I just picked up a pb titanium dvi model with a 800mhz ppc g4 for 10 bucks on eBay. I was wondering what os would be the best option for it. This will be used for note taking and very very very very light Internet use ( no YouTube at all just email mostly). I got it because I just got a new job and will be living in a hotel for three months during training and I don't want to bring my MacBook Pro. It has 1 gig of ram and a 40 gig hard drive. Thanks for the input.
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PowerBook Titanium g4 DVI question.
- Thread starter akshep
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simsaladimbamba
Guest
simsaladimbamba
Guest
Both will run well, Mac OS X 10.3 Panther was the first solid Mac OS X version and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger was one of the best Mac OS X version.
I ran Mac OS X 10.3 Panther on my 2004 G4 iBook with 1 GHz and 768 MB RAM and upgraded to Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in 2005 and it even ran faster. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard may run, but it makes a lot of things slower.
And Spotlight is a big plus in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. No you just have to find a RETAIL version of it though.
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
You can run Leopard on it. You might have to use LeopardAssist, or Target Disk Mode as I don't remember the requirements.
But I don't suspect you'll be upgrading hardware much given what you intend to use it for.
Ordinarily, I'd suggest Leopard, but if you won't be upgrading hardware (RAM, HD) then Tiger will do just fine for what you want.
Panther is very stable, but even for what you intend I think it's just too old.
BTW, you beat me on price. 🙂
I got a 1GHZ Titanium DVI for my son from a business equipment liquidator on eBay for $25, but your $10 beats mine, lol!
But I don't suspect you'll be upgrading hardware much given what you intend to use it for.
Ordinarily, I'd suggest Leopard, but if you won't be upgrading hardware (RAM, HD) then Tiger will do just fine for what you want.
Panther is very stable, but even for what you intend I think it's just too old.
BTW, you beat me on price. 🙂
I got a 1GHZ Titanium DVI for my son from a business equipment liquidator on eBay for $25, but your $10 beats mine, lol!
1 gig of ram is the max. I just don't feel comfortable taking my MacBook Pro to a hotel for 3 months. Now I need to find tiger. Thanks for the help.
Well I've had the laptop for a couple of days and I have to say I'm impressed with this machine for its age. It turned out to the a 1ghz g4 and not the 800mhz that it was listed as. It runs tiger like a boss and with tenfourfox the Internets not too bad. The only issue is that the screen starts to go fuzzy unless you have it a a certain point. When you run it on an external monitor it runs fine so I'm assuming its a connection issue between it and the computer.
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
You can run Leopard then. My son is running 10.5.8.
You have the PowerBook my son has. It came with broken hinges so I swapped the screen. The issue you describe is probably because of either the internal cables or the display inverter. The solution is either a new display (if it's the cables) or a new inverter. If you end up getting a new display for Godssake make sure you get one with hinges. I haven't had to do it yet, but the procedure to remove the hinges from the display is a Frankenstein operation. There are vertical prongs that go up in to the display and you have to separate the bottom of the display (strong glue) to get the hinges out of the LCD.
The hinges are great on this laptop. They feel better than my dads lenovo thinkpad thats 2 years old. What ever the issue is im sure it wont be too bad to fix. It doesn't do it often though.
Anonymous Freak
macrumors 603
Tiger.
Leopard is now obsolete enough that there isn't any major software that will run on Leopard that won't run on Tiger that is still up to date.
The best PPC browser, TenFourFox, as its name implies, runs just fine on OS X 10.4 Tiger.
There are many text editors, including rich-text editors, available for 10.4 that work great on an 800 MHz G4.
If you need Microsoft Office compatibility, Office:mac 2008 will run just fine on 10.4 on an 800 MHz G4, and can work with the current format Office documents just fine.
Leopard is now obsolete enough that there isn't any major software that will run on Leopard that won't run on Tiger that is still up to date.
The best PPC browser, TenFourFox, as its name implies, runs just fine on OS X 10.4 Tiger.
There are many text editors, including rich-text editors, available for 10.4 that work great on an 800 MHz G4.
If you need Microsoft Office compatibility, Office:mac 2008 will run just fine on 10.4 on an 800 MHz G4, and can work with the current format Office documents just fine.
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
I'm sorry, but there are lots of apps that will run on Leopard, but not Tiger. Unless, you're meaning that the OP should run even OLDER versions of apps that are for Tiger and not Leopard?
If this goes back to the old saw of "Leopard is slow and won't run well on older PowerBooks/PowerMacs", I assure you that this is not the case. Leopard is running just fine on my son's PowerBook, which is the same model as the one in this thread.
Also, I can guarantee you that Aurorafox, which is designed to run on 10.5 absolutely will NOT run on Tiger. T4Fx is great, but Aurorafox is better.
I am currently getting a copy of leopard (not a torrent all legal over here lol) and I'll get it a shot. Thanks for the input.
Anonymous Freak
macrumors 603
Yeah, I should have phrased it better. While, yes, there are apps that run on Leopard but not Tiger, my point is that many apps now that run on Leopard are no longer being updated.
As for Aurorafox, I had not heard of that, great to see! But its last update was in January - TenFourFox sees very regular development (it's latest update was less than a week ago.)
And I agree that Leopard runs "fine" on those systems, I have Leopard on an 800 MHz iMac G4. But Tiger is faster, if only just. And when combined with perfectly usable software, lower memory overhead (although with 1 GB, that might not be an issue if you only have light usage models,) I just find Tiger to be more "usable" on it.
But, it is all a matter of personal preference - we have given the OP two views to consider. It's all on akshep now. 🙂
(But I think everyone agrees that Panther and earlier shouldn't even be considered.)
I'm going to give leopard a go and see how it runs, though tiger runs great. All this will be used for is open office and email while I'm away form home. I have my iPad mini I'm taking with me for Netflix and YouTube.
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
Ah, no worries. I have to respond to your statement about apps not being updated for Leopard any more. That's true. But that also means that development has stopped for apps on Tiger as well. T4Fx is an exception, but T4Fx also runs on Leopard, therefore that exception also applies to Leopard.
And yes, Aurorafox has not been updated since January. I don't know what the dev is doing, but for awhile it was actually two versions ahead of T4Fx.
And I do have to disagree about speed. I had Tiger on both of my AlBook G4s and Leopard has simply blown Tiger away. I will grant that both of those Macs have 2GB of ram, but one of them is 1 Ghz and has a failed external cache. Leopard still performs better on that Mac. I also have all of the eye candy disabled so I will give you that one. But Tiger doesn't HAVE any eye candy (such as spacebar previews of files and coverflow), so this really isn't much of a give.
I'm not picking a fight, just stating my viewpoint. I respect your stance, we all have our own preferences as you mentioned. I just responded so that the record is clear.
BTW, as I have mentioned many times in the past, my coworker is using 10.5.8 on a PowerMac G4/450 PCI with 1.75GB of ram. She runs Adobe CS4, Acrobat 6 and 9 Pro, Suitcase Fusion 2 and QuarkXPress 8.x. She has dual Rage 128 graphic cards for twin monitors. That Mac is, indeed a bit slower than Tiger would be, but it keeps up and the work gets out. If I had Tiger on it there would be some apps she could not use.
I agree with you on Panther, although that was the most solid versions of OS X I have used to date. Tiger was hideous in a network environment, beach balls and slow file copys. Really frustrating. Leopard restored my faith.
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eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
Well it took some doing but I finally got leopard to install from USB. Let me say I forgot how SLOW usb 1.1 really was. It's in the process of installing now we will see how it runs tomorrow.
DrakkenWar
macrumors 6502
I would agree with 10.5.8
The only reason I went back to 10.4.11 here on my PB G4 1.5 was that the copy of 10.5 I got with this machine when I bought failed, the disks that were bundled with it were not the right ones. I had a copy of 10.4 handy and I was not will, and am still not willing to pay what many ask for an OS that is that old.
With that said, while I had 10.5.8 on my pb it was AWESOME, once you trim the eye candy and tweak out some other crap you really don't need. Run mono-lingual, it will not help performance, but with a 40gig hd? It will save some space.
I would think you will be quiet happy with 10.5.8 on that machine for what you want it to do, I would guess to say, you might find yourself doing more on it than you think while on the road. 🙂
The only reason I went back to 10.4.11 here on my PB G4 1.5 was that the copy of 10.5 I got with this machine when I bought failed, the disks that were bundled with it were not the right ones. I had a copy of 10.4 handy and I was not will, and am still not willing to pay what many ask for an OS that is that old.
With that said, while I had 10.5.8 on my pb it was AWESOME, once you trim the eye candy and tweak out some other crap you really don't need. Run mono-lingual, it will not help performance, but with a 40gig hd? It will save some space.
I would think you will be quiet happy with 10.5.8 on that machine for what you want it to do, I would guess to say, you might find yourself doing more on it than you think while on the road. 🙂