Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Is 10.2 Worth it on an iBook G3

RogerWilco6502

RogerWilco6502

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 12, 2019
1,823
1,945
Tír na nÓg
I'm looking at getting an iBook G3. The one I'm looking at has a 10GB hard drive in it and no RAM expansion (so just the stock 128MB) and I intend to put Mac OS 9.2.2 on it. I do intend to get a 512MB stick at some point to max the ram and I also intend to get a 128GB SSD to put in there somehow so I can a) get more storage, and b) make it faster. Once I do these things, would it be worth it to dual book 9.2.2 and 10.2 or are there no real advantages to running 10.2 over 9.2.2, especially when I have two G4 machines capable of running 10.2 and later versions with ease?
 
Low End Mac seems to think so.

Mac OS X 10.2 'Jaguar' Can Unleash the Power of G3 iBooks

Mac OS X 10.2 'Jaguar' Can Unleash the Power of G3 iBooks, Carl Nygren, Classic Macs in the Intel Age, 2008.06.17. After pulling a bad stick of RAM, the Dual USB iBook didn't have enough memory for Tiger or Linux. But even with just 128 MB of RAM, Jaguar did the job.
www.lowendmac.com www.lowendmac.com

The only real problem you might encounter is Web browsing, which @Dronecatcher and @Amethyst1 have recently devised a type of solution for.

forums.macrumors.com

Opera Mini Browser On PowerPC

This is largely a rehash of the work of @Amethyst1 here who discovered the java emulator/player of sergiolopes but what I've done is slimmed down the required files and rewritten the script, preconfigured the settings and made a launch-able applet. So, what you have is an instance of Opera Mini...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheShortTimer and RogerWilco6502
I'd say don't bother with Jaguar after upgrading the RAM and go straight to Tiger as that'll give you much better compatibility with applications. Or at least Panther, which, given enough RAM, is noticeably faster than Jaguar throughout. IMHO, there's only two reasons to run Jaguar rather than Panther or Tiger: (1) because of its look-and-feel and (2) its vastly better Classic environment.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: Project Alice, z970 and TheShortTimer
Amethyst1 said:
I'd say don't bother with Jaguar after upgrading the RAM and go straight to Tiger as that'll give you much better compatibility with applications. Or at least Panther, which, given enough RAM, is noticeably faster than Jaguar throughout. IMHO, there's only two reasons to run Jaguar rather than Panther or Tiger: (1) because of its look-and-feel and (2) its vastly better Classic environment.
Click to expand...
Ok, thanks! :D
 
For me, the main reason for more RAM&Tiger would be, that I'd like to open/convert new MS-Office documents, since Office2001 on os9 only can deal with the Office97-04 file-format and the converter, coming with Office'04 requires Tiger.
Slimmed down TFF would be another reason.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco6502
So, I've heard of issues between Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 occuring (and have actually had it happen with my G4 running OS 9 and Tiger). Would this be an issue with Jaguar too or is it old enough that it doesn't mess with the filesystem enough to cause any problems?

I know a few major culprits are Spotlight and Time Machine, neither of which Jaguar has. I think it would be cool to possibly do it and I probably will once I make the upgrades I mentioned in the first post. Does anyone know of any reason I shouldn't do this?
 
RogerWilco6502 said:
Does anyone know of any reason I shouldn't do this?
Click to expand...

Going off memory, I think that when OS 9 and OS X are on the same partition, the boot picker fails to see both of them, only presenting whichever OS on that same partition was boot last.

You will need to use Startup Disk if you wish to swap in and out between them.

Depending on the Mac, holding down "9" or "X" at the chime is also supposed to work... but I've never had any luck with that method. I also do not know if that way requires two distinct partitions or just one to function properly.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco6502
z970mp said:
Going off memory, I think that when OS 9 and OS X are on the same partition, the boot picker fails to see both of them, only presenting whichever OS on that same partition was boot last.

You will need to use Startup Disk if you wish to swap in and out between them.

Depending on the Mac, holding down "9" or "X" at the chime is also supposed to work... but I've never had any luck with that method. I also do not know if that way requires two distinct partitions or just one to function properly.
Click to expand...
Ok, thanks! I vaguely remember that when I had that config too now that you mention it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back