G4 Sawtooth - Leopard Server

[abundantmussel]

So I have a G4 Sawtooth 450MHz with 256MB RAM, running Tiger that I would like to use as a server running Leopard Server for my G5, MDD, iMac G5 and QS, I noticed in an older post erik has a sawtooth running Leopard with 256MB so I know it's possible, I'll probably bump the RAM to 2GB along with my QS to 1.5GB over the next week or 2 anyway so that should help. Couple of questions before I begin:

1. Can I install leopard server onto the HD from the sawtooth in my MDD (No TDM as I dont own a firewire cable) & just put it back into the sawtooth and fire it up?
2. I assume it'll boot and run headless (No GPU in AGP/PCI slot) once configured for remote desktop etc. Is this correct?

Anything else to note about doing this?

 

[crewkid89]

I booted a Titanium G4 with leopard from a Powerbook in target disk mode. It worked ok. The RAM should help. You probably won't get graphics support for things like the transparent menu bar. At 450mhz it will probably also run very slowly. You can speed things up through a couple of tricks like disabling Spotlight and dashboard.

Edit: I don't think you can boot without a graphics card. As far as I know you can't run a mac from just a CLI. It still uses the graphics card to draw the desktop.

 

[abundantmussel]

Speed wise I'm not too worried about it looking pretty or even being fast to use as It's main use will be a Time Machine backup server and AFP server, with no monitor connected to it. I will probably put my SATA PCI card into it and a drive for TM backups.

 

[crewkid89]

Looking around, I have also noticed that people have had issues getting macs to boot without a monitor connected. I know this is an issue with the mac mini. We have one as an image server at my school but have it hooked up to KVM so no issue for us. OWC makes a dongle that tricks it into thinking there's a monitor plugged in.

I'm not saying you'll experience issues. Just want to make you aware it might not work perfectly from the get go. I'm sure you'll be able to get it working to some degree. People on here have been able to do much hackier things than what you're doing. Give it a shot and let us know how it goes.

 

[bunnspecial]

Up your RAM if you don't want to pull your hair out, but otherwise you'll be fine.

SDRAM is cheap enough these days that it's hard to make an excuse for not maxing it.

Install options are your choice. TDM or disk swapping from a supported Mac is my preference. Leopard assist or changing the processor speed in open firmware work fine also.

My only computer running Leopard Server at the moment doesn't have a video card and it works fine(admittedly I did install one to make the install process easier). This particular computer shipped with Tiger Server and didn't even have a video card. I use Chicken of the VNC from either another PowerPC Mac or a Macbook Pro to control it. I set up Teamviewer on it to let @LightBulbFun play with it for a while.

I also ran a first gen Intel Mini with SL Server for a while with no monitor connected, and it was fine. Chicken of the VNC was my choice for it also.

 

[eyoungren]

The AGP I have at work had about 1.75GB installed at the time I installed Leopard. It was reduced to ~256 or so later on as well as the PCI running Tiger (~192mb ram I think).

You shouldn't have any issues installing on one Mac and then transferring the drive to another.

The only issue you may run into as far as running headless is configuration. When I made the Tiger Mac at work headless I set it up with a graphics card installed. I used OSXVNC which has a feature that allows it to be installed as a service that starts up during boot. This is an advantage over screen sharing as screen sharing only loads once an account has been booted into.

With OSXVNC I can see the login screen and log in to any account.

I would just do this part in the Sawtooth with a graphics card and when you're done, pull the graphics card.

 

[abundantmussel]

SDRAM is cheap enough these days that it's hard to make an excuse for not maxing it.

2GB RAM over here is about €8/£5 a stick per 512MB, so I'll pick that up during next week for it, for doing the install I think I'll take the RAM from my QS and put at least 1GB of it in the sawtooth.

The AGP I have at work had about 1.75GB installed at the time I installed Leopard. It was reduced to ~256 or so later on as well as the PCI running Tiger (~192mb ram I think).

How has it been since you dropped it down to 256MB, is it responsive over VNC etc, I think you mentioned before it was used for only applescript or access to an older printer.

I would just do this part in the Sawtooth with a graphics card and when you're done, pull the graphics card.

I plan on using OSXVNC alright for access to it, I normally use OS9VNC on Mac OS 9.2.2 on this same machine.

The reason for going headless (other then it's going to be a server therefore it doesn't need a GPU), is this Sawtooth came with a PCI GPU which I want to use in my G5 to add another screen until I can locate a ATi Radeon 9200 Mac edition for it. I have located a retail one in its box, unopened but its €126 ($142).

 

[bunnspecial]

The reason for going headless (other then it's going to be a server therefore it doesn't need a GPU), is this Sawtooth came with a PCI GPU which I want to use in my G5 to add another screen until I can locate a ATi Radeon 9200 Mac edition for it. I have located a retail one in its box, unopened but its €126 ($142).

Be patient-they do come up for sale at reasonable prices. I have six of them and probably have only spent about $40 more than your stated price in total to acquire all of them. I don't have any in retail boxes, though.

 

[abundantmussel]

Not too pushed about the box etc but its about the only one I can find over this side of the atlantic. I looked on eBay but we get hammered with shipping from the USA and also we have customs import charges then on top of the cost of the item. But yes patience is the plan and the PCI Rage 128 will do for a proof of concept and allow me position the monitors and get a feel for the setup while I wait.

 

[MysticCow]

Just as an aside, some XServes can be acquired for very little on eBay. This includes Intel versions of the XServe.

As for the question at hand, it should work all right, so long as you do the necessary remote login permissions before going headless.

 

[bunnspecial]

Not too pushed about the box etc but its about the only one I can find over this side of the atlantic. I looked on eBay but we get hammered with shipping from the USA and also we have customs import charges then on top of the cost of the item. But yes patience is the plan and the PCI Rage 128 will do for a proof of concept and allow me position the monitors and get a feel for the setup while I wait.

If you're going to run headless, a Rage 128 will do fine just for set-up. I think I may have used one when I set up my Xserve since-at the time-I didn't have the abundance of 9200s I have now.

 

[eyoungren]

How has it been since you dropped it down to 256MB, is it responsive over VNC etc, I think you mentioned before it was used for only applescript or access to an older printer.

Well, the Leopard Mac has a video card. It's main purpose is as a print server so my Mac Pro can print to our Appletalk printers. However, I run Chicken of the VNC on it to monitor the headless Tiger Mac.

The Tiger Mac is doing nothing more than moving files around as an Applescript server and on occasion automated photo conversion.

For both Macs, a lot of ram is not necessary for these purposes.

I plan on using OSXVNC alright for access to it, I normally use OS9VNC on Mac OS 9.2.2 on this same machine.

The reason for going headless (other then it's going to be a server therefore it doesn't need a GPU), is this Sawtooth came with a PCI GPU which I want to use in my G5 to add another screen until I can locate a ATi Radeon 9200 Mac edition for it. I have located a retail one in its box, unopened but its €126 ($142).

Yeah, OSXVNC is made by the same developer. I found OS9VNC first (way back when) and that clued me in to this app.

It's the only OS X server VNC app I've found that can be applied as a service on system start.

[doublepost=1465579380][/doublepost]

Just as an aside, some XServes can be acquired for very little on eBay. This includes Intel versions of the XServe.

But the power and noise?

For a simple server setup?

It's an option but possibly not the best one for this situation.
[doublepost=1465579470][/doublepost]

If you're going to run headless, a Rage 128 will do fine just for set-up. I think I may have used one when I set up my Xserve since-at the time-I didn't have the abundance of 9200s I have now.

That's what I used when I originally set up our Tiger Mac. Of course, that's the card that Mac shipped with so it was kind of easy.

 

[bunnspecial]

[doublepost=1465579380][/doublepost]
But the power and noise?

For a simple server setup?

It's an option but possibly not the best one for this situation.
[doublepost=1465579470][/doublepost]
That's what I used when I originally set up our Tiger Mac. Of course, that's the card that Mac shipped with so it was kind of easy.

Fair enough

Leopard is...not the greatest...with a Rage 128 but installing the kexts from Tiger can make a world of difference in how it performs.

I don't think that there were any machines that OFFICIALLY supported Leopard and shipped with a Rage 128. Working from memory, the 933mhz and dual 1ghz Quicksilvers were the only towers to make the cut-off, and I think the base card on those was a Geforce 2MX(although my dual 1ghz shipped with a 4MX). The oldest laptops would be the last generation TiBooks, which had Radeon 9000s.

Of course, we all know that the system requirements for Leopard were in actuality quite loose, and a bone stock install will run on anything with a G4 processor and AGP graphics. This gets you all the way back to the Sawtooth and a G4-upgraded Pismo without doing anything special other than bypassing the installer checks.

Apple had an unhealthy love affair with the Rage series GPUs. When they first started showing up in beige macs they were phenomenal, as was the Rage 128 in the B&W G3. It was a passable card in the Sawtooth, but it was well past its prime when the Digital Audio came out.

 

[MysticCow]

[doublepost=1465579380][/doublepost]
But the power and noise?

For a simple server setup?

It's an option but possibly not the best one for this situation.

Agreed, but it's there as an option and a pretty cheap one. If you have a little-used room, it'd be perfect for that.

 

[abundantmussel]

Agreed, but it's there as an option and a pretty cheap one. If you have a little-used room, it'd be perfect for that.

I have a 42u server rack in the shed with 10 Dell R710 servers, a 4 node Dell C6100 server, a 24 drive raid array and an EMC 30 drive fibre channel SAN/disk array. If I find the apple server useful I think an xserve G5 will be the next purchase.

 

[bunnspecial]

I have a 42u server rack in the shed with 10 Dell R710 servers, a 4 node Dell C6100 server, a 24 drive raid array and an EMC 30 drive fibre channel SAN/disk array. If I find the apple server useful I think an xserve G5 will be the next purchase.

Xserves really are nice if you can put them out of the way, and at 1U they don't even take up that much space in your rack.

 

[spf2]

I have a 42u server rack in the shed with 10 Dell R710 servers, a 4 node Dell C6100 server, a 24 drive raid array and an EMC 30 drive fibre channel SAN/disk array. If I find the apple server useful I think an xserve G5 will be the next purchase.

I can't help you with your Leopard install but just curious what you do with all that stuff in the shed.

 

[abundantmussel]

Xserves really are nice if you can put them out of the way, and at 1U they don't even take up that much space in your rack.

At the moment I have about 15u free, so an xserve would fit in nicely, baby steps tough, test with the Sawtooth first before I go ebay'ing

Are they as noisey as your normal 1u server?

I can't help you with your Leopard install but just curious what you do with all that stuff in the shed.

The R710s are used for running a local test copy of our software, virtual servers, temp web server vms for design work, temp apache, tomcat, jboss vms for use to test while coding etc. (Im the companies, IT manager, system/network admin, programmer (we have 2 more programmers), web designer and anything else involving IT). The C6100 runs my home network (sickrage, sabnzbd, 12 web servers, 5 mysql servers, headless kodi server, LDAP, owncloud, plex, file server, pbx, minecraft, unreal tournament 2004 and a few more), the EMC SAN has nothing on it at the moment, its 2 disk arrays with 15 300GB Fibre Channel drives in each, so 30 300GB disks in total, (must pick up a Fibre channel card for my G5 to connect to it, my windows desktop has one already), the 24 drive RAID array stores all my media (TV Shows 18TB, Movies 10TB, games, software, music etc.). RAID Array runs FreeNAS, 3 arrays, 2 with 8 x 3TB drives, 1 with 8 x 4TB drives, R710s run Debian, C6100 runs Debian also with 3 x 128GB SSDs per node so 12 x 128GB SSDs in total in that.

 

[bunnspecial]

At the moment I have about 15u free, so an xserve would fit in nicely, baby steps tough, test with the Sawtooth first before I go ebay'ing

Are they as noisey as your normal 1u server?

My only real side-by-side reference is the IBM System X servers I have. I would say that an Xserve G5 might(subjectively) be a little bit louder than a 1U System X. At the same time, though, the Xserve doesn't do the 10 second "ready for take-off' that the System X stuff does on start-up.

The System X servers have roughly double the number of fans that an Xserve G5 as, and I suspect that they're able to keep noise down by having more control over individual zones in the server.

I wouldn't want to have to sit in the room for very long with either, however.

I once ran my G5 in TDM for a few hours while I installed and set up Leopard from a Powerbook. In that mode, the fan controls completely switched off so all the fans ran at full blast. I couldn't stay in the room with it.

 

[spf2]

Wow. Just naming the apps is already a mouth full. I can't even imagine how long it took you to get the whole setup running. It must cost a small fortune to power that setup each month. Really impressive though.

 

[abundantmussel]

My only real side-by-side reference is the IBM System X servers I have. I would say that an Xserve G5 might(subjectively) be a little bit louder than a 1U System X. At the same time, though, the Xserve doesn't do the 10 second "ready for take-off' that the System X stuff does on start-up.

The System X servers have roughly double the number of fans that an Xserve G5 as, and I suspect that they're able to keep noise down by having more control over individual zones in the server.

I wouldn't want to have to sit in the room for very long with either, however.

I once ran my G5 in TDM for a few hours while I installed and set up Leopard from a Powerbook. In that mode, the fan controls completely switched off so all the fans ran at full blast. I couldn't stay in the room with it.

I can imagine the noise of the G5 when I was playing with the RAM until I found the faulty ram each time I got fan noise constantly. My mdd was really bad too until i took an air compressor to it, best thing I've ever gotten for clearing out dust. The Dell 1u servers are noisy out and different models have different fan sounds which is really annoying all my R series make one noise and the C series another.

 

[abundantmussel]

Wow. Just naming the apps is already a mouth full. I can't even imagine how long it took you to get the whole setup running. It must cost a small fortune to power that setup each month. Really impressive though.

I'm lucky enough because I work from home for a company in London ( I'm in Ireland) that I get an allowance from the company that pays about half the power cost per month and pays for 2 broadband connection etc. The noise and heat in my shed is something else tough I used to have the rack in my home office until I ran fibre cable and cat6 cables to the shed.

 

[bunnspecial]

I'm lucky enough because I work from home for a company in London ( I'm in Ireland) that I get an allowance from the company that pays about half the power cost per month and pays for 2 broadband connection etc. The noise and heat in my shed is something else tough I used to have the rack in my home office until I ran fibre cable and cat6 cables to the shed.

Power costs are part of the reason why I rarely even run mine. The Intel Mini(when I had it) ran pretty much constantly, but even the xServe just gets booted on demand.

This time of year, I get hit double for running that kind of stuff as it runs up the air conditioning bill also.

The computer room I'm working on setting up is probably going to have 30 or more PPC and 68K Macs set up and fully operational, but I'll guarantee you that they will likely only be booted on demand(plus an occasional check to make sure everything is still good). Lately, I've only been using my MBP in the evening and booting a Cube up for a few hours to play on it. I have the 17" ADC CRT on the Cube along with a pretty potent GPU for the computer(Geforce 3) so it draws a decent amount when running.

My Mac Pro runs pretty much constantly in my office, and I have an SGI Octane that I'm sort of obligated to keep going all the time. My Quad and Beige G4 use to also run constantly, but for both heat and noise reasons they have been shifted to "on demand" duty. I have a few other computers(specifically a 512Ke and a B&W G3) that are in the same position. The B&W was getting used pretty heavily a few months ago to install OSs and the like for another B&W in the department I was supporting. That has since been upgraded to a DA G4, so I need to take the B&W home and replace it with a DA.