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how to get 10.3

R

rroback

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 29, 2007
77
0
I've got an old powermac g4 ( 500mhz), I'd like to upgrade, and I think the newest operating system it can handle is 10.3. I've got 10.2.8, but I'm wondering if one of you might happen to have some old cd's I can use, assuming all of you now have 10.4 or 10.5...

thanks,

Rhett
 
The only way this would work is if someone had a retail version of 10.3 that was not installed on any machine, that they could sell you.

Bundled 10.3 that came with Macs won't work with your older machine.

BTW: We don't discuss trading or borrowing of commercial software on MR, it is against the rules.
 
I don't mind buying it, but I don't really want to pay the 90 bucks I see people asking, when the newest os is $100. So there's a chance 10.4 might work? I'll have to try.
 
I guess that buying a used install disk from someone that upgraded to leopard should be fine too. Apple does not use special rates for upgrades, you always pay full price.
 
I'd like to run as current as possible. I've got a 10.5 family pack, so I'm inclined to try and install 10.5, but I'd rather not end up with odd errors. Can I instal 10.4 off the 10.5 cd's? I'm guessing no.
 
No, you'll have to find a set of 10.4 CDs or a DVD. 10.5 won't install without some hacks since its under the 867mhz cutoff.

10.4 ran terrific on my 50mhz overclocked 400mhz G4. 10.3 feels too old and unrefined to me and the speed difference isn't as much as you'd think.
 
Just to confirm, I had a 500 MHz G4 Tower that I had borrowed from my dad at one point and I was running 10.4 without any issues. In fact, I ran 10.3 and then upgraded it to 10.4 and I think that 10.4 ran better than 10.3. I know there is some debate as to whether the OS updates feel faster because they are faster, or because most people do an erase and install and so they end up with a cleaner system, but I was very happy with how 10.4 ran on that system.
 
as long as you've got enough RAM, and you have a DVD drive (to install 10.4) then I would most definitely get 10.4 instead of 10.3....it really is faster, and almost everything works with 10.4, which is not the case anymore with 10.3.

it's just not maintained anymore.
 
Yes...

I understand exactly where you are coming from. Panther (10.3.9) is the optimal OS for alot of these older G3/G4 machines. One of the things to consider with Tiger is that Tiger usually comes on a DVD, and some older G3 and G4 Macs only have a built-in CD-ROM drive (ie the older iMacs and such), so it's kind of hard to install Tiger on those machines. PLUS - Panther is a very stable OS in it's last builds (10.3.7 and later), and Tiger is a bit more of a resource and memory hog, and runs alot slower on the older Macs vs. Panther...by older I am talking about sub 1GHz Macs. Panther is the sweet spot for OS X on there...plus, you should have at lease 384GB and ideally 512GB running any OS X build. With Leopard 1GB or more is basically necessary, with 2GB being ideal, and 3 or 4GB being the sweet spot, but, as we know, Leopard's support for sub-1.25GHz G4s and all G3s is null.

Hope this helps.
-Ward
 
I would recommend 10.4. I have a Sawtooth (400Mhz) and from my point of view Tiger is the most suited version. I installed 10.5 afterwards (putting the G4 in target disk mode) and although Leopard works without any problem it's a little bit slower than Tiger and I think it would not run very well whitout the (flashed) Radeon 9800 I put in a year ago...
 
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