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Ariii

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 26, 2012
681
8
Chicago
Hi! I just won a Key Lime iBook on eBay, and am giving my old 1 GHz PowerBook G4 (Aluminum) on eBay to my 11 year old sister. It has 512 MB RAM on it and Mac OS X 10.5.8, and I am fine with the speed, but she might not. I don't have the install discs for 10.4.11, though, so that might be a problem, and she doesn't seem like she wants to upgrade it at all. So, with the Leopard installation, should it be okay for some light Flash gaming and emulation? She uses the family's Core Duo Mini for that and things for school (It has 10.4.11). So, I'm planning on disabling the DashBoard, SpotLight, and Spaces. Is there anything else I could do to speed it up that doesn't cost money or is that all I can do? She doesn't have much knowledge about computers at all, so I'm a bit hesitant to try XUbuntu to speed it up. I might get a 1 GHz TiBook in the future in case I need more power, so should cloning the HDD with 10.5.8 to the TiBook work?
 

MAC MAN JW

macrumors 6502
Jul 12, 2011
320
17
Buffalo,Ny
Hi! I just won a Key Lime iBook on eBay, and am giving my old 1 GHz PowerBook G4 (Aluminum) on eBay to my 11 year old sister. It has 512 MB RAM on it and Mac OS X 10.5.8, and I am fine with the speed, but she might not. I don't have the install discs for 10.4.11, though, so that might be a problem, and she doesn't seem like she wants to upgrade it at all. So, with the Leopard installation, should it be okay for some light Flash gaming and emulation? She uses the family's Core Duo Mini for that and things for school (It has 10.4.11). So, I'm planning on disabling the DashBoard, SpotLight, and Spaces. Is there anything else I could do to speed it up that doesn't cost money or is that all I can do? She doesn't have much knowledge about computers at all, so I'm a bit hesitant to try XUbuntu to speed it up. I might get a 1 GHz TiBook in the future in case I need more power, so should cloning the HDD with 10.5.8 to the TiBook work?

I know you said you don't want to put money in to it but if i wear you i would put 1GB or more of RAM in it. Flash Player and Safari or Tenfourfox can take up 400+MB in no Time, Also the latest Flash Player Version it can run is 10.1 it will work but will be slow I only run Flash on 1.25GHz G4's and up.:)
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,698
26,713
I bought my son a 1GHZ Titanium DVI a few months ago. He's 8, but he plays a lot of flash games online and it does pretty well. It's running Leopard and it does have 1GB of ram, so that may be the difference.

The few times I've been on it, it's been a fast machine. Since the one you are giving out is an AlBook I imagine it's probably either equal to or faster than my son's machine.
 

Ariii

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 26, 2012
681
8
Chicago
I know you said you don't want to put money in to it but if i wear you i would put 1GB or more of RAM in it. Flash Player and Safari or Tenfourfox can take up 400+MB in no Time, Also the latest Flash Player Version it can run is 10.1 it will work but will be slow I only run Flash on 1.25GHz G4's and up.:)
Thanks! I'll try to convince my sister to upgrade it.
I bought my son a 1GHZ Titanium DVI a few months ago. He's 8, but he plays a lot of flash games online and it does pretty well. It's running Leopard and it does have 1GB of ram, so that may be the difference.

The few times I've been on it, it's been a fast machine. Since the one you are giving out is an AlBook I imagine it's probably either equal to or faster than my son's machine.
By the way, the 1 GHz TiBook was the machine I was planning to replace my AlBook with :). The install disks cost a lot, and the existing installation slowed things down enough (I got it used for $65) that I might want to even try XUbuntu on it. What's probably the cheapest way to get an install disk? I was also planning to get a TiBook and install Leopard on it, so it'll probably be worth it if it's under $50. I use Quick Look enough and a couple other features/Leopard only apps enough that it would be worth it for $50.

Also, I was planning to upgrade the HDD in my Key Lime to 32 GB, and thought of just getting a SSD anyways. Would it be worth it?
 

sigamy

macrumors 65816
Mar 7, 2003
1,392
181
NJ USA
I bought my son a 1GHZ Titanium DVI a few months ago. He's 8, but he plays a lot of flash games online and it does pretty well. It's running Leopard and it does have 1GB of ram, so that may be the difference.

The few times I've been on it, it's been a fast machine. Since the one you are giving out is an AlBook I imagine it's probably either equal to or faster than my son's machine.

I've had the opposite experience with Flash on a 1.25 Ghz eMac. Sites like Club Penguin and YouTube were just too slow to be useful. Maybe the PowerBook has faster FSB or bigger cache...
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,698
26,713
I've had the opposite experience with Flash on a 1.25 Ghz eMac. Sites like Club Penguin and YouTube were just too slow to be useful. Maybe the PowerBook has faster FSB or bigger cache...
My experience has been the same with my PowerBooks. But the sites my son is visiting with his PowerBook tend to be simple game sites. We're talking about small sites that feature lots of uncomplicated homebrew games. Maybe on occaision Nick or Disney Jr.

He's not on Youtube or Hulu or anything like that. So, in this respect it's working for him.
 

tom vilsack

macrumors 68000
Nov 20, 2010
1,880
63
ladner cdn
If she is like most young girls,she is gonna spend lots of time on facebook,utube ect...and well as much as we like old powerbooks,she may find it poor for her needs.

For about $150 you could find her a good used craigs netbook that might suit her better.
 
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