OS X on 233Mhz G3 iMac

[Rick Friele]

Thinking of putting either Jaguar or Panther on a free Bondi Blue iMac I got. Thinking Jaguar will really bog it down, but what about Panther? It has a 233Mhz G3 with 192MB RAM. Anyone have any experience with this? Right now it has OS 9.2.2 on it, but I like OS X. I don't want to put it on there if it is going to be so slow that it is unusable. It's just going to be for e-mail and surfing the internet anyway since it's an extra computer.

[thatwendigo]

Thinking of putting either Jaguar or Panther on a free Bondi Blue iMac I got. Thinking Jaguar will really bog it down, but what about Panther? It has a 233Mhz G3 with 192MB RAM. Anyone have any experience with this? Right now it has OS 9.2.2 on it, but I like OS X. I don't want to put it on there if it is going to be so slow that it is unusable. It's just going to be for e-mail and surfing the internet anyway since it's an extra computer.

I ran Jaguar prettty acceptably on a a Rev A iBook tangerine, which is only 77mhz higher clocked. I'd seriously recommend loading as much RAM into that thing as you can, though. It made all the difference in speed, for me.

From lowendmac.com (http://www.lowendmac.com/imacs/imac.shtml):
If you have a hard drive over 8 GB in size, you must partition it, and the partition containing OS X must be completely within the first 8 GB of space or you will not be able to run OS X. (If you are creating the partion within OS X, it must be 7.45 GB or smaller as reported by Disk Utility, because sometimes a GB is billion bytes and sometimes it's 1,073,741,824 bytes.)

Non-Apple upgrades and peripherals (such as unsupported USB devices, replacement drives, and third-party memory) may cause problems when installing or booting into Mac OS X.

Be sure to read and follow Apple's "Read Before You Install" install instructions to increase the likelihood of getting OS X installed and running on the first try.

Also, Apple (http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/requirements.html) says that Bondi iMacs are supported by Panther. Good luck.

[blue&whiteman]

Thinking of putting either Jaguar or Panther on a free Bondi Blue iMac I got. Thinking Jaguar will really bog it down, but what about Panther? It has a 233Mhz G3 with 192MB RAM. Anyone have any experience with this? Right now it has OS 9.2.2 on it, but I like OS X. I don't want to put it on there if it is going to be so slow that it is unusable. It's just going to be for e-mail and surfing the internet anyway since it's an extra computer.

since you got it free maybe spend 200 on it and upgrade it to a G4/466mhz

thats twice the mhz plus a newer cpu. it would make it at least 3 times faster and osx would be very smooth also.

http://fastmac.com/products/processors/tl_imac.php

[evil_santa]

Ive got 10.3.3 running on an imac233 revA and a ibook 300. It runs ok on both. I use them for internet mail itunes, office & file maker pro.

[Horrortaxi]

If all you want to do is web/email/word processing then Panther will be just fine on that computer. Heed the warnings about RAM and drive formatting. I've used Jaguar and Panther on that computer and Panther is a lot more responsive.

On the other hand, if you're just going to use it for an extra web/email/word processing computer, why not run OS 9? 9 will run great on it and you don't have to buy anything.

[PismoGuy]

I installed 10.2 on a 233Mhz iMac at work and toyed with it for a while. I worked fine... it had 128 MB of ram. After I added another 128MB from another imac laying around it ran significantly smoother(this was like 8 months ago). It was perfect for internet, office, minor editing, watching movies, orginal unreal tournament b436(mac os 9),...etc. If this is going to be your computer for some time abd you find it a little to slow I suggest a cpu upgrade... but first add more ram.

[vouder17]

I am doing this right at the moment, i have a iMac 233mhz with Panther installed and 192MB RAM. I runs alot faster than jaguar, but don't expect that you can run iMovie and Photoshop effeciantly on it, but for surfing the net emails and Word it is great, if you have 10.2 i would upgrade.

[Rick Friele]

since you got it free maybe spend 200 on it and upgrade it to a G4/466mhz

thats twice the mhz plus a newer cpu. it would make it at least 3 times faster and osx would be very smooth also.

http://fastmac.com/products/processors/tl_imac.php
Don't really want to spend any money on it. This is the fourth computer in the house. Already have a P4 desktop, 700mhz iBook, 1gb TiBook, and this.

[Rick Friele]

If all you want to do is web/email/word processing then Panther will be just fine on that computer. Heed the warnings about RAM and drive formatting. I've used Jaguar and Panther on that computer and Panther is a lot more responsive.

On the other hand, if you're just going to use it for an extra web/email/word processing computer, why not run OS 9? 9 will run great on it and you don't have to buy anything.I already own Jaguar and Panther. But I will probably add more RAM to it like suggested.

[Rick Friele]

How can I tell whether it is a Rev. A model or not?

[Rick Friele]

Nevermind, found out it's a rev. a

[blue&whiteman]

I already own Jaguar and Panther. But I will probably add more RAM to it like suggested.


ram is cheap enough for those imacs. always a good idea to upgrade ram.
http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgrades.cfm?model=61&type=Memory&TI=%23TimeFormat%28Now%28%29%2C+&shoupgrds=Show+Upgrades

[mklos]

Thinking of putting either Jaguar or Panther on a free Bondi Blue iMac I got. Thinking Jaguar will really bog it down, but what about Panther? It has a 233Mhz G3 with 192MB RAM. Anyone have any experience with this? Right now it has OS 9.2.2 on it, but I like OS X. I don't want to put it on there if it is going to be so slow that it is unusable. It's just going to be for e-mail and surfing the internet anyway since it's an extra computer.

I'm running Panther on my mom's 233 MHz Bondi Blue iMac and it runs great! It has 256 MB RAM in it with an upgraded 6 GB Hard Drive. Panther runs much better on it than Jaguar did. I would go for it. You may just want to up the RAM a little to at least 256 MB.