Just purchased a Powermac G4

[ShadowPuppet]

Just picked up a Powermac G4 500 Mhz from a local hamfest on the cheap. Came with no OS, 7 GB harddrive, 512 mb ram. Thinking about getting 10.4 for this machine, not looking do do anything serious (my roommate's big into macs, this is my first one ) or to really put any money into it.

Anyway, I was just wondering if 10.4 would run fine enough (given my limited ram and no concrete plans on getting more), and what sort of things I could mess with on this machine.

Thanks!

 

[brad.c]

My in-laws run 10.4 just fine on their G4, but I upgraded their ram (on the cheap) to ~1GB.
I say "just fine", as long as you don't compare speeds with anything faster. Quicktime movies do skip pretty heavily.

 

[SkyBell]

Yeah, it should work OK, Tiger does well with 512 MB. The processor is the biggest concern, but for basic use it should do.

 

[michael.lauden]

Yeah, it should work OK, Tiger does well with 512 MB. The processor is the biggest concern, but for basic use it should do.

i don't think you will enjoy running it on 512mb. but that doesn't mean it won't work....

 

[SkyBell]

i don't think you will enjoy running it on 512mb. but that doesn't mean it won't work....

Meh, it does OK with Safari, iChat and iTunes on my iBook G3 (800 MHz, 256 MB RAM) so it should be fine on the OP's machine.

But that's just my opinion, I know most people have a higher standard for what is usable then I do.

 

[ShadowPuppet]

Thanks for the input! I might grab some more ram if messing with the system becomes intriguing enough. Now off to find a cheap copy of Tiger!

 

[michael.lauden]

Meh, it does OK with Safari, iChat and iTunes on my iBook G3 (800 MHz, 256 MB RAM) so it should be fine on the OP's machine.

But that's just my opinion, I know most people have a higher standard for what is usable then I do.

well, let me just say you will definitely notice lagging.

more than one tab open in safari, running a few applications.

iTunes is going to probably suck... definitely will remind you that you are using an outdated machine.