Tiger or Leopard for 867MHz TiBook?

[theMarble]

Hi everyone, I just picked up an 867MHz TiBook G4 in pretty good condition (except from some of the titanium paint wearing off) and am wondering what OS would be better for it, Tiger or Leopard? It doesn't have an AirPort card nor a DVD drive but it has a working FireWire and Ethernet port and I own a LaCie FireWire 400 DVD-RW drive.

I don't own a copy of Tiger but I do have a DVD of Leopard 10.5.4 from Apple.

Thanks!

 

[mectojic]

Tiger will always run very smoothly, so unless you have Leopard-only software, I'd say go with Tiger. In order to install Tiger, you could burn a DVD install of it using an online .iso, or burn CDs using the CD-based installer).

If you want to run Leopard, you'll need a lot of Ram – probably the maximum.

 

[theMarble]

Tiger will always run very smoothly, so unless you have Leopard-only software, I'd say go with Tiger. In order to install Tiger, you could burn a DVD install of it using an online .iso, or burn CDs using the CD-based installer).

If you want to run Leopard, you'll need a lot of Ram – probably the maximum.

I've decided to go with Leopard as I have the max 1GB of RAM

 

[Amethyst1]

I've decided to go with Leopard as I have the max 1GB of RAM

You can always dual-boot Tiger and Leopard to have the best of both worlds. And add OS 9 for the heck of it.

 

[bunnspecial]

My 867 was my first TiBook. I've only dual booted Leopard and OS 9, and don't think I've ever run Tiger on it. I've always been really happy with its performance.

I say that, but when I first got it the HDD ribbon cable was dead. While I was waiting on a replacement, I booted it off an external HDD that had a Leopard install on it via a USB-IDE bridge. That was painful, and actually almost comical in that it took better than 10 minutes to reach a useable desktop.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Between Tiger and leopard, my preference is Leopard but it can run somewhat sluggish and hotter comparatively. I dual boot Tiger and Leopard on my 12” 867mhz powerbook. While I prefer leopard, I find myself using Tiger more often because it pushes the machine less running cooler.

 

[Amethyst1]

I say that, but when I first got it the HDD ribbon cable was dead. While I was waiting on a replacement, I booted it off an external HDD that had a Leopard install on it via a USB-IDE bridge. That was painful, and actually almost comical in that it took better than 10 minutes to reach a useable desktop.

USB 1.1 is painfully slow. Thank heavens for FireWire.

 

[bunnspecial]

USB 1.1 is painfully slow. Thank heavens for FireWire.

Yes, definitely.

As we know, a lot of USB 1.1 Macs make booting off USB really easy, while it largely went away from the boot picker menu in USB 2.0 PPC Macs.

I've had a bit of a cynical theory on that for a while. Apple had a vested interest in Firewire while USB was a fairly open industry standard. FW400 in the "real world" is generally faster than USB 2.0 given that it generally will hold its speed even under heavy CPU useage where USB 2.0 can slow down a decent amount.

About the time Apple started(grudgingly) shipping USB 2.0, FW800 was out, which of course walks all over USB 2.0.

I've speculated for a while that Apple was okay with USB booting over USB 1.1 because they knew it would be a miserable enough experience that most people would only do it as a last resort and instead opt for Firewire. USB 2.0 is, IME, at least as fast if not faster for booting than an optical drive, and I've often wondered if Apple made booting over it something that was involved enough that people often will still parrot now that PPC Macs "can't" boot over USB specifically to push people to use their own Firewire.

The same thing played out in 2011/2012 when Apple started adding Thunderbolt while USB 3.0 was common in the rest of the industry. Even TB1 is faster than USB 3.0(by about double) but back then was crazy expensive. I can remember buying a USB 3.0/FW800 LaCie Rugged drive at the Apple store when I was in a pinch one time. It was maybe $200 for a 2tb drive. I could have bought the same in USB 3.0/TB but it was I think over $300 and didn't include a cable. This would have been maybe 2013 or so(the HDD in my MBP was on its way out and was under Applecare replacement-to give a time anchor this was shortly after Mavericks had dropped and I remember that I'd installed it when my computer slowed down hoping a clean OS might fix it) and I needed the drive to salvage my files off my old one since I'd been sloppy about Time Machine.

In any case, I seem to recall at the time that only Apple made TB cables and they were $50 for 6 ft. Belkin may or may not have made them at the time, but even the Belkin cables were $40 for 6ft., and even if they were out the store only had Apple ones.

In any case, even though USB booting has always been easy and robust on Intel Macs(I've never had a single hiccup from a good image, and I think I've even gotten away with just tossing a .dmg on a drive rather than restoring it), I think Apple resisted USB 3.0 because TB was/is their technology. It finally came in 2012. Of course that's a moot point now since USB and TB even share the same port!

 

[Amethyst1]

I've had a bit of a cynical theory on that for a while.

That theory makes perfect sense. I think early versions of OS X (up to and including Panther?) don't even boot from USB drives.

I think Apple resisted USB 3.0 because TB was/is their technology.

Yet they did release the 12“ MacBook which has neither Firewire nor Thunderbolt...

In any case, even though USB booting has always been easy and robust on Intel Macs

I have a HDD in an USB 3.0 enclosure with Snow Leopard through High Sierra partitions. Trying to boot any on my 2007 MBP gives me a stop sign. If I clone the partition to the internal SSD it boots fine. My 2011 or later MBPs however have no issues booting from that external HDD.

 

[bunnspecial]

That theory makes perfect sense. I think early versions of OS X (up to and including Panther?) don't even boot from USB drives.


Yet they did release the 12“ MacBook which has neither Firewire nor Thunderbolt...


I have a HDD in an USB 3.0 enclosure with Snow Leopard through High Sierra partitions. Trying to boot any on my 2007 MBP gives me a stop sign. If I clone the partition to the internal SSD it boots fine. My 2011 or later MBPs however have no issues booting from that external HDD.

Don't forget to the unibody Macbooks(both plastic and aluminum) which also lack TB and FW. The Aluminum morphed into the much-loved 13" MBP, which lost the separate audio in/out ports but gained SD and FW.

I guess I'd not really pushed the limits of USB booting-I know in general it tends to work fairly well on Intel...

 

[Amethyst1]

Don't forget to the unibody Macbooks(both plastic and aluminum) which also lack TB and FW.

And the pre-2011 MBAs.

the much-loved 13" MBP, which lost the separate audio in/out ports but gained SD and FW.

I'd much rather have had an ExpressCard slot. SD cards, pfff...

I guess I'd not really pushed the limits of USB booting-I know in general it tends to work fairly well on Intel...

Maybe it's a quirk of my machine or enclosure (a fairly cheap/generic thing).

 

[B S Magnet]

I've decided to go with Leopard as I have the max 1GB of RAM

A couple of handy tips which can help with Leopard performance on older systems running HDDs, once you’ve run all the updates to bring it up to 10.5.8:

1) Removing a series of development files which weren’t, for some reason, removed by Apple before releasing Leopard to the public — whose removal frees up some space and gives the system more room to work with when virtual memory operations are needed. Removal of these development files should free up about a gig of space. More about this is discussed in the first post (a WikiPost) on The Leopard Thread (which is a good post to have bookmarked anyway when looking up recommended tweaks and update info for Leopard-optimized software):

sudo find / -type f -name designable.nib | awk -F '\t' '{print "\""$1"\""}' | xargs rm -v


2) Grab Monolingual, a utility which allows you to remove languages and architectures your PowerBook will never need or use. For Leopard, grab version 1.4.5.

 

[eyoungren]

You could look through this as well: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-leopard-speed-improvements.1723868/

Not sure if it's been integrated into the Wiki thread or not.

 

[theMarble]

A couple of handy tips which can help with Leopard performance on older systems running HDDs, once you’ve run all the updates to bring it up to 10.5.8:

1) Removing a series of development files which weren’t, for some reason, removed by Apple before releasing Leopard to the public — whose removal frees up some space and gives the system more room to work with when virtual memory operations are needed. Removal of these development files should free up about a gig of space. More about this is discussed in the first post (a WikiPost) on The Leopard Thread (which is a good post to have bookmarked anyway when looking up recommended tweaks and update info for Leopard-optimized software):

sudo find / -type f -name designable.nib | awk -F '\t' '{print "\""$1"\""}' | xargs rm -v


2) Grab Monolingual, a utility which allows you to remove languages and architectures your PowerBook will never need or use. For Leopard, grab version 1.4.5.

Thanks! I've already gone through and done all of the tweaks that the Wiki suggests and some of my own tweaks that I've used on my 15" AlBook before to make it faster. I've found for me that Monolingual sometimes can stop Leopard from booting properly but I recall that being on an older version of it, not sure how much better it has gotten now.

 

[haralds]

Mine is triple boot: MacOS 9, Tiger, and Leopard.
Leopard is the most useful.

 

[B S Magnet]

You could look through this as well: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-leopard-speed-improvements.1723868/

Not sure if it's been integrated into the Wiki thread or not.

I just added it to the end of that WikiPost. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

Thanks! I've already gone through and done all of the tweaks that the Wiki suggests and some of my own tweaks that I've used on my 15" AlBook before to make it faster. I've found for me that Monolingual sometimes can stop Leopard from booting properly but I recall that being on an older version of it, not sure how much better it has gotten now.

With Monolingual, what I tend to find is running it to strip out Intel code can sometimes cause hiccups to Adobe CS applications, but generally I’ve had pretty good outcomes when it comes to removing unneeded languages and architectures from system files.

I think, at least from version 1.4.5 onward, the preference settings can help you to surgically fine-tune where the utility will strip out what you don’t need, rather than a sledgehammer approach.

 

[Project Alice]

Hi everyone, I just picked up an 867MHz TiBook G4 in pretty good condition (except from some of the titanium paint wearing off) and am wondering what OS would be better for it, Tiger or Leopard? It doesn't have an AirPort card nor a DVD drive but it has a working FireWire and Ethernet port and I own a LaCie FireWire 400 DVD-RW drive.

I don't own a copy of Tiger but I do have a DVD of Leopard 10.5.4 from Apple.

Thanks!

You can always dual-boot Tiger and Leopard to have the best of both worlds. And add OS 9 for the heck of it.

I have a 1GHz TiBook which is essentially the same thing as your 867MHz with a 133MHz difference.
I have the same configuration running on it that Amethyst1 does. Tiger and Mac OS 9.2 on one partition, Leopard on the other.

If you get to frequenting this forum like most of us do, you'll see this question pop up quite a bit (I don't ever mind answering it again). The common opinion is Tiger > Leopard. I disagree with this for a few reasons. I find the performance difference is negligible, depending on both use-case and what your hardware is.
Ram, and graphics are the big Leopard killers. Anything 768MB or higher I find to be a pleasant experience. As for graphics, Leopard does just fine on anything that supports QuartzExtreme with the exception of the Geforce4 mx. I'm not sure why, but every machine I own with that chip always has weird graphics anomalies on Leopard. CoreImage is best, but doesn't really make a difference in performance (though it may feel faster I would say this is placebo). Your TiBook has a Radeon 9000 which does Leopard just fine.

On my TiBook, though it has all three OS's I hardly ever use anything but Leopard on it. It is damn quick and Tiger provides nothing for me on it other than the ability to run OS 9 apps along OS X ones. I would say I even boot into OS 9 on it more than I do Tiger.

Really these days it all comes down to preference.

Also as a suggestion for you, I would replace the HDD for an SSD. The 867MHz one will take any size you want (under 2TB for APM of course). We usually use an mSATA with an IDE adapter. The TiBook is one of the easiest Apple laptops to take apart. The bottom panel comes right off and you can have your new drive in within 5 minutes.

That theory makes perfect sense. I think early versions of OS X (up to and including Panther?) don't even boot from USB drives.

This would explain a lot. I have actually had issues booting Leopard on PPC over USB, whereas it will do it on an Intel Mac using the same disk (partitioned APM; Intel Macs are actually capable of booting APM contrary to what Disk Utility will tell you).
I know I have booted a USB based OS X installer sucessfully on a PPC Mac before, but I can't remember which version or even which Mac it was. I wanna say it was a 1.2GHz iBook G4 and Tiger but it was probably 10 or so years ago. I don't bother with USB anymore since I have a netboot MacMini running along with enough FW disks to start a store.

 

[Amethyst1]

I know I have booted a USB based OS X installer sucessfully on a PPC Mac before,

Several members have successfully booted the Tiger and Leopard installer via USB on PPC Macs, so there's every indication that a full installation will also boot via USB. I haven't seen any reports of this working with Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar or Panther (just one failed attempt with Jaguar but that was also on an unsupported machine).

 

[eyoungren]

Several members have successfully booted the Tiger and Leopard installer via USB on PPC Macs, so there's every indication that a full installation will also boot via USB. I haven't seen any reports of this working with Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar or Panther (just one failed attempt with Jaguar but that was also on an unsupported machine).

Not a TiBook, but I did strip down a Leopard install once and installed it on and then booted from a Micro SD card. The card was in an HTC Touch Pro attached via USB. While it was booting I went and mowed the lawn. By the time I got back (about an hour later) I had a desktop.

EDIT: I suppose I should mention WHICH Mac I used for this. It was my old 17" Albook.

 

[B S Magnet]

Several members have successfully booted the Tiger and Leopard installer via USB on PPC Macs, so there's every indication that a full installation will also boot via USB. I haven't seen any reports of this working with Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar or Panther (just one failed attempt with Jaguar but that was also on an unsupported machine).

I can additionally vouch for this, having booted via USB on my M6411 clamshell iBook, via OpenFirmware command. It’s molasses-slow, but it works.

 

[Amethyst1]

Not a TiBook, but I did strip down a Leopard install once and installed it on and then booted from a Micro SD card.

Kewl kidz boot OS X from an iPod mini - go, Microdrive, go!

 

[eyoungren]

Kewl kidz boot OS X from an iPod mini - go, Microdrive, go!

LOL. At the time I was thinking I'd use the SD card in the phone as an 'emergency' tools type disk. I had an iPhone by that point and wanted a reason to use the old Touch Pro. The SD was only 8GB though so I had to really squeeze the install and limit the apps.

Ultimately I ditched the idea because of the time involved and the fact that when I wasn't using the card the phone kept complaining about an unformatted SD card.

 

[B S Magnet]

Kewl kidz boot OS X from an iPod mini - go, Microdrive, go!

Heck, I’ve installed Leopard from a 3rd-gen iPod and also Snow Leopard for PPC from a 4th-gen iPod nano.

No regrets.

 

[Amethyst1]

Heck, I’ve installed Leopard from a 3rd-gen iPod and also Snow Leopard for PPC from a 4th-gen iPod nano.

Installing isn't running though. I remember some article about Mac OS X Server being run from an iPod and its 1.8" drive dying after just several days (?) of 24/7 duty.

 

[B S Magnet]

Installing isn't running though. I remember some article about Mac OS X Server being run from an iPod and its 1.8" drive dying after just several days (?) of 24/7 duty. I can't find it right now...

Oh heck no. Those 1.8-inch spinners were never designed for that kind of duty.