Have iBook G3 500 what OS should I use?

[Chrispy]

Hey all. The title says it all. I have a G3 500 iBook with 384 RAM and an 8 MB Graphics Card. What operating system should I use. It has OS 9.2.1 on it right now but I don't know if I should upgrade to OS X. Also, what version of OS X should I use if I do upgrade? Thanks all 🙂

 

[rhpenguin]

os 10.3

 

[James Philp]

for about the 100th time:
I have:
PB G3 500, 384MB RAM, 8MB VRAM. 10GB HD
So I have pretty much the exact same spec as you.
10.3 and 10.4 take up ate same amount of HD, and I am running 10.4.1 absolutely fine. I'd recommend that.

Don't expect too much from H.264, but all the other codecs are fine.

A clean install (of either) is a must. You have nothing to gain from keeping the classic system - but you may want to back up the classic folder you own (and of course all your documents).
I have the luxury of 2 Macs at the moment, and so can back-up clean install on this PB very easily.
10.4.1 Is really good - go for that.
If you need proof of how good it can be, check out the "Top Tiger Tip" in my sig.

P.S. You will find 10.3 and 10.4 faster than OS 9 after a clean install.

 

[Chrispy]

Thanks James. Sorry if you had posted that recently. Sometimes I am a boob and I don't catch things like that. Your comments have been helpful 🙂

 

[fox2005]

Be OS or Windows Millenium Edition would do fine... 😛

 

[rhpenguin]

dont knock BeOS.. ive got a Be partition on my PowerMac

 

[anonymous161]

We have 10.4 on an iBook G3 500 mhz w/256 mb ram and it works great for word processing, watching DVDs, web browsing, and video (just not h.264, like James said). I would also recommend 10.4

 

[Macky-Mac]

consider upgrading your RAM too.....my iBook G3 500 had 384 and performance seemed to improve under OS 10 when I went to 640

 

[ITASOR]

I would use 10.3.9 because that's what I had on an iBook very, very. very similar and it worked great. 😛 😛 😛

 

[Chrispy]

I would use 10.3.9 because that's what I had on an iBook very, very. very similar and it worked great. 😛 😛 😛

Now ITASOR what are the odds we would have the exact same iBook 😉 I have installed 10.3.9 and it works absolutely beautifully 🙂 What a fine machine it is!

 

[thequicksilver]

consider upgrading your RAM too.....my iBook G3 500 had 384 and performance seemed to improve under OS 10 when I went to 640

Agree. I had a 900MHZ G3 which was unusable with the stock 128MB. Get as much memory as you can in there - up to the maximum 640 if at all possible.

 

[ITASOR]

Now ITASOR what are the odds we would have the exact same iBook 😉 I have installed 10.3.9 and it works absolutely beautifully 🙂 What a fine machine it is!

Glad to hear. 🙂

 

[Dreadnought]

Agree. I had a 900MHZ G3 which was unusable with the stock 128MB. Get as much memory as you can in there - up to the maximum 640 if at all possible.

I believe that an iBook support also a 1 ghz module of ram, so if you really want to max it, 128 MB + 1 GHZ = enough ram!

 

[zach]

I think you mean GB (as in gigabytes, a measure of storage) rather than GHz (measure of processor frequency), but otherwise, yes.

Shove as much RAM in as that baby can take 😀