with latest iBook's most of its hardware: see, above all, the Apple "Intrepid" north bridge. This is the most important part, as the remaining hardware is really common in Apple machines and quite well supported (Radeon 9200 GPU, Firewire and USB 2, etc..).

It is probably not powerful enough for some people but, considering Linux is already running on top of it, you can always make a Mac Mini cluster (using IP over Firewire, which is supported, on Debian at least, and experimental code from the Open Mosix project).