Leopard on G4 machines?

[tderemigis]

I am fixing up some old machines and giving them to family members and I'm not sure whether to install Leopard or Tiger on them.

The first is:
iBook G4 1Ghz
768 MB ram
60 GB HD

The other:
Quicksilver PowerMac G4 733Mhz
512MB ram
80 GB hd.

Thanks for any input.

 

[doteyes9]

Leopard WILL run on the iBook, but not the Power Mac. I say that it WILL run because it is capable but it will be slightly delayed because it barely is over the minimum requirements. I recommend putting Tiger on both machines.

 

[pianoman]

stick with Tiger. it runs much better than Leopard on older machines.

 

[lovemac125]

I agree tiger is just fine.

 

[HawaiiMacAddict]

aloha tderemigis,

Even though your PowerMac is not up to minimum specs, you can install Leopard using LeopardAssist. Apparently there is no technical reason that sub-867MHz G4 CPU Macs can not install Leopard - except for one line of code that does a check against the maximum clock speed of the CPU. Actually, the same file contains a line of code that calls for the install to fail if installation is attempted on a G3, so with a bit of tweaking the LeopardAssist app, you could, conceivably, install Leopard on a G3. I do not know of anyone that has tried to do just that, however. That being said, I would max out your RAM, regardless of whether you stay with Tiger or try out Leopard.

I'm considering using LeopardAssist to install Leopard on my PowerMac G4, but I'll wait until my SuperDrive arrives in the mail. I'm out in Hawaii, so I thought that using the cheapest mailing method to me would be fine. Unfortunately (for me at least), OWC uses USPS Parcel post for their cheapest shipping method - it may arrive in a FEW WEEKS! Give LeopardAssist a shot and let us know if it works for you. When my SuperDrive arrives, I'll give it a shot and let everyone know how well it works for me as well.

HawaiiMacAddict

 

[HawaiiMacAddict]

Aloha tderemigis,

Scratch what I wrote earlier about possibly installing on a G3 - the CPU doesn't have the AltiVec instruction set, so installation is impossible.

HawaiiMacAddict

 

[iCeFuSiOn]

Aloha tderemigis,

Scratch what I wrote earlier about possibly installing on a G3 - the CPU doesn't have the AltiVec instruction set, so installation is impossible.

HawaiiMacAddict

I've heard of it being done, but a lot of functions in the operating system are broken. Not impossible, but surely not a very good solution.

To the original poster: The iBook should run Leopard just fine, if you're really worried you could bump the ram up to 1 (or 1.25?) GB which should give it some breathing room.

As for the PowerMac G4, I've heard reports that you could start it in Target Disk mode and then install Leopard from a supported Mac using a firewire cable (installing the PowerMac G4's hard drive). Note you'd have to be doing this from a PPC to PPC Mac configuration, if you do this from an Intel to PPC configuration it will fail.

Good luck. 🙂

 

[trainguy77]

I have it running on a 1ghz emac and i haven't noticed it to be any slower then tiger.

 

[hodgjy]

I have an iBook 1.2ghz computer. I was running Tiger, but I bought a family pack so I can install Leopard on my iMac and iBook. At the time, my iBook had 512mb of ram. It ran Leopard pretty well, but Tiger was more responsive. I didn't want to go back to Tiger because I already paid for the family pack, so I upgraded my ram to 1.25 gb in hopes Leopard would be better. It actually wasn't. I concluded it wasn't a memory issue, but a processor issue. Tiger is better on the G4 than Leopard, so I went back to Tiger on my iBook. Now, with 1.25gb of ram, Tiger screams like it's never screamed before on it.

So, unless you absolutely need the features of Leopard, I would stick with Tiger. It's more mature and very fast on G4 machines.