Go Retro! Easy OS X 10.5 Install for iMac G4 or other PowerPC

Using this method right now. So far so good...

Ran into a problem.

After typing in the boot commands in open firmware, I get to the boot command. In devalias, my USB1 shows up as /pci@f2000000/@19.
My Leopard USB is on my disk 1, but no tag for the extra 3 (dsk1s3 or something like that) shows up (my drive is disk1s3). After typing boot usb1/disk:3,\\:txbi and boot usb1\\:txbi then pressing enter, a few lines of code come up that say "loading ____" and then my Mac gets stuck on the do not enter: (/) screen. To my knowledge, that means unsupported architecture. So what did I do wrong? My Leopard burned to the USB for seven hours and the disk image wasn't corrupted. And for reference I have an iMac G4 with a 700 MHz processor at 768 MB RAM.

If you cant boot that way just type in multi-boot, and select your usb disk, them proceed the install, it takes up to an hour depending on your system, move the mouse time to time to refresh the progress. Good luck.

borrow friend's mac (w/ above leopard req)

swap HDD

install os leopard (legit, crack etc)

swap HDD back


might want to add additional RAM tho :/

Here is something very useful (look for the post by "rdemby"):

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=89640

Good luck

Removed.

icecoldusa said:

If you cant boot that way just type in multi-boot, and select your usb disk, them proceed the install, it takes up to an hour depending on your system, move the mouse time to time to refresh the progress. Good luck.

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Thanks for your reply! I don't have the drive anymore, but I'm sure I can borrow it again. And where should I type multi-boot, where I usually type in "boot usb1/disk:3,\\:txbi"? Still, thanks for your reply!

EDIT: Nevermind, I read anonymouse99's post.
EDIT 2: Working FLAWLESSLY! Thanks to both of you. Will post pics when done with install.
EDIT 3: w00t! Updated to 10.5.8 and syncing my iPod to it. Woohoo!

Here they are...

Once again, it works flawlessly!

rmlphoto said:

Thanks for the positive responses I was wondering what kind of community this was going to be after that warm welcome I got. I'm glad to help. I spent more time than you could imagine just trying to figure out how to boot from USB in open firmware and everywhere that said how to do it was unclear and had a bunch of obviously unnecessary steps. This method worked great and was a huge sigh of relief and hopefully helps anyone else in the same situation.

Oh and I can't wait to get that new iPad. T

This also inspired me to spend more time learning about Terminal

Good luck to anyone else and thanks for the nice welcome you guys

By the way, This was one of the way more difficult alternativeshttps://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&goto=lastpost&threadid=371302

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i know this is a post that hasnt seen the light of day for a year but i just wanted to add that the reaction you got here was not that bad if you posted this vary helpful info on macosx.com you would of been banned for implying piracy by stating "i don't care how you get it" and by saying you downloaded Leopard.

cutting to the chase here its just a fact 80% of all software used is pirated. on a simluar note im surprised you could find a Leopard iso i havent been able to find a OS X iso since 10.2. Yes piracy is not legal is frowned upon and not encuraged but you do what you have to do. 99% of people have pirated SOMETHING in their life a song a movie or a piece of software.

LeoTheLion89 said:

i know this is a post that hasnt seen the light of day for a year but i just wanted to add that the reaction you got here was not that bad if you posted this vary helpful info on macosx.com you would of been banned for implying piracy by stating "i don't care how you get it" and by saying you downloaded Leopard.

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Leo, you should also mention that 'macosx.com' didn't appreciate all the profanities that you and your twin used to express yourselves while trying, however feebly to defend yourself in regards to software piracy.

jbarley said:

Leo, you should also mention that 'macosx.com' didn't appreciate all the profanities that you and your twin used to express yourselves while trying, however feebly to defend yourself in regards to software piracy.

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i didnt mention profanity because that is irrelivent to this thread. Plus atleast people on here are helpful macosx.com is more argumentive than anything else

And neither talk of piracy nor profanity should worth a ban..

There is no need to post links but I think we all know where and how..

Bu then again I'm an unrepentant Pirate and use profanity daily.

jbarley said:

Leo, you should also mention that 'macosx.com' didn't appreciate all the profanities that you and your twin used to express yourselves while trying, however feebly to defend yourself in regards to software piracy.

Click to expand...

there was no me and a twin just me all four times. LeoTheLion89,ComputerDude, NuMackUsr and currently MacOSX1058 i bypassed my IP Address ban to make my 2 most recent usernames but im not really on there anymore finding out after a few posts on here MacRumors is much more friendlyer and more willing to help than MacOSX.com which is quick to put you on the banwagon just for asking a question. Point being MacRumors dont get on my ass for not using proper puncuation or spelling they dont get on me about anything at all thats what i like about MacRumors i ask a question i get a answer i dont have people arguing with me and avoid the questions i ask alltogether and YOU wonder y i used all the profanity the less-than-helpful users of Macosx.com pissed me off and i ONLY use profanity when i am pissed off plus they got on me for saying "hell" or "damn" which technically isnt even profanity its all about how you USE the words not the words themselves.

Finally!

Thanks everyone. I am a retuning Mac lover, having been given a G4 PowerMac from my brother in a clean out. I am learning OS X as I used to have a farm of beige PPC's G3 and below and a snow iMac purchased new mostly running OS 9 or 8.6 back in the day. This has been a bit of a challenge though, the G4 was running Panther rather unhappily and realised fairly quickly how behind i was. The spec is not bad dual 500Mhz with 1Gb of RAM and 2 x 128Gb HD's, it was quick enough but bombing out of apps regularly. I tried software update which I also realised has been disabled. After doing some googling I discovered that 10.5 Leopard was the latest supported version for the PPC and tracked a copy down from ebay. This is where my fun begins as I shortly realised that the DVD drive was shot and didnt want to play ball at all. I downloaded transmac and loaded an image of the DVD to an 8Gb USB but could not get it to boot properly. My brother suggested restoring the image to the second HD which did get me a step further but then it was this post suggesting to change the CPU speed which got me all the way. So several late nights and multiple bottles of wine the installer is just about finshed!!

Cool info!

So let me ask you how is performance?

I am asking that 'cause I'm in the same situation, with the same specs :O

Hello thanks for the post, but I've tried to do this but it doesn't boot, it says my was disk2s3 and I tried to do boot usb2/disk:3,\\:tbxi let me know if anything is wrong here thank you, I also tried with the other usb on the list such as usb1, usb0. And nothing happens, next to the usb0 it has /pci@f200..../@18 for usb1 has same as before but @19 no disk 1 after it or anything else, usb2 has /pci@f2000..../usb@1a I have an imac g4 1.25ghz and 1Gb of ram, please any tips