Help with installing Leopard on iMac G4 800MHz 10.4.11

Ohai,

A few months ago, I bought a new iMac 3.06 Intel etc.
Now, my poor little G4 was just standing there. After a lot of fumbling around, restores, it finally has regained life, running Tiger etc.
Now, I wanted to install Leopard, see for myself what I would prefer, and it would allow to tether wireless internet connection through my iPhone to the G4. But I need Leopard for that, Tiger is too old.
So, after Googling, I found out that if I put my Intel into Target Disk mode, I could use it as external DVD reader, seeing my G4's reader is dead as dead can be.
So I messed around etc, tried to use LeopardAssis, but no luck. I came accross this article here: http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/unsupported.html
Somewhere, under the header "Using a Supported Mac" there were a few explanations about how to do this with another mac at your disposition. It's something to do with external Harddrives and Firewires and partitions, but I didn't understand them, to be honest. I do have external Firewire drives aswell though.
Could anyone clear the instructions up for me, or post an alternative way? I am aware of the "Open Firmware tricking techniques" and modifying the OSInstall.mpkg packages etc, but the downloads were down, and I am not thàt at ease with Terminal etc.

Cheers

Thanks

max¥¥ said:

if you want i can mod the osinstall.mpkg for you later tonight

Click to expand...

Yes please, thanks, thatd be nice. Ill look up again how to work that. Would you by any chance know what the part of the article I mentioned was all about?

Re:

max¥¥ said:

i might not get to do it for a few days

Click to expand...

Ok, that's cool, thanks for the effort. Would anyone else know how the other methods would work?

Cheers

zen.state said:

Best thing to do as you will need an optical drive at some point anyway is just buy a new dvd drive for 20-30 bucks and install it yourself. I strongly recommend a Pioneer or LG as both work 100% with the built-in drivers.

Here is a guide on how to take the imac apart and replace/upgrade ram, hard drive and dvd drive: http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/imac_g4/imacg4_takeapart.html

Once you do that follow this guide on how to install 10.5 on unsupported macs: http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/unsupported.html

Since your 800MHz is so close to the 867 minimum and it seems like you won't be doing much on it the performance will be decent.

Click to expand...

Great, could you explain to me the part in that guide under the header "Using a Supported Mac"? It was too cryptical for me.

Cheers

666sheep said:

Since 10.4 ANY optical drive works with default OS X drivers.
OP, just grab one which reads DL discs (Leopard is on DL). You will also need BOX (retail) copy of 10.5 install DVD. Dedicated one (gray disks) will not work, it's all Intel only and contains no PPC code.

To fake out Leo installer, use OF method (i copied it for you from: http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/openfirmware.html):

1. Reboot your Mac and hold down the Cmd-Opt-O-F keys until you get a white screen with black text. This is the Open Firmware prompt.

2. Insert the Mac OS X Leopard Install DVD.

3. Type the following lines exactly as shown below into the Open Firmware prompt. Be mindful of capitalization, spaces, zeros, etc. If the command is properly typed and understood, Open Firmware will display "ok" at the end of each line after you hit "return". What these lines do is set the CPU speed reported by Open Firmware to OS X as an 867 MHz G4 processor system. They then continue the boot from the DVD drive.

For single CPUs, use the following three lines:

dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0
d# 867000000 encode-int " clock-frequency" property
boot cd:,\\:tbxi


4. Continue the install normally.

5. This CPU setting is only in effect until the Mac reboots. Once OS X Leopard is installed and your Mac has rebooted, the proper CPU speed should once again be displayed when you select About This Mac under the Apple menu.

That's all you need to do.

Click to expand...

Crap, whar do I get non-gray CDs from. Damn, thatll be another search for the BOX version I guess. Don't think that's worth it, I'm not willing to invest money in the upgrade. Then leave it like that, or try with the modded OSInstall.mpkg then. Thanks for all the help though!

max¥¥ said:

this is the modded osinstall.mpkg, it should run on g4's from 502mhz and up, so it should work with you 800mhz imac, do you know how to put it into the disc image (remember to unzip he file first)

Click to expand...

Ok, thanks a bunch! Ill look up the tutorial on working with the modified OSInstall, it was somewhere here I think, Ill find it.
Shall I post back here if it works(or not)?

Cheers

Win.

max¥¥ said:

post back here if it works(or not)

Click to expand...

YARRR, IT WORKS!

Epic win here, thanks to max¥¥, thank you sooo much. I just copied to external, replaced the package, and BOOM!
By the way, would you know why for this installing, I didn't need the second Leopard CD?

Cheers anyways, ITS ALIVE

666sheep said:

You probably not checked any additional software to install (iLife etc).

BTW, if it works with your gray Intel dedicated disks, it means that there is full install for both architectures (PPC and Intel). So, it's my bad. I've always thought that dedicated install disks contains only specific architecture OS version.
Good to know for the future

Click to expand...

Thats cool
I indeed do not seem to have iLife installed, oh noes. Oh well, I'll take care of that later, atm I'm busy doing updates etc etc.
Thanks for the help though