Essential PPC Apps?

Freezekitty said:

So I found a lamp style imac G4 on the ground near our appt complex dumpster. The HDD was dead but luckily I had a spare one lying around. I checked out a youtube vid on how to take the machine apart and replace the HDD. I installed leopard on it (17 inch screen, 1.0ghz, 1.25gb ram, has a wireless card, cd/dvd drive combo).

I am sure there are limitations on its web surfing capabilities. However what are some essential applications that I should use it for? I already own a gaming PC and a macbook pro which I love but this imac is pretty cool. Anything that I should download/uses for it? Not interested in selling it.

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Congratulations on the great find! Have you looked at the F.A.Q. For PowerPC Mac's thread? There are a lot of great things and apps in the first few posts of the thread.

Good place to look here

http://ppcarchive.dyniform.net/essentials.html

tenfourfox is an essential piece of software if you want to surf the web with your ppc computer.

Whenever I pick up a new PowerPC Mac I always go through the same ritual:

1. Run Software update, getting everything as up to date as possible.

2. Disable Spotlight by entering the following command in Terminal:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Spotlight.plist

3. Disable Dashboard by entering the following commands in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
killall Dock

4. Install Monolingual & remove unneeded languages & Intel code.

5. Install MenuMeters to keep track on CPU & RAM usage.

6. Install Temperature Monitor to keep an eye on temps.

7. Install G4FanControl (if it's a PowerBook/iBook). I can't link it as it's a paid application, but this doesn't apply to your iMac anyway.

8. Install Leopard WebKit & TenFourFox (I alternate between the two).

9. Install both MacTubes and YouView.

10. Install VLC Media Player.

11. Install Appleworks 6, iWork '09 and MS Office 2008.

And bam! Your iMac is ready to take on the world

Why disable Spotlight? I understand it slows things down while indexing, but once it's done, doesn't the computer go back to normal speeds?

Goftrey said:

Whenever I pick up a new PowerPC Mac I always go through the same ritual:

1. Run Software update, getting everything as up to date as possible.

2. Disable Spotlight by entering the following command in Terminal:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Spotlight.plist

3. Disable Dashboard by entering the following commands in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
killall Dock

4. Install Monolingual & remove unneeded languages & Intel code.

5. Install MenuMeters to keep track on CPU & RAM usage.

6. Install Temperature Monitor to keep an eye on temps.

7. Install G4FanControl (if it's a PowerBook/iBook). I can't link it as it's a paid application, but this doesn't apply to your iMac anyway.

8. Install Leopard WebKit & TenFourFox (I alternate between the two).

9. Install both MacTubes and YouView.

10. Install VLC Media Player.

11. Install Appleworks 6, iWork '09 and MS Office 2008.

And bam! Your iMac is ready to take on the world

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In step 5, if you install iStat Menus you can eliminate Step 6.

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SandboxGeneral said:

Why disable Spotlight? I understand it slows things down while indexing, but once it's done, doesn't the computer go back to normal speeds?

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Yes, however, the mds and the mdworker processes remain running in the background. They eat up system ram and resources that can otherwise be allocated elsewhere to make the machine run faster.

eyoungren said:

Yes, however, the mds and the mdworker processes remain running in the background. They eat up system ram and resources that can otherwise be allocated elsewhere to make the machine run faster.

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Okay, thanks. I'll have to try that on my G5 and see if I notice any difference in performance.

eyoungren said:

In step 5, if you install iStat Menus you can eliminate Step 6.

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Touche! However I've never been a huge fan of iStat. Too many numbers I like the simplicity of MenuMeters.

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eyoungren said:

Yes, however, the mds and the mdworker processes remain running in the background. They eat up system ram and resources that can otherwise be allocated elsewhere to make the machine run faster.

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Bang on.

SandboxGeneral said:

Okay, thanks. I'll have to try that on my G5 and see if I notice any difference in performance.

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You may or may not notice much on a G5. The G5s tend to just power through everything and you don't know it.

But on say, a TiBook 400 (like I used to have) running Leopard with 1GB of ram, this will make a difference.

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Goftrey said:

Touche! However I've never been a huge fan of iStat. Too many numbers I like the simplicity of MenuMeters.

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LOL, and that's why I dislike it. It doesn't provide me enough information.

That said, you can customize it. Each section lets you pull out or put in what you want there and you can change the colors and such to make it the way you want.

I usually rip out all the labels and leave just the indicators and values.

What is the purpose of installing AppleWorks? I can understand if you have a bunch of older files with it but wouldn't it complicate compatibility with newer machines?

davidg4781 said:

What is the purpose of installing AppleWorks? I can understand if you have a bunch of older files with it but wouldn't it complicate compatibility with newer machines?

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If this machine is used on its own without needing compatibility with other editors then AppleWorks is an affordable, extremely fast, and a very capable editor.

Freezekitty said:

awesome, thanks for the great suggestions. I could always downgrade to 10.4. Is it worth it? Would I see a performance boost? Id much rather stay on leopard tho.

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If you follow some of the tricks given in this thread and in eyoungren, Intell, and I's guide on speeding up Leopard here, then the difference won't be too substantial.

Freezekitty said:

awesome, thanks for the great suggestions. I could always downgrade to 10.4. Is it worth it? Would I see a performance boost? Id much rather stay on leopard tho.

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The Tiger fans in these parts will tell you that you will. But there are things you can do to speed Leopard up. Altemose has already mentioned a few.

Downgrading has it's own challanges of course, so ultimately it's up to you, but as a Leopard devotee I'd suggest staying on Leopard.

However, if speed is your thing and you don't need to use too many modern (or as modern as you can get) apps Tiger does have some attraction.

eyoungren said:

The Tiger fans in these parts will tell you that you will. But there are things you can do to speed Leopard up. Altemose has already mentioned a few.

Downgrading has it's own challanges of course, so ultimately it's up to you, but as a Leopard devotee I'd suggest staying on Leopard.

However, if speed is your thing and you don't need to use too many modern (or as modern as you can get) apps Tiger does have some attraction.

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To add on your points, Tiger has poor networking compared to Leopard. I never really liked networking with Macs on Tiger since there is just too many problems with items not showing in the Finder, double showing, etc. As a Leopard advocate myself (not a devotee as I still have a iBook G3 that runs Tiger), I highly recommend it for Time Machine, better Dock and Mail, as well as newer iTunes support.

Freezekitty said:

well thanks for the extra info!!! <3 so far im at step 4 using monolingual and omg is it takign forever haha hopefully ill see a nice performance jump!

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It is a good way to gain back some hard drive space. I am not sure about the performance gains though...

When you reassembled the machine you did clean off the old, and reapplied new, heatsink compound - correct?

Altemose said:

If this machine is used on its own without needing compatibility with other editors then AppleWorks is an affordable, extremely fast, and a very capable editor.

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Exactly. I put it on the list as it's still a capable office suite, and it's free - which can't be said about iWork or MS Office. Of course, OpenOffice is another option but I've never got along with it.

Freezekitty said:

I am pretty happy with the imac, I just wish I had more use for it since I already have a pretty nice gaming rig and a rmbp 13 lt 13

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That's kind of how I feel with my PowerMac G5. It's cool and I like having it, but I really don't have a use for it. But I don't want to get rid of it either.

Freezekitty said:

So I found a lamp style imac G4 on the ground near our appt complex dumpster. The HDD was dead but luckily I had a spare one lying around. I checked out a youtube vid on how to take the machine apart and replace the HDD. I installed leopard on it (17 inch screen, 1.0ghz, 1.25gb ram, has a wireless card, cd/dvd drive combo).

I am sure there are limitations on its web surfing capabilities. However what are some essential applications that I should use it for? I already own a gaming PC and a macbook pro which I love but this imac is pretty cool. Anything that I should download/uses for it? Not interested in selling it.

Click to expand...

Nice find! For starters, a good web browser is key. If you like Safari, Safari 4 is the latest that runs nicely on an older machine. You have Leopard, so make sure software updates don't bring you to Safari 5! Safari 5 had issues, I am guessing on the older Macs. The two best PowerPC browsers are Camino and TenFourFox. TenFourFox chews RAM but is still updated and is well-featured. Camino is light-weight and great, but they discontinued it a little while ago. It's not updated to the newest web standards put out by Google. (I hate Google for updating constantly) You can watch YouTube, etc., but some features will not work. There is adblock for TenFourFox, since it's a Firefox-based browser that can use Firefox add-ons, but not for Camino. Camino does have built-in web ad blocking though. (you need to enable it in the prefs) When downloading TenFourFox, make sure you download the PPC G4 7450 version. (it will show all there versions on their site) There are also unofficial G4-compiled builds of Camino. So those are the three browsers I would use. Make sure you get adblock... take not that Safari 4 doesn't have extensions, so getting adblock on it will only work with hacks I don't know about. You have a good amount of RAM, so it using more RAM than Safari is no big deal. For fast browsing, Safari and Camino. For browsing that requires everything to be up to date? TenFourFox. Some things just won't work on the older browsers. Ex. I tried posting pictures on MacRumors while using Safari 4, and it failed at uploading them. The next thing is YouView, which is a stand-alone application that allows you to browse for and watch YouTube videos. It does NOT use Flash, so it's fast. It all then comes down to how fast your computer is. I bet your G4 can watch them in full screen without lag. You can set the videos from 240p to 4k. You used to even be able to log into your YT account and post commends, but that is no more, due to stupid Google+. It's still great for watching YouTube on an old computer that is slow on the actual site. Search for YouView online by typing in "YouView Mr. Gecko's Media". There are other unrelated things called 'YouView'. I can't think of any others off the top of my head, but there are some cool games that used to come with Macs, such as Marble Blast Gold and Nanosaur II. Armagetron Advanced is cool too! Sorry if this was a jumbled-sounding post. Good luck with your G4. P.S. Docker, a dock editing application, is great. It lets you change the color of the dock, the separators, and the indicators.

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Freezekitty said:

awesome, thanks for the great suggestions. I could always downgrade to 10.4. Is it worth it? Would I see a performance boost? Id much rather stay on leopard tho.

Click to expand...

Tiger is very fast but just nowhere as up-to-date as Leopard. It is lightweight though and is one of Apple's most stable operating systems. I just wish it had stuff like Quicklook, which was introduced in Leopard. As a secondary computer, or one that won't be used for really new things, Tiger is fine, especially if you want more speed in the machine. Leopard isn't so necessary if you aren't using this iMac day-to-day.