Have iBook G3 500 what OS should I use?

os 10.3

for about the 100th time:
I have:
PB G3 500, 384MB RAM, 8MB VRAM. 10GB HD
So I have pretty much the exact same spec as you.
10.3 and 10.4 take up ate same amount of HD, and I am running 10.4.1 absolutely fine. I'd recommend that.

Don't expect too much from H.264, but all the other codecs are fine.

A clean install (of either) is a must. You have nothing to gain from keeping the classic system - but you may want to back up the classic folder you own (and of course all your documents).
I have the luxury of 2 Macs at the moment, and so can back-up clean install on this PB very easily.
10.4.1 Is really good - go for that.
If you need proof of how good it can be, check out the "Top Tiger Tip" in my sig.

P.S. You will find 10.3 and 10.4 faster than OS 9 after a clean install.

Be OS or Windows Millenium Edition would do fine...

dont knock BeOS.. ive got a Be partition on my PowerMac

We have 10.4 on an iBook G3 500 mhz w/256 mb ram and it works great for word processing, watching DVDs, web browsing, and video (just not h.264, like James said). I would also recommend 10.4

consider upgrading your RAM too.....my iBook G3 500 had 384 and performance seemed to improve under OS 10 when I went to 640

I would use 10.3.9 because that's what I had on an iBook very, very. very similar and it worked great.

Macky-Mac said:

consider upgrading your RAM too.....my iBook G3 500 had 384 and performance seemed to improve under OS 10 when I went to 640

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Agree. I had a 900MHZ G3 which was unusable with the stock 128MB. Get as much memory as you can in there - up to the maximum 640 if at all possible.

Chrispy said:

Now ITASOR what are the odds we would have the exact same iBook I have installed 10.3.9 and it works absolutely beautifully What a fine machine it is!

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Glad to hear.

thequicksilver said:

Agree. I had a 900MHZ G3 which was unusable with the stock 128MB. Get as much memory as you can in there - up to the maximum 640 if at all possible.

Click to expand...

I believe that an iBook support also a 1 ghz module of ram, so if you really want to max it, 128 MB + 1 GHZ = enough ram!

I think you mean GB (as in gigabytes, a measure of storage) rather than GHz (measure of processor frequency), but otherwise, yes.

Shove as much RAM in as that baby can take