Hello, as the title states.. I have a PowerBook G4 DLSD and I found out on os9lives.com that 9 can be installed on non-supported G4's. Has anyone tried this ? It would be cool to install OS 9 on the last PowerBook G4 and boot into it.
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OS 9 on PB G4
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I tried it on my G4 mini a while back. No wifi, no sound (except through headphone jack) and mouse would stop working randomly. I gave up on it a few hours later.
Cheers
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So, I guess its not worth it. Oh well.
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So, here is another question.. What Linux would be good for the G4 PowerBook.. I tried to run Linux on the G5 Quad and keep getting blank screens - my video card is the 6600 256MB Nvidia. It was latest Ubuntu.
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So, here is another question.. What Linux would be good for the G4 PowerBook.. I tried to run Linux on the G5 Quad and keep getting blank screens - my video card is the 6600 256MB Nvidia. It was latest Ubuntu.
Well, you could still try it. Might work better on a PB than a MM. That was just my experience.
As for Linux... depends on what you are looking for. For your powerbook if you want something that just "works" out of the box with no extra post install fiddle farting around, my ubuntu 12 remix runs blazing fast on my 1.67ghz powerbook, and has some updated software and browsers added. If you want current bleeding edge (but generally slower performance and a pain to install) Debian Sid. If you want current, but not bleeding edge, my ubuntu 16 remix is decent and speed is ok. If you like bleeding edge with *some* post install fiddling, void-ppc runs decently.
Cheers
Edit: Video of ubuntu 12 remix on dual G5 and mac mini G4
forums.macrumors.com
As for Linux... depends on what you are looking for. For your powerbook if you want something that just "works" out of the box with no extra post install fiddle farting around, my ubuntu 12 remix runs blazing fast on my 1.67ghz powerbook, and has some updated software and browsers added. If you want current bleeding edge (but generally slower performance and a pain to install) Debian Sid. If you want current, but not bleeding edge, my ubuntu 16 remix is decent and speed is ok. If you like bleeding edge with *some* post install fiddling, void-ppc runs decently.
Cheers
Edit: Video of ubuntu 12 remix on dual G5 and mac mini G4
Ubuntu Remix on a PowerMac G5 in 2020 (Video)
Sorry for the 480p quality. I need a better phone and/or camera. Anyway, here is a quick video of ubuntu 12 remix on one of my powermacs. All videos were played in 720p (except youtube which i have defaulted to 360p/480p), Twitch was streamed at 720p as well. Browser used was SpiderWeb as its a...
forums.macrumors.com
I'm pretty sure the DLSD isn't supported - it might boot but it will be severly hobbled with no sound, wifi and likely 640X480 display.
I disagree with this completely. The Mac mini is one of THE best Mac OS 9 machines. Use Ethernet 2 WiFi adapters, external aux powered speakers (or headphones), and your set. You’ll have one of the most powerful Mac OS 9 machines available.
The official fastest OS 9 G4 from Apple was 1.25GHZ for context.
The mouse freezing only happens sometimes IMMEDIATELY after boot. It will not just randomly freeze after a successful boot so it’s not annoying. You can setup a reboot hotkey to safely reboot if this occurs.
Burning CD’s with the internal drive in OS 9 doesn’t work, but reading does.
OS 9 uses less the 100mb while using apps most of the time. Every game I’ve thrown at the OS 9 mini plays maxed out, 480p MP4’s play full speed, things a powerhouse.
It’s not perfect but they backported an os released 6 years older then the hardware. Completely usable, and OS 9 takes such little space to install that there isn’t a reason not to do it for a mini.
Now for the PowerBook, from what I’ve read I don’t think it’s worth it if essentially nothing works but it boots. The mini is different, it’s a desktop.
OS 9 on the DLSD should be doable with some effort, tho you are likely going to come up with issues that are roadblocks.
Off the top of my head, Apple may have used a non-standard HID device for the tracpad, and OS 9 may not track with it, or tracking maybe very slow. Also, no power management, likely no sound, no wifi or bluetooth, and no acceleration for the display.
Also, the latest issue of the Mini OS 9 ISO fixes the mouse freeze bug.
Off the top of my head, Apple may have used a non-standard HID device for the tracpad, and OS 9 may not track with it, or tracking maybe very slow. Also, no power management, likely no sound, no wifi or bluetooth, and no acceleration for the display.
Also, the latest issue of the Mini OS 9 ISO fixes the mouse freeze bug.
That's weird. The G4 Mini is known to be very compatible with OS 9. Many people run it with full support, other than wifi. Perhaps you were running an old version of the unsupported G4s OS 9 image.
As for OP, definitely not. The Mini G4 has hardware all compatible with OS 9. The DLSD powerbook has no hardware compatible with OS 9. I'm fairly certain that the PPC 7447a that it has isn't even compatible, though I might be wrong about that. However nothing else would work even if you did get it to boot. No GPU, no sound, no networking.
There are better machines for running OS 9. The mini G4 is the top contender usually (again idk why wicknix was having those problems) The earlier Al PBG4s work okay, 1Ghz/867Mhz models. All TiBooks. The early iBook G4s too.
I do have 2 of the 1.5ghz minis. Do older slower models have better support? I never really dug in to the specs and differences between mini models.
Cheers
Cheers
As far as I know they all work the same. I also have the 1.5Ghz. They have a Radeon 9200 which is fully supported in OS 9.
Hmm. Ok. Well, it was last summer when I tried it. Will check for another iso and give it another go one of these days.
Cheers
Cheers
To be fair, I've never actually installed OS 9 on mine. So all of this info comes as here-say from me. But if you do a quick google about OS 9 on a Mac Mini it should yield a few results. The only "unsupported G4" I have booting OS 9 is my 1Ghz iMac G4 at the moment.
I've done it on my mini and this reminds me to put update v9 on it. That one should include a fix of sorts for the timing of the Radeon 9200, which didn't always play nicely with some TVs used as monitors.
A year or two ago, you couldn't give away a Mini G4. Getting OS9 to run on them smoothly has given it a new life as a retro Mac gaming machine. The form factor also works to its advantage over the PowerMacs.
A year or two ago, you couldn't give away a Mini G4. Getting OS9 to run on them smoothly has given it a new life as a retro Mac gaming machine. The form factor also works to its advantage over the PowerMacs.
I'd go dual-boot Tiger /w Classic and Leopard then, max-out RAM and throw in an mSATA-IDE-converter-combo.
And use a mobile device for anything video-streaming or connecting to the cloud. A mobile device is a good hub, to connect cloud and PPC too (via AFP).
Personally I haven't been happy with any of my trials to run Linux on either PPC or early-intel though I'd rather like to use it for office, VPN and RDP and because I like the designs of KDE and GNOME desktop-GUI.
My poor experience certainly comes from my limited experience about Linux and no desperate urge to run Linux - except from experimental usage in a virtual machine.
Tiger/Leopard are so very well adapted to Apple's PPC hardware, that I personally couldn't find any real advantage of Linux over OSX, except more temporary browsers, but unfortunately contemporary Linux browsers also struggle on bloated web-sites, and video on Linux has the same limits like OSX, when it comes to play compressed / streamed video.
OSX on PPC otherwise offers nearly everything for a good office-companion: LibreOffice, MS Office 2008, DEVONthink, PDF-management, IMAP-mail, (S)FTP, Screen/FileSharing/VNC/RDP, VirtualPC /w Win2k/XP(Fundamentals) etc. and also RedHat6-Linux as a VM, but I didn't find any use for it yet.
For the fastest OS 9 laptop I’d definitely go with the fastest Apple officially supported, the 1Ghz PowerBook Titanium.
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Source? I am unaware of this fix on the mini.
Ok, I have decided not to try on the DLSD with OS 9 - someone also on OS 9 lives told me that its not possible to get it to work, boot yes, but not fully work. I do have a PowerBook G4 Pismo(was G3 500) - I may play with OS 9 on that. As for a PB G4 Titanium 1ghz - I could not find one and the ones on eBay are in horrible condition.
Use the PowerBook! My iBook G3 clamshell runs os 9 perfectly @300mhz (definitely not as powerful as my desktop mini however).
Oh I plan to. I have nostalgia of OS 9 for some reason and some really cool stuff is being made for OS 9 at os9lives.com - a whole new Mac OS ROM was created and offers better features.
Definitely. I meant as strictly “unsupported G4s” that work well. The TiBook is officially supported.
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I have 3 TiBooks. All of which I’ve gotten off of shopgoodwill.com
It’s hit or miss with that site, but I haven’t paid over $50 for one yet, and all of the models I got worked. You also don’t usually know which one you get as they usually don’t test that far. One of mine (first one ironically) ended up being 1Ghz. The other ones are slower, but they’re all in good shape albeit a couple dents on one of them.
More than one. We are on v9 of the Install disk for the MacMini G4. Just go and look at the forum at macos9lives.com. It's been mentioned enough on this thread already.
The latest ROM includes a fix for missing OS9 drivers on hard drives. You no longer have to wipe and repartition if you already have OSX on the drive.
As said, the DLSD G4 will be pretty seriously handicapped if you do get it booting due to the Radeon 9700. I don't think there will ever be OS 9 drivers to support these GPUs.
I have run OS 9 on 7447s-Sonnet and others back in the day shipped patches with their 7447-based upgrades. The only caveat with that is that the CPU reporting in system profiler can be weird, but that's quite literally the only issue I've noticed, and it's not even an issue unless you go looking for it.
If you want to run on an ALBook, one of the nicest running ones for OS 9 is the first generation 17". It runs pretty seamlessly aside from WiFi not working, and there are even ways around that(remove the internal Airport Extreme card and use an Orinoco Gold Carbus card).
I've not had good luck with Linux on the DLSD. It runs decently, but I found the trackpad all but unuseable.
I have run OS 9 on 7447s-Sonnet and others back in the day shipped patches with their 7447-based upgrades. The only caveat with that is that the CPU reporting in system profiler can be weird, but that's quite literally the only issue I've noticed, and it's not even an issue unless you go looking for it.
If you want to run on an ALBook, one of the nicest running ones for OS 9 is the first generation 17". It runs pretty seamlessly aside from WiFi not working, and there are even ways around that(remove the internal Airport Extreme card and use an Orinoco Gold Carbus card).
I've not had good luck with Linux on the DLSD. It runs decently, but I found the trackpad all but unuseable.
old thread, but I’m working on a similar 17” Al powerbook project. @bunnspecial I didn’t think cardbus worked on this machine is MacOS9? It shows up in system profiler but even a compact flash reader didn’t show up.