Modern Use of a PowerMac G5 1.8DP

[A.Goldberg]

Hi Everyone,

This is my second post here at MR. I did some brief searching through the PPC sticky to try to answer some questions, but I still have a couple remaining.

Background: A few months ago acquired an old PowerMac G5 1.8 Dual Processor with 2.5GB of Ram and a 22" apple cinema display running OS X 10.5.8. Price paid... $0.00 and everything seems to be in impeccable condition! I already own a couple modern Macs so this computer clearly isn't going to be for everyday use. I'll probably set it up to act as as server and to receive faxes... or maybe I will just end up giving it my 10 year old cousin to play around with since i know he has an interest in apple products.

Last week I decided to get it up and running. I have a bunch of old PPC compatible software that I dug out from ages ago. MS office and Adobe CS work fantastically on it and it handles giant PDF's like a champ. Here are my few remaining questions...
1) What is the best web browser to use? Safari is obviously dated and can lag
2) While a solution is really not imperative, what is the best solution to run youtube. It works, but videos tend to be choppy. What about netflix? Am I asking too much an obsolete computer?
3) Do you have other recommendations to make this guy as up to date as possible

Thanks for your help!

- Ari

 

[AppleGeek1127]

Here are some essential steps to getting a PowerPC Mac running acceptably in the modern world:

1. Run Software Update

2. Disable Dashboard by executing the following command in Terminal

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
killall Dock

3. Install Monolingual to delete unneccesary Architectures/Languages

4. Install TenFourFox/WebKit - both are needed for modern browsing

5. Install Office 2008 or iWork '09

Keep in mind, you may want/need to take further steps depending on your usage.

 

[poiihy]

few remaining questions...
1) What is the best web browser to use? Safari is obviously dated and can lag
2) While a solution is really not imperative, what is the best solution to run youtube. It works, but videos tend to be choppy. What about netflix? Am I asking too much an obsolete computer?
3) Do you have other recommendations to make this guy as up to date as possible

1) TenFourFox
2) I've heard of YouView and MacTubes
3) If you want "up to date as possible" then install Ubuntu Linux or similar. They still have support for PowerPC today and you will be able to run newer software.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Your G5 will be excellent for nearly everything.
TenFourFox is best choice for secure web browsing.
Safari Webkit has the edge for speed but isn't secure or upto date. Install Clicktoplugin for it, this disables flash by default and allows Youtube vids to play in Quicktime and/or be downloaded.
If you spend a lot of time Youtubing, Youview is a dedicated app for it and is by far the best way to go.
You'll find the G5 is fantastic for any productivity if you use the software from it's era.

 

[Surrat]

For G5's, I highly recommend searching ebay for a 'Mac Box Set', it was sold by apple and includes Leopard, iLife09, and iWork09, all in one box.

Other excellent PPC software I use regularly:
MS Office 08 (ms office requires a genuine legal install and reg key, buy new sealed copies on ebay)
LibreOffice free ms office alternative
Maintenance, Onyx, and Deeper
ClamXav antivirus to keep pesky PC virus away from your powermac
Geekbench, GeoFX Openmark, xbench, and Cinebench benchmarks
Google Earth, TenFourFox, Skype, and Colloquy for IRC
GrandPerspective to see drive usage
Our terrific Minecraft 1.5.1 to play on the unofficial macrumors server by Keaton.
Teamviewer, Temperature monitor, IPScanner, and iStumbler
Monolingual, xSlimmer for removing unused language, layouts, archetectures
YouView, and of course VLC media player

 

[A.Goldberg]

Thanks for the advice everyone!

TenFourFox works excellent, so much better than safari.

I currently have Adobe CS1, Office '08, and I believe the original version of iWork.

Can someone be more specific in how I go into the terminal to disable dashboard. I've honestly never used the terminal before in my 11 years of using Macs.

 

[jbarley]

Can someone be more specific in how I go into the terminal to disable dashboard. I've honestly never used the terminal before in my 11 years of using Macs.

Open a Terminal window, then select the total 2 lines below (cmd+C) and paste it into the Terminal window (cmd+V) then press (Enter) and you're done.

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
killall Dock