Picked up a G5 iMac, what to do with it?

[nudoru]

I picked up an old iMac G5 2.0ghz with 1.25gb of RAM. Only $10, and I thought it was an Intel and was going to make it an iTunes media server - But I have no idea what to do with a PPC mac.

Any ideas? Linux? Door stop?

I do have an old copy of Leopard. I didn't have a harddrive in it, so I need to buy/install one first. I have a 1tb SATA 3 drive, will that work in it?

 

[Projekt]

While support is waning, there are still some solid uses for older PPC machines. I use mine with XBMC (which still offers PPC support) and stream items to my TV from other computers in the house. Often I'll have something downloaded on my laptop and want to watch it on the TV, so I send it over the network and its ready to go in XBMC's library by the time I get downstairs.

Regarding the hard drive- its a bit of a pain to get to the drive in the G5 iMacs if I remember correctly. It is doable but be prepared to shred all that black plastic inside.

 

[Hastings101]

You can still make it an iTunes media server I think.

 

[tayloralmond]

All PowerPC Macs (running 10.5.8) have full iTunes support. You can run the latest iTunes and use home sharing to stream multimedia.

EDIT: Also, be sure to max the RAM. In regards to Linux, I wouldn't bother. Leopard still has a lot of support. It may be a good option in a few years, but for now, there's no reason to ditch OS X...that iMac will have no problems running Leopard effectively (so long as you max the RAM).

 

[nudoru]

Thanks everyone, I'll give it a go. I need to get a caddy for the harddrive off of ebay first, I can't get one in there w/o it. Saw them for $15, but I'll call the local Apple store and see if they have one.

Any opinions on the 1tb drive I have? Should it work just fine?

 

[tayloralmond]

Thanks everyone, I'll give it a go. I need to get a caddy for the harddrive off of ebay first, I can't get one in there w/o it. Saw them for $15, but I'll call the local Apple store and see if they have one.

Any opinions on the 1tb drive I have? Should it work just fine?

I doubt that SATA III drive will work with your iMac. iMac G5's only have SATA I support. Generally, SATA III drives don't have the ability to downclock to SATA I speeds. If I were you, I'd look into buying a small (32GB) SATA II SSD and installing that. Then you could put the 1TB in a FireWire 400 enclosure and use it to store all your music, videos, etc.

Also, if you buy a SSD, don't bother with the caddy, because the caddy is for 3.5 inch drives...but the SSD would be 2.5 inches. You can just use some strong tape and fasten the SSD inside. I did that exact thing with an iMac G5 I had a few months ago.