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What to do with an old PowerMac G5

UncleSchnitty

UncleSchnitty

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 26, 2007
851
14
I have an old tower that I don't know what to do with. I have many other newer macs but I always liked this one and it still runs well and quick. Any suggestions on what to use it for? I thought about selling it for an older Mac laptop but selling it plus shipping wouldn't really work out. Any suggestions welcome. Thanks.
 
I thought about that but at this point a HDD plugged into a router works just as well. I thought about an Ubuntu box but they don't support the video card anymore. I hate to see this just sit there, its sad that a old celeron 1.6 hz HP laptop from the same year can run windows 8.1 but I can't find anything to do with a machine that has over twice the power.
 
You could install and configure Arch Linux or Gentoo. There are many guides out there that will walk you through it. It's a great way to learn Linux and will give you a very fast system. Same goes for any BSD variant. The good thing about using an extra computer is that you can make mistakes without it being a big deal. I keep an extra laptop around just for trying new things without risking my main computer. It's fun and I've learned a lot by doing it.



You could also donate it to the OpenBSD project to support their development efforts: http://www.openbsd.org/want.html

These guys helped develop and/or improve many of the security tools that most modern operating systems use by default today. They're all volunteers, so giving them free hardware to work with is a great benefit and will eventually help everyone down the road.
 
UncleSchnitty said:
I have an old tower that I don't know what to do with. I have many other newer macs but I always liked this one and it still runs well and quick. Any suggestions on what to use it for? I thought about selling it for an older Mac laptop but selling it plus shipping wouldn't really work out. Any suggestions welcome. Thanks.
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What kind of shape is it in? You can still get a good amount for G5s even locally.
 
Altemose said:
What kind of shape is it in? You can still get a good amount for G5s even locally.
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Its in great shape. Ive kept it clean inside and out. Runs perfect. If it ran the programs I wanted it would be great, unfortunately a lot of developers stopped supporting PPC on later models. Its a shame really.
 
Things like chrome, netflix, some of the file sharing programs I wanted to try, also some of the software to create a vpn threw it doesn't work. like i said its a shame, its still a great computer
 
A movie ripper and converter.

If I didn't use my G5 as my main Mac, I would have it ripping DVDs and converting them to MP4 files that play well on multiple systems, including PS3, Windows 7, and G4 PowerBooks.
 
robertdsc said:
A movie ripper and converter.

If I didn't use my G5 as my main Mac, I would have it ripping DVDs and converting them to MP4 files that play well on multiple systems, including PS3, Windows 7, and G4 PowerBooks.
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Curious if anyone else is using an old g5 for this exact purpose. I have an old dual 1.8 g5 that I don't know what to do with. I thought about using it to rip and convert video files but I didn't know how good it would be at this. Is there a recent version of Handbrake that works on PPC? Do you get decent frame rates when converting?
 
rockstarjoe said:
Curious if anyone else is using an old g5 for this exact purpose. I have an old dual 1.8 g5 that I don't know what to do with. I thought about using it to rip and convert video files but I didn't know how good it would be at this. Is there a recent version of Handbrake that works on PPC? Do you get decent frame rates when converting?
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I used my g5 for this a few years back, when I was using my G5 as my main machine. Everything comes out great it just takes time to convert the TS folders to MP4s. On the G5 it could take 1 1/2 hours where my MacPro does the same job it 15min. Handbrake uses all processing speed to convert, nothing else. However for video quality it will come out the same if your on a G4 or a $30,000 super computer, the only difference is the time it takes.
 
UncleSchnitty said:
I used my g5 for this a few years back, when I was using my G5 as my main machine. Everything comes out great it just takes time to convert the TS folders to MP4s. On the G5 it could take 1 1/2 hours where my MacPro does the same job it 15min. Handbrake uses all processing speed to convert, nothing else. However for video quality it will come out the same if your on a G4 or a $30,000 super computer, the only difference is the time it takes.
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Thanks for the info, that is good to know! So when handbrake shows the FPS while it is converting, that info does not reflect the video quality? Sorry for the off topic post.
 
UncleSchnitty said:
Things like chrome, netflix, some of the file sharing programs I wanted to try, also some of the software to create a vpn threw it doesn't work. like i said its a shame, its still a great computer
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There are alternatives to Chrome and file sharing programs. I am not sure about what type of VPN you use, but OS X does have native VPN support depending on the config on the other end.

As for Chrome, there was a version of Stainless which used similar code techniques (multi-process, parallel sessions, etc.). The general favorite around here is TenFourFox and Leopard WebKit. That is a very debatable choice and everyone has their own opinion on it.

Netflix doesn't even work well on some newer computers. Just another way we can thank Adobe for such proprietary Flash.
 
Netflix uses Silverlight, not Flash. Because of this it works rather well even on lower speced machines. But sadly the only PowerPC version of Silverlight is not and never has been supported by Netflix.
 
rockstarjoe said:
Thanks for the info, that is good to know! So when handbrake shows the FPS while it is converting, that info does not reflect the video quality? Sorry for the off topic post.
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I use my G5 Dual 2.0 to rip files using OpenShiiva v0.8.9 in combination with the 3ivx D4 4.5.1 codec while running Tiger 10.4.11. Using this combo, I can get FPS in the 30 range and complete files processed in 2 hours or less. When dialed in, I can process two full-length films in 4 hours.

These programs are old, but they work in rock-solid conjunction with each other. An additional benefit of OpenShiiva is the direct conversion of subtitles. My original purpose of conversion was to be able to watch films on a G4 500Mhz PowerBook in loud machinery conditions. OpenShiiva's subtitles function helped greatly in transcribing subtitles while converting. The files played fine in QuickTime Player and I can view them on my PS3 as well.
 
Intell said:
Netflix uses Silverlight, not Flash. Because of this it works rather well even on lower speced machines. But sadly the only PowerPC version of Silverlight is not and never has been supported by Netflix.
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Sorry, got them confused. Originally, there was a way to jerry-rig Silverlight to show but it was buggy and Netflix patched it quickly.
 
Altemose said:
Sorry, got them confused. Originally, there was a way to jerry-rig Silverlight to show but it was buggy and Netflix patched it quickly.
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I don't think there ever was. Netflix has always required Silverlight 2 or higher and Silverlight 2 has always ever been an Intell only binary. While you could force it to be installed on a PowerPC Mac, it wouldn't run.
 
Intell said:
I don't think there ever was. Netflix has always required Silverlight 2 or higher and Silverlight 2 has always ever been an Intell only binary. While you could force it to be installed on a PowerPC Mac, it wouldn't run.
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Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 was made available to PPCs by editing the installer's checks. Microsoft pulled the code for PPC all together and made it a universal binary.

Someone got it working, but the lack of DRM support in the hacked version blocked Netflix from working properly.
 
Altemose said:
Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 was made available to PPCs by editing the installer's checks. Microsoft pulled the code for PPC all together and made it a universal binary.

Someone got it working, but the lack of DRM support in the hacked version blocked Netflix from working properly.
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That is just as mythical as Java 6 for PowerPCs.
 
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