As is typical here in the Floodgap lab, it all started so innocently: rebuilding a flaky Apple Workgroup Server 9150, the odd duck of the Workgroup Server line and older cousin to our beloved Apple Network Server. And then I just had to pimp it out for MkLinux.

Before the sui generis IBM AIX-based Apple Network Server , one of our favourite machines here at Floodgap, there were the WGSes, the Workgroup Servers, Apple's well-intentioned but conflictingly received line of Macintosh rebadges hopped up with high-spec options and special server software. While certain users had long repurposed desktop Macs as ad-hoc servers, these computers were the first Apple systems explicitly positioned and sold as such, and the first generation was even advertised with A/UX, Apple's own hybrid System V UNIX implementation.

A/UX ultimately didn't survive the 1994 68K transition to PowerPC, but in 1996 Apple publicly offered another option: run Linux, using the Mach microkernel.…