10.4 on a g3 iBook?

[jsado13]

I recently aquired a 500 mhz g3 iBook. I am currently running 10.2.. I own 10.2,10.3 and 10.4. I would love to upgrade to 10.3 but the disc has a scratch on it and wont install properly. Any suggestions for that????

Also, I would love to run 10.4 but the iBook has no DVD drive. I've read some stories about installing it from another computer (such as my iMac), but I'm a little skeptic. How will the performance be? And will the install go smoothly and continue to run smoothly? What about potential hardware issues?

I have to upgrade from 10.2 because some of the apps we need have to run in 10.3 or higher. Help me out here folks!!! What should I do???

 

[mkrishnan]

Is this a firewire iBook? If it's a 500MHz, I'm guessing not? You can still install Tiger, but you will need some tricks.

After that, the two biggest things about Tiger will be available hard drive space (Spotlight particularly increases the overhead) and memory.

If you disable Dashboard (e.g. the Disable Dashboard utility), consider disabling Spotlight, and manage hard drive space vigilantly (keep ~20% or more free if at all possible), Tiger will probably be faster and more stable than using Jag or Panther. Plus there's tons of other benefits to enjoy.

 

[Silentwave]

It has firewire, the 500MHz iBooks all had FW400.

 

[alaibubu]

I have 10.4 on my 600mhz ibook with less than 500mb ram (can't remember exactly). For normal use i.e. word processing and internet, it is fine. The system's slow but very stable. I think it is more stable than my current c2d iMac.

 

[worriedmac]

I used to have a G3 Ibook and the peak performance comes with using 10.3 updated. You need a G4 to run 10.4. If the disc you mention doesn't have a deep scratch, I would recommend taking the scratch out and using 10.3. I use Brasso or Silvo wadding, a light abrasive chemical and its wadding for cleaning metal. You rub the area with the scratch for a while then wipe the residue, keep doing this until the scratch is small or no more. This works on iPods as well. 10.3 is worth it, it will run a lot faster than 10.4.

 

[jsado13]

Yeah it has firewire. I do want to run 10.3 on it. When I try to install it, I get a message saying something like "the disc is scratched, do you want to try anyway?" Maybe I should just try and let it complete the install and see what happens. The scratch is small, sqiggly and maybe a total of 1/2" long. Im not sure how deep it is though.

I guess this is payback or karma for letting someone borrow it. Never again!

 

[jsado13]

This is a Christmas present for my girlfriend and I'd like to have it 100% ready for her. So, anybody with additional insight to my problem, it will be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Macmadant]

my granddad is considering buying one for £195, it's a 800 mhz one with 256 Ram and a 30 gig HD 32 Mb VRAM, would he notice a difference from his slot loading iMac 400 Mhz, 384 MB of ram, 8 MB VRAM, when running tiger, (sorry to hi-jack the thread)

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

my granddad is considering buying one for £195, it's a 800 mhz one with 256 Ram and a 30 gig HD 32 Mb VRAM, would he notice a difference from his slot loading iMac 400 Mhz, 384 MB of ram, 8 MB VRAM, when running tiger, (sorry to hi-jack the thread)

Well, with 2x cpu speed and 4x the vram, yea there would be a noticiable difference between those machines. However, to run Tiger at anything near usefull speed, he will HAVE to add more ram ASAP......512 is the bare minimum, the more the better

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

Yeah it has firewire. I do want to run 10.3 on it. When I try to install it, I get a message saying something like "the disc is scratched, do you want to try anyway?" Maybe I should just try and let it complete the install and see what happens. The scratch is small, sqiggly and maybe a total of 1/2" long. Im not sure how deep it is though.

I guess this is payback or karma for letting someone borrow it. Never again!

If you have another FW Mac, you can use Target disk mode to install Tiger onto that iBook. Of course you will also need a 6pin-to-6pin FW cable. TDM will mount the ibook's HD onto the desktop of your other mac, and you can select it as the installation destination. Check the OS X help menu for complete instructions........

And yes, I know this works because I did it recently with a QS & PB...... notta problemo

 

[jsado13]

OK thanks! I'll use my g4 imac to target disk mode on it. I guess I'll try and run 10.4 on it. Hopefully the performance doesnt suffer. Maybe I should upgrade the ram to 512? Would that make a HUGE difference? I really don't want this to run sluggish.

 

[mkrishnan]

OK thanks! I'll use my g4 imac to target disk mode on it. I guess I'll try and run 10.4 on it. Hopefully the performance doesnt suffer. Maybe I should upgrade the ram to 512? Would that make a HUGE difference? I really don't want this to run sluggish.

Wait, did you ever say how much RAM it has now? I think the practicality is that, when you run Tiger with that little RAM, at 256, 384, or 512, there are going to be substantial page-outs. What that means is that your notebook is going to be able to almost constantly make use of the extra RAM (unlike, say, my iMac G5 which has 1.5 gigs and does not page out frequently -- if I add RAM to it, it will only be valuable under the highest RAM load circumstances of my usage profile... but if I were someone who used more heavy-duty things, I might be paging out much more.... but at 512MB or less, you're going to have page-outs in any every-day usage profile).

I'd go back again to what I recommended in my first reply... I think you should get the RAM; I think you should still disable dashboard and maybe Spotlight. And you should be very careful to make sure that your install leaves substantial (>20% of total capacity) free space on the HD.

 

[sturigdson]

I'll agree with mkrisnan here:

max out your ram-seriously. Just do it. Disable dashboard and spotlight if they are inessential.

Also, target disk mode works.

I had the same ibook G3 500 mhz and had it up to date. Some things in the system felt like they actually got faster with each upgrade- I think you'll find 10.4 to be very satisfying. I had my ram maxed out. I'd highly recommend that. For basic uses, such as word processing and internet surfing, it'll be more than servicable. I even did some basic photoshop work without difficulty.

It's not the zippiest machine in the world, but I've been very sad not to have it around. [I had a HD failure and ended up upgrading to a MBP. The little guy is still sitting on my desk awaiting a revival.]

Have fun with it- I loved my machine.

 

[mkrishnan]

I had the same ibook G3 500 mhz and had it up to date. Some things in the system felt like they actually got faster with each upgrade- I think you'll find 10.4 to be very satisfying.

This is very true. Given that hard disk space and RAM are not limiting factors, benchmarks clearly showed that Tiger handled basic system functions faster than Panther, which in turn was faster than Jaguar. It's really the confound of those two issues (and a couple of the included apps...particularly Mail.app... did actually seem to get bogged down) that makes it seem like a Mac gets slower when it gets the OS upgraded.

 

[jsado13]

OK, feeling a bit confused now. Should I install Tiger or Panther on it? Here are the rundown of specs. 500 mhz, 256 ram, 15 gb HD. I will be upgrading the RAM for her soon. I just have to do a little research and see how many slots are available and what I can stick in there. The HD, I don't plan on changing.

Thanks for everyones help here!

 

[mkrishnan]

If you have both readily available, I would run Tiger, google for the tools to disable spotlight and dashboard, and see how Tiger works. I personally don't like Monolingual and other tools that strip out parts of the OS, but you can also do things like delete printer drivers and so on to minimize the OS footprint.

 

[4JNA]

works well

posting this from a g3/500 with 320mb ram, running 10.4.8, and using airport. use this as the 'couch computer' and it works really well. didn't bother removing anything as i installed a 40gb hard drive, and just removed all the widgets from dashboard to minimize memory usage. usually running only firefox, but sometimes itunes also, and find it to be very usable. apps take a few bounces to launch, but run fine after. best of luck.