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Is OS X worth it?

Powerbook G5

Powerbook G5

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 23, 2003
3,974
1
St Augustine, FL
I have a question for anyone who is familiar with the benefits of OS X on an older system. Basically, my setup is as follows: PowerBook G3 (Lombard) 400 MHz, 1 meg L2, 67 MHz bus, 192 megs RAM, 2x DVD, 6 gig HD (nearly 4 gigs free currently), no firewire or airport, so basically USB is the newest tech my 'book has. I have both OS 9.2.2 and OS X 10.0.6 installed with a dual partitioned drive with 3 gigs to each. So...

I installed OS X when it first came out as I was eager to jump towards the future, but the performance in OS X was terrible. It literally takes forever just to load something as simple as system preferences and my computer hangs when just opening folders and such. For this reason, I basically switched back to OS 9 as my boot disk and I hardly (if ever) go into OS X besides to simply stare at it wishing it could run better. I've been holding out until I upgrade to a newer PoweBook (in particular, the 15" AlBook), but the wait is killing me simply because ALL new stuff is on OS X and I feel left behind and sorely wanting to play with OS X and join in the folding team here and all that good stuff (along with learning terminal and the fun stuff that goes with OS X). But I am left with this question--is it worth the money to get 10.2 Jaguar even though I don't have firewire or anything to take advantage of the iApps beyond playing here and there, don't have the ability to use Quartz Extreme (due to my 8 meg ATi Rage card), and Panther/15" books coming out...sometime...? I checked the specs today and on Apple's page it says 10.2 doesn't support upgrade cards or original G3 PowerBooks, along with the Rage video card not being supported. Would Jaguar be just as slow or would it actually be fast enough to do work and enjoy the user experience?
 
I figured as much, I just came close to breaking down and ordering 10.2 today before I saw the specs and figured I could use the $100 towards an iSight or FCE after I do get a new PowerBook. It's not imperative that I run OS X, since OS 9 runs really quickly and it is rock solid for me, it's just that I am really itching to switch to X.
 
FWIW, Jaguar runs very smoothly on my Pismo G3/400 Powerbook (with 512mb of RAM). I use all of the iApps (except iDVD) as well as Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and FireworksMX. I've never found that things run frustratingly slow (except some rendering in iMovie), and in general I don't notice much speed difference between my G3 Powerbook and my G4/450 Cube in terms of overall system performance (neither machine takes advantage of Quartz).

I haven't read any reports of Panther performance on the G3 powerbooks. Anyone?
 
Stay under 9.2.2 is my recomendation.

I have 2 Powerbooks G3 500, one with 9.2.2 and the other one with OSX. Trust me my primary computer is the one with 9.2.2. Both of them have 256MB of ram and 30GB hard drive. I'm runing OSX just because to see if there is something I would recomend about it but "the emperor has no clothes".

I'm using 9.2.2 for video right now, After Effects, Final Cut Pro 2 and Photoshop. Stay away from those tv comertials, you do not need to have the latest software, "machines are smater as their users".

Do not get OSX for your machine because you won't be moving any where, get a new computer later on but do not waiste your time with OSX, if I had a new G5 I would run OS 9 on it if I could.
 
Originally posted by mymemory
Do not get OSX for your machine because you won't be moving any where, get a new computer later on but do not waiste your time with OSX, if I had a new G5 I would run OS 9 on it if I could.
Click to expand...
You would be CrAaZy to do so! why on earth would you run OS9 on a G5? OS X is 10 x better than 9.
 
Well I decided to take my 10.0 install CD and install it on my computer to at least play around with it. I created two partitions--one for 9.2.2 and one for OS X 10.0. It all installed just fine, but immediately it came up with software update wanting to update to 10.0.6 I believe and after it downloads and halfway installs, I get an error. Well, I decide to just forget that after 3 attempts and download and try to install Safari, IE, and various programs for OS X to use...but everytime I try to install *any* program, the installed 'unexpectadly quits". I am not sure why this is, I even formatted and reinstalled OS X a second time thinking that perhaps there was an error during into, but still, I cannot get a single program to install under OS X. I guess it is fate that I shouldn't be running OS X until I get a new computer :(
 
Originally posted by Powerbook G5
Well I decided to take my 10.0 install CD and install it on my computer to at least play around with it. I created two partitions--one for 9.2.2 and one for OS X 10.0. It all installed just fine, but immediately it came up with software update wanting to update to 10.0.6 I believe and after it downloads and halfway installs, I get an error. Well, I decide to just forget that after 3 attempts and download and try to install Safari, IE, and various programs for OS X to use...but everytime I try to install *any* program, the installed 'unexpectadly quits". I am not sure why this is, I even formatted and reinstalled OS X a second time thinking that perhaps there was an error during into, but still, I cannot get a single program to install under OS X. I guess it is fate that I shouldn't be running OS X until I get a new computer :(
Click to expand...

-Powerbook G5

Well, I believe that most of your issues are tied to the fact that you are running 10.0.x

Safari, IE, etc. won't run on anything less than Jaguar (10.2) anymore - ergo the 'unexpectedly quits'. It's not the Computer.

In fact, your machine will run better with Jag than 10.0 (Cheetah)
 
Originally posted by mymemory
Do not get OSX for your machine because you won't be moving any where, get a new computer later on but do not waiste your time with OSX, if I had a new G5 I would run OS 9 on it if I could.
Click to expand...

Man. I REALLY disagree. We have OS 9 at work, and it's KILLING me. It's so crash prone and slow. I don't care what anyone says, the lack of multitasking ability makes OS 9 infinitely slower in a workflow than OS X. I find I get much more work done on OS X.

I'll rejoice when we *finally* upgrade.
 
I'm starting to think that my 10.0 CD is only good as a coaster...Oh well, I just cannot wait to get my beautiful 15" AlBook when it comes out, I've been saving up like crazy in hopes of a new PowerBook and after seeing the 17" at an Apple store, I fell in love (except for its size, dear God, looks like someone at Apple design has a serious case of ***** envy or something).
 
This summer I have really worked on slimming up my OS 9 system and I'll tell you, the thing runs like butter. I cannot remember the last time OS 9 has ever crashed and even on this 400 MHz it runs faster than our new 2.8 GHz/800 MHz bus Dell that we got last month. I just want to run OS X because
1. It is beautiful
2. The appeal of a Unix fortified modern OS
3. It is impossible to find any software or hardware that is made to run in anything but OS X anymore.
 
So.. if I understood correctly, you are complaining because X 10.0 is slow? 10.0 was almost 3 years ago.. ancient slow OS. You should get Panther when it gets out, it is faster than Jaguar somewhat, or stay in 9.
 
I don't care that 10.0 is slow, as I said above, whenever I try installing any program in it, the installer "quits", rendering any chance of me using applications in it hopeless. I was just mentioning my problem to see if someone had a suggestion/explanation/input/etc on it since I am not well versed in OS X. I'm not real worried about it since as I also stated, I'm expecting to get a new PowerBook before too long and I will definitely get Panther since I am following every new developement carefully while drooling over the capability and features it has.
 
-Powerbook G5

One of the main reasons why Safari, et al. won't run on anything earlier than 10.2 is because the Mach kernel in 10.2 is a much later version than in 10.1 or before. I think 10.2 is Mach 3.8 whereas 10.0-10.1 was Mach 3.2 (I'm rusty with the actual numbers here, someone correct me please)
 
Thanks for the info, it's good to know there are so many people here who know as much as they do about these things. When it comes to Windows and the older releases of Mac OS, I am pretty well versed and can get down and dirty with the rest of them, but I'm afraid that when it comes to OS X/Unix, I am basically on the newbie level. I personally cannot wait, I've read a lot about the Unix part of OS X and I am planning on getting a book about Unix (I remember seeing a book along the lines of "Unix for Mac OS X" or something like that) and learning to use terminal, too. Now it's a matter of doing that while juggling classes, my girlfriend, video games, and goofing off with friends once school starts up again. But, c'est la vie :)
 
Do not get OSX for your machine because you won't be moving any where, get a new computer later on but do not waiste your time with OSX, if I had a new G5 I would run OS 9 on it if I could. [/B][/QUOTE]

man i hate to say it but i think your right about os10....i bought
a new 12' powerbook and i am VERY DISAPPOINTED w/ it
so far...its seems to be slow and imovie crashes every time now!


can you down grade to OS9 on the new power books??
 
Originally posted by alexholden
Do not get OSX for your machine because you won't be moving any where, get a new computer later on but do not waiste your time with OSX, if I had a new G5 I would run OS 9 on it if I could.
Click to expand...

man i hate to say it but i think your right about os10....i bought
a new 12' powerbook and i am VERY DISAPPOINTED w/ it
so far...its seems to be slow and imovie crashes every time now!


can you down grade to OS9 on the new power books?? [/B][/QUOTE]

no you cant. why would you. OS X is not a slow OS. OS 9 used to crash constantly for me and I never got the hang of "mangaging my own memory".

OS X rocks. If you are having issues with iMovie make sure you're on the latest version of everything via Software Update. I have 4 Macs running OS X and none of them are experiencing iMovie isssues...

Make sure you have maxed out your ram though. This is a big help. I cannot believe if you have OS X runing on a 12PB with 640MB of RAM it could be slow. My laptop is a 900MHz iBook g3 with 640MB of ram and it is fast as 800Mhz iMac.

Get more ram and give the OS a chance you'll love it once you get used to the change...

MacBoyX
 
You cannot compare or even involve 10.0 in OS X discussions. That was the very first version of OS X and even Apple has admitted it sucks and didn't work right. The first stable version of OS X was 10.1 it was better stability wise but still lacking alot of features, Jaguar is leaps and bounds better than OS X 10.1.

You're right 10.0 is not worth even installing. I'd recommend you might want to wait until you get a new machine but If you really wanted to try OS X, get a copy of jag from a friend or something and just install it to see how you like it. Don't expect miracles in speed tho as you have a really old laptop that has OS9 oriented hardware.

I think once you try Jaguar you'll like it alot. But be realistic about speed and stability for the hardware you're on.

If you do this then once you get our AlBook (...they are coming right? lol!) you'll at least be moving thru the interface like a pro and will be really please with the system's speed boost.

But I implore you...do not even compare OS X 10.0 to 10.2 they are definitely different.

macboyX
 
Panther is so close, I wouldn't go with Jag, if you're buying it. A number of developers with older Macs say that Panther really runs faster than Jag, even on G3 machines (no Quartz Extreme).

I agree with others that 10.0 is a waste of time, and you shouldn't judge OS X by your experience with 10.0.

Ultimately, though, you'll have little choice. Before long, OS9 software will be hard to come by. Apple obviously wants to get everyone moved over to OS X ASAP.
 
10.2.6 should run decently on that machine, provided you max out the RAM and put a faster hard drive in it. From what I've seen, you won't be able to run 10.3 on anything that doesn't internally have FireWire, which includes your Lombard.
 
Well I decided to wait since it makes more sense. I am not going to spend money maxing out RAM or swapping HDs in my PowerBook when I am trying to save my money for a new 15" AlBook. It's just a matter of waiting right now, since the updates are basically happening at any time now...just as they have been all summer, it seems, but with each passing week, we are that much closer. In the mean time, I've read many books on OS X Jaguar, a couple of books on Unix, one on Cocoa developing, and some on Linux. With all this background info, I should definitely be able to jump into Jaguar/Panther (whichever comes on the new PowerBooks depending on how long this delay will be) and do anything I want with the system. All I need to do now is basically figure out if I want to keep my current PowerBook or sell it. I'm a bit hesitant to sell, since my Lombard is still extremely sexy, lightning fast (in OS 9, at least) and never crashes, has no defects, no dead pixels, no scratches, and nothing wrong besides it's just 4 years old. I just cannot wait for Panther, it seems like Steve Jobs sumed it up quite nicely with these simple words: "Kick ass". :)
 
My brother runs OS X.2.6 on his 333mhz imac with 162 megs of ram, and a 6 gig hardrive. Now it does run slow, and the lack of ram sure is aparent, but i find that for word processesing, web surfing, listening to itunes and instant messeging, his computer is able to preform those task in a acceptable speed.

aethier
 
Nah, it seems like if I upgrade now it'd be a step backwards as far a performance, so I'll give it time. I'm patient, obviously, since I've been waiting for 3 years until it's starting to become apparent that OS 9 is becoming a dinosaur from the past. I can no longer go to the Apple store and buy anything since it's all OS X, which is reversed from when OS X 10.0 came out and everything was still OS 9. I've set my deadline, basically, so by the end of the year I am planning to be on a new PowerBook with Panther...I'd say that's a pretty nice step up from what I am running currently. :)
 
[/B][/QUOTE]
OS X rocks. If you are having issues with iMovie make sure you're on the latest version of everything via Software Update. I have 4 Macs running OS X and none of them are experiencing iMovie isssues...
Make sure you have maxed out your ram though. This is a big help. I cannot believe if you have OS X runing on a 12PB with 640MB of RAM it could be slow. My laptop is a 900MHz iBook g3 with 640MB of ram and it is fast as 800Mhz iMac.
Get more ram and give the OS a chance you'll love it once you get used to the change...
MacBoyX [/B][/QUOTE]

i have to max out my ram to get imovie to work even though it
worked fine on an old g3 machine?? that just doesnt seem right.

i updated imovie, os10 and quick time today and imovie still
crashes.

im very disapointed in apple, i thought i could expect more from
them.

im afrad if they dont get these issues fixed then they are f***ed
 
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