Tiger or Panther on older iBook?

[Maxwell Smart]

I have the current iBook in my sig (366Mhz G3, 576MB RAM, 6GB HD) that's been happily running along with Panther 10.3.9 (albeit a bit sluggishly). What I was wondering was if I should upgrade to Tiger. I've heard that it has a lot of refinements when it comes to older hardware running more smoothly, so I figured that I'd ask here and see what people reccommend. Thanks.

 

[Caitlyn]

Just checked on Apple's site and found this:
Hardware Requirements
PowerPC G5, G4 or G3 processor
Built-in FireWire
DVD drive is required for installation
At least 256MB of physical RAM

So, technically, it would work (if you have a DVD drive) but if you find Panther running a little slow, Tiger will probably be even slower. I say, if you're happy with Panther then stick with Panther. 10.3.9 isn't much less advanced than 10.4.0. I mean yes there are some refinements, but I still know many users running Panther and don't really suffer the would-be loss of the Tiger features.

 

[SC68Cal]

I can only go by what happened to my main system, but the difference between Jaguar and Tiger is night and day. It went from a very slow machine, using a clean install of 10.2.0, updated to 10.2.8 which increased the system performance by a significant margin. Tiger blows Jaguar out of the water, when I installed Tiger I was overly impressed with how it performed.

based on my experience I don't think you have anything to lose, really

 

[mmmcheese]

I would stick with 10.3...I've been tempted to put my iBook 800MHz back to 10.3 from 10.4 because I found that, in general, it performed faster.

If you don't need any of the features of 10.4, then I see no reason to switch.

 

[Maxwell Smart]

Well, I'd disable dashboard to save resources as i prolyl wouldnt use it but I think spotlight would be really cool to have. So does anyone else find tiger to be a speed improvement over panther or what.

 

[QCassidy352]

I think they are about the same, speed-wise. Definitely disable dashboard though, as it'll eat through your RAM in no time.

 

[California]

I am not sure your tiny hard drive will be large enough for a Tiger install

Get a new hard drive anyway, you can always take it out and put it in another laptop when the time comes.

IT will also make your machine faster.

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

I am not sure your tiny hard drive will be large enough for a Tiger install

If you UNCHECK all the un-needed printer drivers AND language files, you can get a Tiger install @ approx. 2GB, plus a gig or 2 for swap files, that still leaves ~1.5gb for other stuff.

Tight yes, but not impossible

 

[ITASOR]

I am not sure your tiny hard drive will be large enough for a Tiger install.

I put Tiger on my 300Mhz clamshell with a 3GB HD and had about 800MB left over. Not really "enough" but, it's fine for occasional use.

And, I think the speed difference is minimal, but IMO, Tiger seemed a little faster. I didn't disable dashboard, but I just only kept 1 or 2 widgets open at a time.

 

[jadekitty24]

Depending on the type of install the OP could most certainly fit Tiger...and that's it. I think 4 GB's is what is recommended as a minimum to keep free on your hard drive for virtual memory. I can only compare it to the 800 mhz G3 iBook I have, at first I thought Panther was faster, but after having Tiger for a while I found it to be a huge improvement overall.

 

[Maxwell Smart]

Thanks for the tips, HD space isn't really important, as I will disable printer drivers/languages etc. Im more concerned about whether its worth the speed increase if there is one, and from what you guys have said, it seems like there is.