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OS X on G4
- Thread starter edie5
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Yes, up to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), but 10.4 (Tiger) might be a better suit.
What G4 and Mac are you talking about?
What G4 and Mac are you talking about?
It's an older G4 Motorola processor 800 MHz I think. I must reinstall due to hard disk failure.
Mac OS X 10.5 does require a G4 867 MHz CPU as minimum, so you either should get Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) or 10.4.
Don't you have any restore CDs?
And what Mac is it?
iMac, PowerBook, iBook, PowerMac, ... ?
Don't you have any restore CDs?
And what Mac is it?
iMac, PowerBook, iBook, PowerMac, ... ?
One can still run 10.5 with a simple firmware command. It runs fine on my G4 466Mhz.
http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/openfirmware.html
1. Reboot your Mac and hold down the Cmd-Opt-O-F keys until you get a white screen with black text. This is the Open Firmware prompt.
2. Insert the Mac OS X Leopard Install DVD.
3. Type the following lines exactly as shown below into the Open Firmware prompt. Be mindful of capitalization, spaces, zeros, etc. If the command is properly typed and understood, Open Firmware will display "ok" at the end of each line after you hit "return". What these lines do is set the CPU speed reported by Open Firmware to OS X as an 867 MHz G4 processor system. They then continue the boot from the DVD drive.
For single CPUs, use the following three lines:
dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0
d# 867000000 encode-int " clock-frequency" property
boot cd:,\\:tbxi
For dual CPUs, use the following five lines:
dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0
d# 867000000 encode-int " clock-frequency" property
dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@1
d# 867000000 encode-int " clock-frequency" property
boot cd:,\\:tbxi
4. Continue the install normally.
5. This CPU setting is only in effect until the Mac reboots. Once OS X Leopard is installed and your Mac has rebooted, the proper CPU speed should once again be displayed when you select About This Mac under the Apple menu.
I know, but I didn't want to confuse the poster.
Btw, how fast or slow is 10.5 on your 466MHz G4?
I had installed it on my G4 iBook 1GHz and it was okay, but it felt a lot slower than Tiger.
Yes, I have the original restore disks, but the Internet Explorer says "too old for upgrade", Netscape just won't work and so on. So I'm looking if is possible to install some more fresh OS.
What mac? It's a desktop G4 (the only name I know). A beautyful rounded chassis made of plastic with plastic holders to carry it. I just don't know other name for it. Was bought around ten years from now.
For more info I must go to my office where it is, tomorrow.
No, that are newest!
Yes, it is a Power Mac G4, now I remember.
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It felt snappier under Leopard than Tiger, both fresh installs running the same apps. The G4 has 768MB RAM and two 20GB drives in RAID 0. I only ran one task at a time with it, with an 800Mhz G4 the Op shouldn't be trying to multi-task anyways except with Text Edit, Mail and Calculator.
The computer has no real practical use as my gaming rig, G5 and Macbook run circles around it. I just placed 10.5 on it to see how it would perform with basic word processing and web surfing, then let it run Seti searches for a while. My only real reason for having the thing is running Mac OS 9 games like Age of Empires 1 and Sim City 3000, it is much snappier with 9.2
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Ah, the system info shows the 400 MHz processor. I have no problem with that. When I've inserted the disk in the window it says (Tiger): "Restart" and after clicking on it: "Cannot set the CD as startup disk" (no matter is DVD disk). Is the DVD drive faulty or I have to set some options for the drive to be set as "startup disk"?
Make sure the disk is in the drive and shut your mac down. Then power on and hold down the c key when you hear the startup chime.
Release the C key when it starts to boot (should be a white screen with the Apple Logo in grey in the centre)