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G3 Tiger install without DVD drive.(question)

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mzs.112000

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 22, 2015
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So, a while back(2014), I setup an iBook G3, 900MHz for a friend, it had OS X 10.2.8 Jaguar, so I put Linux(debian) on it, because I could install it without a functional DVD drive, I am wondering if I could put Tiger 10.4 on that iBook without a functional DVD reader?

The DVD reader is broken, it will not open on its own, and will not read anything, so anything that requires a DVD reader will not work. Neither will anything that requires another Mac(actually I have a Hackintosh, with a Firewire port, but I have no Firewire cables).
 
Make a USB install key and install from that. It will take forever, but will work. Image the DVD on your other computer. Then, format your USB drive as HFS+/APM. Use Disk Utility to restore the image of your DVD to the USB drive.

You can probably boot off the USB on the iBook by using Boot Selector(it works with most USB 1 Macs) but you might have to use Open Firmware to get it to boot.
 
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bunnspecial said:
Make a USB install key and install from that. It will take forever, but will work. Image the DVD on your other computer. Then, format your USB drive as HFS+/APM. Use Disk Utility to restore the image of your DVD to the USB drive.

You can probably boot off the USB on the iBook by using Boot Selector(it works with most USB 1 Macs) but you might have to use Open Firmware to get it to boot.
Click to expand...

Thank you, now next time that friend is over, I will have to convince her that, OS X Tiger is better than Debian.
She uses the iBook for Netflix, general web browsing, Youtube, and writing documents, the thing is, OS X was faster than Linux on that computer, so I think she would be better off using it with OS X.
Plus I could probably use iCook, and ATICellerator and get a 50MHz CPU increase, and small GPU increase, in addition, maybe I would max out the RAM to 640MB, which, even staying with Linux would make it worlds better.

What I still need to find is a better wireless card for it, and drivers for Android file sync.
 
mzs.112000 said:
Thank you, now next time that friend is over, I will have to convince her that, OS X Tiger is better than Debian.
She uses the iBook for Netflix, general web browsing, Youtube, and writing documents, the thing is, OS X was faster than Linux on that computer, so I think she would be better off using it with OS X.
Plus I could probably use iCook, and ATICellerator and get a 50MHz CPU increase, and small GPU increase, in addition, maybe I would max out the RAM to 640MB, which, even staying with Linux would make it worlds better.

What I still need to find is a better wireless card for it, and drivers for Android file sync.
Click to expand...
You're not going to Netflix and Youtube of any decent quality on that Mac under OS X. She's likely to be extremely frustrated. The last version of Flash available for PowerPC Macs is ancient. And Netflix is a no go completely under OS X.

If your friend is really using it for that then I'd suggest just leaving it alone.
 
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eyoungren said:
You're not going to Netflix and Youtube of any decent quality on that Mac under OS X. She's likely to be extremely frustrated. The last version of Flash available for PowerPC Macs is ancient. And Netflix is a no go completely under OS X.

If your friend is really using it for that then I'd suggest just leaving it alone.
Click to expand...


I do not think she is really using Netflix or Youtube under Linux.
She says that she is, I do not *know* that, that is really what she is using it for, the last time I used it, it took 5 minutes just to boot to the desktop, and another 3 minutes to open the internet browser(Iceweasel), and 6 minutes for all the tabs to restore(all Google searches, not Netflix or Youtube). And the version of Flash for OS X is better than on PowerPC Linux, where Flash is does not exist(she has Gnash and Lightspark, so she has basically a half-baked flash 10 clone, at least in OS X you can have *real* Flash 10.1.
I think, what she really needs is just more RAM, though, which might make Linux faster(right now she only has 256MB of RAM, to make matters worse, she uses Gnome 3, which is known in the Linux world as a RAM hog, she needs to switch to XFCE or LXDE, which would help her).
 
The problem is stuff like Flash and especially YouTube and Netflix are going to be practically unusable on such an old system. I have a 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 and an overclocked G4 mini which both have maxed-out RAM (1.25 GB and 1 GB respectively) and even those struggle big time.
 
gsahli said:
ie, the note: Most PowerPC Macs do not support booting Mac OS X from USB.
Click to expand...

This is incorrect. Virtually all PPC Macs with built-in USB can be booted from USB. The exceptions are-broadly-the machines that predate AGP graphics.

Most USB 2.0 Macs require using open firmware to boot, but will work.

The article contradicts itself, as it lists several machines that can ONLY boot OS X in its list of supported machines.
 
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Back in the day, I used FW optical drives when built in drives would not behave. I still have a couple of these bus powered Smartdisk drives that come in handy now and then.

IMG_8068.jpg
 
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mzs.112000 said:
Thank you, now next time that friend is over, I will have to convince her that, OS X Tiger is better than Debian.
She uses the iBook for Netflix, general web browsing, Youtube, and writing documents, the thing is, OS X was faster than Linux on that computer, so I think she would be better off using it with OS X.
Plus I could probably use iCook, and ATICellerator and get a 50MHz CPU increase, and small GPU increase, in addition, maybe I would max out the RAM to 640MB, which, even staying with Linux would make it worlds better.

What I still need to find is a better wireless card for it, and drivers for Android file sync.
Click to expand...
If you need to convince her to switch that implies she's happy with the way it is. What specific issue are you attempting to address by moving her to OS X? You described some long start times for this system. It sounds as if your thought on maxing out the RAM is a good one. How much memory is currently installed?
 
OS X Tiger is certainly better than Debian in some cases and I think it is the better choice. Just boot from USB like others suggested and install it. As for Netflix, I found this:
https://macpowerpc.com/2013/09/23/netflix-on-powerpc-is-it-possible/
And for YouTube, you can use PPC Media Center, which can also play other online videos. It may even work with Netflix, but I'm not sure. The point is, there is almost always a workaround to get stuff that would normally require a faster computer to run on PowerPC. Tiger is the right choice and you need to convince her somehow to switch.
 
HFTaylor12 said:
OS X Tiger is certainly better than Debian in some cases and I think it is the better choice. Just boot from USB like others suggested and install it. As for Netflix, I found this:
https://macpowerpc.com/2013/09/23/netflix-on-powerpc-is-it-possible/
And for YouTube, you can use PPC Media Center, which can also play other online videos. It may even work with Netflix, but I'm not sure. The point is, there is almost always a workaround to get stuff that would normally require a faster computer to run on PowerPC. Tiger is the right choice and you need to convince her somehow to switch.
Click to expand...

Even IF Netflix worked, watching it on a G3 would be a miserable experience.

That's overlooking, also, the fact that if you want to do WiFi you're operating at 802.11b speeds.
 
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If she wants a computer for watching online video content, a PowerPC Mac isn't a good choice. A G5 maybe, but those are only desktop computers. G4s can do it but it takes a lot of patience and tweaking. The G3 is just too ancient. Anything post-2007 with a Core 2 Duo or higher is going to do that just fine.
 
Daniël Oosterhuis said:
A G5 maybe, but those are only desktop computers.
Click to expand...

Better G5s can do YouTube and most other video content without any issue. When(former) iBook guy posted a video on Youtube about a G5 Quad and claimed that Youtube was basically unusable, I made a video to counter that playing 720p videos with no trouble on my Quad. I have no doubt that it could do 1080p.

Even my single 1.8 doesn't complain about 480p played in VLC.

If you can use a media player like CorePlayer that leverages AltiVec, you can even get along pretty well with a G4. Since a G3 doesn't have Altivec, though, that is out.

One of the big issues with Netflix is the lack of an up to date version of Silverfast.
 
Oh, I wasn't putting the G5's capabilities in question, it's just that there isn't a G5 Notebook due to obvious reasons, and so that might not be an option in this case. A G5 Quad can push 4K, with a good GPU, as shown here:

 
weckart said:
Back in the day, I used FW optical drives when built in drives would not behave. I still have a couple of these bus powered Smartdisk drives that come in handy now and then.

View attachment 662174
Click to expand...
LOL That Smartdisk firewire CDRW was an extra that Apple sent to me along with my Titanium Powerbook 400ghz which only had a CDROM.

But OP needs a DVD player. He should just get an external and boot from a Tiger disc or swap out the tray opening optical disc drive in the 900mhz. Bump it up to 640mb of ram, too.
 
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