I found a good deal on an old 1.2 ghz ibook (I am going to have to replace the hard drive and add more ram, but whatever). I don't particularly want to spend a ton on software, but if there is anything completely awesome I will get it. Keep in mind that it isn't the fastest machine in the world and I don't need office type stuff (I am going to go with the OpenOffice for mac).
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Buying an iBook G4, what software?
- Thread starter NovemberMike
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Quake 3 and Halo run well on my iBook G3 900MHz, so they should run very nice on your G4.
Make sure to max the RAM. You will need it all.
I recommend Tiger, as Leopard may be a little slow, but you can still go for it.
Skype is good on the iBooks for video and voice chatting.
Thats about all I have to add. Good luck with the new iBook!
Make sure to max the RAM. You will need it all.
I recommend Tiger, as Leopard may be a little slow, but you can still go for it.
Skype is good on the iBooks for video and voice chatting.
Thats about all I have to add. Good luck with the new iBook!
if u max out the ram leopard should run great i run it with 768mb of ram and runs perfect with lots of apps open i had like 10 or more open photoshop flash big programs etc. on my emac and still tugged through with screen sharing too (app with leopard acess my macbook screen off my eMac) and yea take leopard if u put 1.5gb of ram in
Exactly. I mean sure, the new Dock looks nice, and the Stacks are cool, but you don't need the dock, and the stacks can be used with some alternatives in Tiger, like the list mode.
It'll give you a nicer speed, and it will also work great. Unless you need something thats Leopard only, then go with Leopard and sacrifice having the slightly slower performance. I'm using Leopard here, and Tiger on the iBook, and it's fine for me.
Besides, that iBook can't do too much power work. It's best things to do are web surfing, iChat, iTunes, and some smaller tasks. Don't expect to run PS, DW, or even imovie or iDVD on that. Games won't run well either, unless they are on low, or they are older games, like Halo or Quake 3.
Hope this helps, and good luck!
the one leopard feature you might miss is remote desktop. if it is your only mac then i agree, tiger is fine.
replacing the hard drive is a beach though. have fun with that.
replacing the hard drive is a beach though. have fun with that.
For the record, I already have a desktop and a laptop that are more than powerful enough for anything I need to do. This is more of a secondary machine, something to play around with and a chance to get acquainted with Macs.
I just received it and turned it on, and I am quite surprised at how well it runs for a machine with 256 MB of ram. I just ordered another gig of RAM and a 250gig hard drive, so it should speed up considerably. I also decided that I am going to go with Leopard, since one of the major points of this is learning the OS and Leopard is the new standard. I'm not too worried about getting to the HDD though; it doesn't require any soldering, which makes it considerably easier than most of the things I am used to.
I just received it and turned it on, and I am quite surprised at how well it runs for a machine with 256 MB of ram. I just ordered another gig of RAM and a 250gig hard drive, so it should speed up considerably. I also decided that I am going to go with Leopard, since one of the major points of this is learning the OS and Leopard is the new standard. I'm not too worried about getting to the HDD though; it doesn't require any soldering, which makes it considerably easier than most of the things I am used to.
Yeah, if it's to learn the Mac OS X UI, then for sure use Leopard. You'll need to.
Good Luck!
I think most people here would recommend firefox, or some other alternative browser. You Might also want to get an older version of the iLife Suite (i recommend iLife 05) and make sure you keep a good backup.
it might if you aren't careful!
just kidding, but if you have not seen the inside of a ibook before and are thinking it's like replacing a drive on a dell/compaq/hp/etc, you might be in for a bit of a shock.
since you didn't mention 12" or 14", i guess and you can see the take apart guide for a 12" HERE and i would really recommend printing out the screw guide. good use of 3 sheets of paper! if you have the 14", then back out to the homepage and start over, as they are different. best of luck.
Stick to Tiger
Gotta agree with the guys advising that you stick to Tiger. Leopard seems geared to Intel Macs and just barely tolerable with PPC Macs. After installing Leopard on my 12"PB, I noticed distinctly greater sluggishness--and more frequent beachballs--when running more than a few apps.
After getting my MacBook and retiring my PB to radio player and backup, will definitely put Tiger back on it.
Gotta agree with the guys advising that you stick to Tiger. Leopard seems geared to Intel Macs and just barely tolerable with PPC Macs. After installing Leopard on my 12"PB, I noticed distinctly greater sluggishness--and more frequent beachballs--when running more than a few apps.
After getting my MacBook
and retiring my PB to radio player and backup, will definitely put Tiger back on it.I have a 1.33GHz iBook G4 with 1.5GB of RAM and I really don't have any problems running Leopard. It's a little hesitant sometimes, but only when opening a program for the first time since turning on the computer. I'm not sure that would be made any better using Tiger or not.
I bought mine used and it came with Leopard installed and without the original Tiger CDs so I'd have to either get replacement restore disks from Apple (I assume they could get them to me) or just buy a stand-alone Tiger disk on eBay or something.
The only thing I really do differently on the iBook is that I stick to Safari instead of using Firefox 3. FF3 runs great and is fast and doesn't have issues with some sites on my iMac (24" intel), but I just find it performs pretty badly on the iBook for some reason - lots of pauses when using keyboard shortcuts, etc. Safari runs much nicer on the iBook so I stick to using it instead.
One cool, and free, little app that I'll recommend is Evernote. It's out of beta now and is still free (though you can pay $5 to up your storage limit if you'd like). I have the client on my iBook, my iMac, and I access it through the iPhone-specific site on the iPhone (and they're working on a native app for when 2.0 hits). It's great for getting little notes and bits of information accessible from any of my computers. What I find most useful is to use it for receipts. Before I (inevitably) lose a receipt (mainly my gas station receipts) I take a picture of it with the iPhone and then email it directly from the phone to my personal Evernote page and it's suddenly accessible from any of my PCs. That's definitely let me keep track of that stuff better since I won't lose them and have to guesstimate my actual costs in that regard.
I bought mine used and it came with Leopard installed and without the original Tiger CDs so I'd have to either get replacement restore disks from Apple (I assume they could get them to me) or just buy a stand-alone Tiger disk on eBay or something.
The only thing I really do differently on the iBook is that I stick to Safari instead of using Firefox 3. FF3 runs great and is fast and doesn't have issues with some sites on my iMac (24" intel), but I just find it performs pretty badly on the iBook for some reason - lots of pauses when using keyboard shortcuts, etc. Safari runs much nicer on the iBook so I stick to using it instead.
One cool, and free, little app that I'll recommend is Evernote. It's out of beta now and is still free (though you can pay $5 to up your storage limit if you'd like). I have the client on my iBook, my iMac, and I access it through the iPhone-specific site on the iPhone (and they're working on a native app for when 2.0 hits). It's great for getting little notes and bits of information accessible from any of my computers. What I find most useful is to use it for receipts. Before I (inevitably) lose a receipt (mainly my gas station receipts) I take a picture of it with the iPhone and then email it directly from the phone to my personal Evernote page and it's suddenly accessible from any of my PCs. That's definitely let me keep track of that stuff better since I won't lose them and have to guesstimate my actual costs in that regard.