Where can I learn more about setting and running a G5 mac

You could have a look in the PowerPC forum in these forums, that's were all us luddites hang out. I have a g4 and a g5 both running 10.5.8. I use my g5 daily, it is a great machine and it is doing some very productive work.

 

As mentioned in post 4 directly above, there is a "PowerPC" forum right here at MacRumors -- although it may not get much traffic any more.

Having said that, are you having any problems in particular?
Does the iMac boot up OK?
Does it seem fast enough?

The last version of the OS you can run on it is 10.5.8, I believe. Others will correct me if I'm wrong.

If you are having problems with Safari not displaying some web pages correctly, I suggest you experiment with FireFox. There are versions of Firefox available that are "optimized" for the g5 CPU.

If you check some used book sources, you may be able to find some OS X guides that were written around the time of OS 10.5 and the g5. Something like "OS X, the missing manual", etc.

 

Hey!

As others have already pointed out, you are a little limited with your OS and Processor, but that doesn't stop the G5 from being an awesome machine!

You can run most common apps albeit lower versions, I've found http://www.oldapps.com/mac/ to be the most effective at finding older software, just make sure that it is compatible with 10.5 Leopard.

Web browsing is a little iffy on PowerPC but thankfully there are some choices. Most people on this forum swear by a fork of Firefox known as TenFourFox though I personally find Webkit to be faster. Flash is outdated and extremely slow, so try to avoid it completely. If you choose to use webkit there is an awesome add-on called "ClickToPlugin" that will require you to click before flash content is activated. Also, GlimmerBlocker is a lightweight ad-blocker that works on the PowerPC .

YouTube is also possible, but requires an external application such as MacTubes or YouView that routes the video through quicktime. I'm pretty certain HD video will be unplayable on your G5, but 480p should fair okay!

Good luck and enjoy your Mac

 

This forum on MacRumors is probably your best bet. Running TenFourFox, MacTubes, and MacTubes Enabler is going to be the best bet to running PPC on the internet today. These computers, though out dated, offer a wide variety of software which can be had a dime a dozen nowadays. Best of luck!

 

OP, perhaps you could indicate what sort of programs you are looking to run? As a starter:

Office - iWork, Microsoft office 2008, Libreoffice (free)
Browser - safari (but older version now), TenFourFox seems most popular for PPC
Media - VLC, MacTubes (to access youtube)

Others - Text wrangler (great if you have unformatted text you need to edit)

I'm sure others can add to this list, but it depends on what you want to use it for.

 

I'd recommend:

Office: MS Office 2004. It feels a little better to me than 2008. iWork or LibreOffice are all right, but neither are being developed for PPC, I think...

Web: TenFourFox for everything except for Youtube. For Youtube, use Leopard Webkit with ClickToFlash and ClickToPlugin (you might need to enable the HTML5 setting on Youtube). The HTML5 Youtube in Webkit works so much better than anything else with my browsing. You can use MacTubes for Youtube, but it frequently has to be updated as Youtube belches updates often.

Email: Microsoft Entourage (included in Office 2004) or TenFourBird.

Instant Messaging: Adium, even though it's an old version.

Media: VLC or QuickTime with the Perian plugin. Even then, I'd still choose VLC, even though it's not being developed for PPC anymore.

 

LibreOffice's newest release no longer support PPC. OpenOffice hasn't for a while either, but I'd recommend it for PPC, as it's faster. I believe the latest version of VLC also support PPC, actually.

EDIT: I'm wrong, VLC only supports 10.6 Snow Leopard and up now, but older versions for PPC can still be downloaded.