Leopard on Mac Mini G4 PPC

The Leopard installer will force you to format the Mini's hard drive as GUID instead of the needed APM. This will make the drive not bootable on PPC Macs. You'll have to install it onto the Mini, clone the Mini's hard drive to a disc image on your Macbook, reformat the Mini's drive correctly with APM, then clone the Leopard image back onto the Mini's hard drive. It will then boot into Leopard for you.

Install Leopard onto it with the Mini in Target Disc Mode via your Macbook.

Leopard on Mac Mini G4

Leopard should install fine on a PPC as long as its CPU is 867MHz or higher. If the CPU is below 867MHz, you can follow the steps below to trick the firmware into thinking its 867MHz.

1. Insert your Leopard Install DVD.
2. Reboot the computer while holding down command-option-o-f. (This will put you into a terminal like area called Open Firmware.)

3. Enter exactly as shown. (It might be better if you print this out, unless you have another computer to read as you type.)

For single processor.
dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0
d# 867000000 encode-int " clock-frequency" property
boot cd:,\\:tbxi
For dual processors.
dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0
d# 867000000 encode-int " clock-frequency" property
dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@1
d# 867000000 encode-int " clock-frequency" property
boot cd:,\\:tbxi

4. Press return and your computer will boot the install cd. After it boots the cd, install leopard normally.

I have a PowerMac G4 800MHz that I have Leopard on by following these steps, its been running for a few years now with no issues.

Start the Mini in Target Disc Mode and use CarbonCopyCloner to make a disc image of its hard drive. Once that is done, use Disc Utility to reformat the Mini's hard drive with AMP. Then use CarbonCopyCloner to put the disc image you made earlier back onto the Mini.

kswalker75 said:

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There is no need to do any of that. All Mac Mini's are faster then 1Ghz and all fall within Leopard's requirements.

You could also make a thumb drive into a bootable Leopard disc for future installs since your drive doesn't read the DVD.

Intell, I didn't realize Mac Mini's were all capable of Leopard, never messed with the mini's.

Your Mini's optical drive is likely unable to read any DVD now. This happens to some G4 era DVD drives as they age. One thing you could do it put your Macbook in Target Disc Mode with the Leopard disc in it and boot up from the Leopard disc on the Mini and install it that way. It'd leave out the having to make an image bit.

kswalker75, it's understandable that you may not have known that. The PPC Mini seems to be mostly forgotten to most people.

If you are installing onto the G4 via Target FW mode, then the G4 will function to all intents and purposes as an external Firewire drive and nothing more.

The installation via the Intel based Macbook will install an Intel version onto a PPC based Mac Mini. How on earth do you expect this to boot up?


If the optical drive is not working, try following this guide to install Leopard via a usb flash drive if you cannot get hold of an external usb dvd drive.

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20101011105729488

weckart said:

The installation via the Intel based Macbook will install an Intel version onto a PPC based Mac Mini. How on earth do you expect this to boot up?

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All installations of Leopard are Universal. Even the restore discs that came with Leopard machines. The only reason why it won't boot is because the hard drive has the wrong partition type for PPC Macs.

Intell said:

All installations of Leopard are Universal. Even the restore discs that came with Leopard machines. The only reason why it won't boot is because the hard drive has the wrong partition type for PPC Macs.

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While this is true for any application it's not for the kernel itself.

It should work this way:
- Macbook started in Target Disk Mode
- connect Macbook to Mac mini via Firewire
- start Mac mini and press "Alt" key
- choose DVD to start from
- format the HD of the Mac mini with GUID manually
- install Leopard without re-formatting the HD

if this won't work you should enter Open Firmware and enter something like this:
setenv auto-boot? true
setenv boot-device hd:
reset-all

mayuka said:

While this is true for any application it's not for the kernel itself.

It should work this way:
- Macbook started in Target Disk Mode
- connect Macbook to Mac mini via Firewire
- start Mac mini and press "Alt" key
- choose DVD to start from
- format the HD of the Mac mini with GUID manually
- install Leopard without re-formatting the HD

if this won't work you should enter Open Firmware and enter something like this:
setenv auto-boot? true
setenv boot-device hd:
reset-all

Click to expand...

Even the Leopard kernel on Leopard restore discs is a Universal binary and can be used to startup and installed onto a PPC Mac. I've used Intell Macs' Leopard restore discs to install Leopard onto a PPC Mac before.

Formatted the Mini's internal drive manually with GUID won't be allowed by the Leopard installer because it'll detect it's on a PPC Mac that requires an APM partition type. If you did manage to get past this check, it wouldn't boot because it's the wrong type. While a PPC Mac cannot boot from a GUID drive, an Intell Mac can and will boot from an APM drive. It just won't be very fast.

Intell said:

Even the Leopard kernel on Leopard restore discs is a Universal binary and can be used to startup and installed onto a PPC Mac. I've used Intell Macs' Leopard restore discs to install Leopard onto a PPC Mac before.

Click to expand...

That's because the bootloader chooses the appropriate architecture.

The bootloader doesn't choose squat. The system executes the one and only kernel file on a Leopard installation depending on which architecture the system. OpenFirmware or EFI merely point to a bootable system file and then load the kernel. As evident on Intell Macs being able to boot to an APM drive, the partition type doesn't matter, thus the bootloader doesn't matter. What matters is the EFI loading the /System/Library/CoreServives/boot.efi file or OpenFirmware loading the /System/Library/CoreServives/bootX file. From those two files the firmware will then load the kernel with the proper arguments to setup the system base and begin to load other processes.

how I installed Leopard on a G4 1.42Ghz Mac mini

Ok here's how I installed Leopard on a G4 1.42Ghz Mac mini:
A second Mac was used.
I partitioned the drive via my Macbook Pro, selecting APM (1 partition) and Extended (journaled) in Options. I did this by making the new drive for the mini an external drive using Rosewill's SATA or IDE 3-in-one to USB cable converter adapter. Then I installed the new drive to the Mac mini, and booted the mini in Target Disk Mode using the Macbook Pro, inserting the OS install disk into the Mac mini. (The Macbook was already powered on.) When both Macs were on the install disk shows up on the Macbook and I proceeded to install by selecting the Restart button in the installation window. The Macbook restarted and installation began, but when I got to the destination choice for which drive to install to,it said it couldn't install on the mini & to open Disk Utility to change it to GUID partition, which I did. It was then ready to install on the mini.

I'm guessing it took 1.5-2 hours (I left it for awhile). It took a long time. And if you get to the end at OS initiation, don't worry that it installed on the second Mac, even tho it might appear so. Be sure to back up before you do this sort of thing of course. Restart both machines and there ya have it.

I probably could have started from the beginning partitioning the drive already installed in the mini, with the mini in Target Disk Mode... if only the drive was partitioned right in the first place. But I couldn't get the mini to recognize it's drive and therefore it wouldn't do anything. It was a used drive and purchased on ebay. I don't think it matters which Mac the install disk is in, since the mini wouldn't eject disk 1 I simply put disk 2 in the Macbook when the installation asked for it. I highly recommend the Rosewill cable adapter, it lets you get away with just about anything to anything, was only like $20. The Leopard install disk was a system disk set from my white Macbook.

Ahhhh, zoydsta
I was reading through this thread and was wondering why this was not working for you. (AND for anyone else looking through this thread ) mayuka provided you with the best/correct answer, however you did not provide him/her with all the pertinent information. Had this been a RETAIL copy of leopard mayuka's solution would have worked perfectly (I know I have done it lots of times)
But what you did not mention is that you were using the restore disks for your macbook. They are fixed so they only work for the machine that they are included with. And yes you can get them to install, it's just a lot of extra work

I am glad you ended up getting it installed.