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Do you use LeopardAssist?

How do you run Leopard on your unsupported G4?

  • LeopardAssist

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Open Firmware

    Votes: 2 22.2%

  • My G4 doesn't officially support Leopard, and I am running Tiger or earlier

    Votes: 2 22.2%

  • My G4 officially supports Leopard

    Votes: 4 44.4%

  • I don't have a G4

    Votes: 1 11.1%
  • Total voters
    9
  • Poll closed .
J

Jordan XP

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 5, 2019
87
6
It lets you run Leopard on unsupported G4s without even touching Open Firmware.
Regular computer users would know how to use LeopardAssist as easy as it is to save a document!

I recommend it for non-power users that want Leopard on an unsupported G4.

Also, it is worth noting that it only upgrades you to Leopard. It does not do a clean install. However, who wants to do a clean install anyway?

Note: If you're a power user, then you should use Open Firmware to unofficially install Leopard.
 
I generally do a TDM install from a PowerBook or other supported computer.

LeoAssist is a useful program, but it also doesn't help you in really tricky situations-like trying to install Leo on a G4 PCI Mac.
 
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Jordan XP said:
Also, it is worth noting that it only upgrades you to Leopard. It does not do a clean install. However, who wants to do a clean install anyway?
Click to expand...

All LeopardAssist does is fake a higher CPU speed to pass the install check. Nothing more.

Where are you getting your information?
 
I just use Target Disk Mode. Back in the day, I only had a DP 500mhz Mystic G4 machine, and for 10.5.0 we had to fake the processor ID with Open Firmware or modify the installer DVD; the latter of which being what I did.

My exchange with Dan from LEM about this very subject, back in 2007- http://lowendmac.com/mail/mb07/1031.html#5

(I was in my late 30s... so young then... :D)
 
Last edited:
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z970mp said:
All LeopardAssist does is fake a higher CPU speed to pass the install check. Nothing more.

Where are you getting your information?
Click to expand...

Yes indeed. Once you load the Leo installer, you have all of the standard options, including upgrade, archive and install, or clean install. You can also access disk utility and wipe/repartition the disk if you want before installing, so you have no option other than a clean install.
 
All you have to do is run LeopardAssist once, get the installer to run, and then you run Leopard normally as with any other Power Mac that natively supported it. Am I missing something?
 
ziggy29 said:
All you have to do is run LeopardAssist once, get the installer to run, and then you run Leopard normally as with any other Power Mac that natively supported it. Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

As long as the computer has AGP graphics(Sawtooth and later, G4-upgraded Pismo and later) you are correct.

Macs with PCI graphics need some extra "black magic" to get Leopard running. The most common ones on which you would do this are the Yikes! G4 and a B&W G3 with a G4 upgrade, but you can stretch this back to the beige G3 and even 8500/9500 if you want. The only one really defeating me is the Lombard G3.
 
bunnspecial said:
As long as the computer has AGP graphics(Sawtooth and later, G4-upgraded Pismo and later) you are correct.

Macs with PCI graphics need some extra "black magic" to get Leopard running. The most common ones on which you would do this are the Yikes! G4 and a B&W G3 with a G4 upgrade, but you can stretch this back to the beige G3 and even 8500/9500 if you want. The only one really defeating me is the Lombard G3.
Click to expand...
Oh, yeah. I remember trying to challenge myself to see if I could load Leopard on my 7600 with a 1 GHz G4 card. I gave up. :)
 
ziggy29 said:
Oh, yeah. I remember trying to challenge myself to see if I could load Leopard on my 7600 with a 1 GHz G4 card. I gave up. :)
Click to expand...

It can be done. Both @LightBulbFun and @Intell have done it on an 8600/9600, which fundamentally isn't that different from a 7600.

Your biggest obstacle is RAM. I managed to piece together enough to run Tiger satisfactorily in my 8600, but found that my mismatched bundle of RAM was extremely unstable with a 1ghz Sonnet G4(it actually WAS stable in Tiger with the 200mhz 604, but also so slow as to be unusable). I finally bought a whole big pile of 128mb modules and maxed both my 8600 and 9600, plus have enough to get most of the way there with my 7350. In any case, that let Tiger run stably. One of my long overdue projects is to get Leopard running on that computer.

As a few suggestions:

1. Forget using the internal HDD-you probably won't find a SCSI drive big enough for Leopard. I suggest a Sonnet or ACARD bootable ATA card, which will let you use any size ATA drive. Something like 80gb is relatively easy to find/inexpensive and more than enough for Leopard. This also lets you use an ATAPI DVD drive.

2. The onboard graphics should theoretically work in Leopard, but your life will be a lot easier if you use a Radeon 7000, or even better a Radeon 9200. Unfortunately, CI cards like the FX 5200 don't work in OWR Macs.

3. The general install process is the same as for something like a B&W G3-basically you need a bunch of platform support kexts from Tiger and the Leopard WWDC preview(the latter was elusive for a while, but I finally found a copy somewhere or another-I actually have it running as-is on a 900mhz iBook G3). You then need to set the permissions correctly.
 
bunnspecial said:
It can be done. Both @LightBulbFun and @Intell have done it on an 8600/9600, which fundamentally isn't that different from a 7600.

Your biggest obstacle is RAM. I managed to piece together enough to run Tiger satisfactorily in my 8600, but found that my mismatched bundle of RAM was extremely unstable with a 1ghz Sonnet G4(it actually WAS stable in Tiger with the 200mhz 604, but also so slow as to be unusable). I finally bought a whole big pile of 128mb modules and maxed both my 8600 and 9600, plus have enough to get most of the way there with my 7350. In any case, that let Tiger run stably. One of my long overdue projects is to get Leopard running on that computer.

As a few suggestions:

1. Forget using the internal HDD-you probably won't find a SCSI drive big enough for Leopard. I suggest a Sonnet or ACARD bootable ATA card, which will let you use any size ATA drive. Something like 80gb is relatively easy to find/inexpensive and more than enough for Leopard. This also lets you use an ATAPI DVD drive.

2. The onboard graphics should theoretically work in Leopard, but your life will be a lot easier if you use a Radeon 7000, or even better a Radeon 9200. Unfortunately, CI cards like the FX 5200 don't work in OWR Macs.

3. The general install process is the same as for something like a B&W G3-basically you need a bunch of platform support kexts from Tiger and the Leopard WWDC preview(the latter was elusive for a while, but I finally found a copy somewhere or another-I actually have it running as-is on a 900mhz iBook G3). You then need to set the permissions correctly.
Click to expand...
I have this machine as prepared as I can be in terms of hardware. It already runs Tiger. I have a PCI IDE card attached to two large IDE drives, one SSD and one HDD. And there is a 20 GB partition sitting empty, just in case I can get it done! The RAM is maxed out -- 8x128MB, all matched.

One of the PCI slots has a Radeon 9200. The third PCI slot has a combination FW/USB 2.0 card.

Tiger runs, well... it runs, not horribly. I have slot envy for a 9600. :)

I don't expect Leopard to run *well* on this machine, but the challenge is to do it at all.
 
ziggy29 said:
Tiger runs, well... it runs, not horribly. I have slot envy for a 9600. :)
Click to expand...


It's a shame that I can't bring myself to stick a G4 in my 9600/200MP.

I agree that the slots can get rather cramped on the 7300/8600 class systems since ideally in OSX you want video, an IDE card, a USB/FW card, and then hopefully a 10/100 ethernet card. At least they do have onboard ethernet, but its nice to have some more room to spread out.
 
I've never used it.

I have used Target Disk Mode to install Leopard onto unsupported G4s before though. Not exactly my forte, because I'd prefer Leopard on a machine that runs it really well, but it works.
 
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It seems there needs to be a TDM option in the poll for better accuracy.

I picked the OFW option, since TDM option isn't present.
 
bunnspecial said:
It can be done. Both @LightBulbFun and @Intell have done it on an 8600/9600, which fundamentally isn't that different from a 7600.

Your biggest obstacle is RAM. I managed to piece together enough to run Tiger satisfactorily in my 8600, but found that my mismatched bundle of RAM was extremely unstable with a 1ghz Sonnet G4(it actually WAS stable in Tiger with the 200mhz 604, but also so slow as to be unusable). I finally bought a whole big pile of 128mb modules and maxed both my 8600 and 9600, plus have enough to get most of the way there with my 7350. In any case, that let Tiger run stably. One of my long overdue projects is to get Leopard running on that computer.

As a few suggestions:

1. Forget using the internal HDD-you probably won't find a SCSI drive big enough for Leopard. I suggest a Sonnet or ACARD bootable ATA card, which will let you use any size ATA drive. Something like 80gb is relatively easy to find/inexpensive and more than enough for Leopard. This also lets you use an ATAPI DVD drive.

2. The onboard graphics should theoretically work in Leopard, but your life will be a lot easier if you use a Radeon 7000, or even better a Radeon 9200. Unfortunately, CI cards like the FX 5200 don't work in OWR Macs.

3. The general install process is the same as for something like a B&W G3-basically you need a bunch of platform support kexts from Tiger and the Leopard WWDC preview(the latter was elusive for a while, but I finally found a copy somewhere or another-I actually have it running as-is on a 900mhz iBook G3). You then need to set the permissions correctly.
Click to expand...

That's the WWDC 2006 preview (9A303), correct? I'm attempting to hunt it down...
 
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ziggy29 said:
Oh, yeah. I remember trying to challenge myself to see if I could load Leopard on my 7600 with a 1 GHz G4 card. I gave up. :)
Click to expand...

did someone mention running OS X on some horribly unsupported hardware?

because thats my middle name! :)

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...os-x-10-5-8-power-macintosh-9600-fun.2144305/

heres a link to a premade Leopard image I put together https://mega.nz/#!ZNJzRR4A!mA1svzvbBzWa7dJwH8XlWUjJ-3xiSBAxzeHlWaKgSP4

its a bit crude and unfinished but it works, just image it to a HDD then in Xpostfacto do "install all" (because there's a couple kexts I forgot to install when I uploaded that image)

then set xpostfacto to boot it and you should boot up no problem :)

(you will also have to reset the user password, as I set it to something that was not my own password so I didn't have to give that out and then promptly forgot what the password was LOL)


id like to do some more work on it all, but I really need to get some more RAM for the 9600, but finding 128MB sticks these days is easier said then done sadly
 
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LightBulbFun said:
heres a link to a premade Leopard image I put together https://mega.nz/#!ZNJzRR4A!mA1svzvbBzWa7dJwH8XlWUjJ-3xiSBAxzeHlWaKgSP4

its a bit crude and unfinished but it works, just image it to a HDD then in Xpostfacto do "install all" (because there's a couple kexts I forgot to install when I uploaded that image)

then set xpostfacto to boot it and you should boot up no problem :)
Click to expand...
Thanks. I've downloaded it and saved these instructions. Next time I dust off the 7600 to play with it for a couple hours, I'll try this.
 
bunnspecial said:
I agree that the slots can get rather cramped on the 7300/8600 class systems since ideally in OSX you want video, an IDE card, a USB/FW card, and then hopefully a 10/100 ethernet card. At least they do have onboard ethernet, but its nice to have some more room to spread out.
Click to expand...

You just need one of those super neat Sonnet cards with USB 2, FireWire, and IDE all on the same card :D
 
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Intell said:
You just need one of those super neat Sonnet cards with USB 2, FireWire, and IDE all on the same card :D
Click to expand...

Have a spare or three(or a dozen) you want to sell? :)

I can think of a few computers that would love them, including my 8600 G4 and my "hotrod" G3 beige with a 1ghz Sonnet G4.
 
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