Mac OS 10.5.8 on iMac G4

Good day everyone. First of all, I hope that I am posting this in the correct forum. Excuse me from any spelling mistakes, since English is not my native language.

So, here's the thing. A friend of mine gave me an iMac G4. We both really dig the design, and don't want to throw it away because the operating system that was on it (10.3.9) can't do anything useful to us (like loading a google search for example.....).
So I started digging around on the internet and found some pages stating that you can in fact install OS X Leopard on 'unsupported' machines. The trick was some fiddling with the clock frequency and then it should install. Anyway, I tried to find a 10.5.8 disc for powerpc somewhere, but the only thing I could find was a stripped down version of it that you could replace your current HD with. So okay, I started going down that road and now I'm here, confused, the iMac has no OS anymore and I have no idea what options are left.

Now I think the easiest thing to do is name the things I tried, along with the result, so you guys might be able to help me.

- First of all the iMac: 15", PowerPC G4 processor, 256 MB RAM, Nvidea Geforce 2, not fully functional optical disk drive (I'll get to that later)

- Tried to restore the 10.5.8 image within 10.3.9 -> didn't work (probably a 'duh' but I figured that would be easiest)

- Created a partition so I could restore the image to. Did it eventually with GnomeParted within a live CD of Lubuntu for PPC.

- Tried to restore image to partition. -> didn't work

- Eventually after some things I tried which I can't remember, but weren't that important anyways, I ended up taking out the HDD, hooking it up to another iMac via USB, restored the image to it, put it back in. -> Didn't work (folder icon flashing '?' and finder smiley)

- Now at a point with no OS, trying to boot from a DVD with snow leopard (wasn't sure if it would work because it isn't powerpc, but if it at least booted I might be able to do something with Disk Utilities) -> didn't work, spat out the disc.

- Tried to boot from the Lubuntu disc again -> Works like a charm, though ONLY if I type 'boot: live-powerpc nouveau.modeset=0' (also the first time, took me a while to figure that out). It looks very psychadelic, and then when I tried to install it, the install window shows, but actually only shows the borders and the inside looks like the wallpaper behind it, but if you move it, it takes that image with it (hard to explain). Anyway, I can't install it.

- Downloaded a 10.4 tiger retail image. Put it on USB, dvd, and I got a 4 CD version of it, all of which didn't boot even a tiny bit. I tried it via OF with specifying the entire path ànd alias, holding C, holding option. Nothing.

- Opened up the iMac, plugged in another DVD drive to see if it might work. -> Nope. When I let it boot freely it only gives a white screen in stead of the folder icon. When I open OF and type 'eject cd:', nothing happens. Weird.

Why I suspect that the dvd drive is partially broken is because when 10.3.9 was still installed, and I put in a DVD, it didn't really read it. Though when I put in a CD it had no trouble reading it. I also burned some stuff to DVD and it made a weird clicking noise when I tried to boot from it, though when trying to boot from CD it spins/hums normally.

Now I am left with a Mac with, in theory, a fully installed 10.5.8 on it's HD, but unable to boot, and trying to boot anything burned on a DVD or via USB seems impossible. The only thing I can get to boot is the Lubuntu Live CD (which by the way recognizes the HDD and sees the HFS+ partition).

Okay, I hope this is at least a tiny bit clear, it's hard to document every step because I have been working on this damned thing for three day straight now and it only has gotten worse.
The main thing I'm trying here is to get 10.5.8 working on this thing, but now booting up anything also seems like a main concern to me.
Please, if anything is unclear, ask.

Thanks in advance,
Tristan

Alright, well that's what I will try now then.
The problem still remains though, I can't boot succesfully. I have acquired a Tiger 4 CD installation, and when entering disc 1 it loads up to the blue screen with the spinning colorwheel, but then nothing happens.

Okay, I will suggest a memory update to my friend, because it is not mine. But first of all I will have to get it to boot somehow. The point is that the iMac has no OS installed anymore! Because I tried to restore the HDD with the 10.5.8 image, but it isn't recognized.

Also, when I enter a Lubuntu live CD, which I can boot from if I hold C, and try to boot it from OF, with 'boot cd:\' or something similar, it tells me that the Load-Size is too small. The same happens with the 10.4 CD. But then holding C doesn't get me further then a light blue screen with spinning colorwheel.

Well in the end I got it to work. Turned out that I didn't partition the harddrive appropriately. I had to check some box about how the filesystem was installed or something, I can't really recall. But I got it to work by removing the HDD, hooking it up to a new iMac with a external usb drive thingy and then formatting the drive and installing the image.