A backwards Mac
I have a G3 Mac and I thinks my OS is unstable, so I wants to re-install it. The problem is, I only have iPC Live. Can I install it on this Mac?
- Primary Author
- @JoesMorgue Published 2010-02-10
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- Software, Drivers & Kexts
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- 15,133 historical reads · 7 curated field notes (from 14 dispatches) · 2010-02-10 – 2010-02-13
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- @JoesMorgue (6)@00010 (2)@milanca (2)@spalek83@xXrkidXx@Imkantus@Taisto
I have a G3 Mac and I thinks my OS is unstable, so I wants to re-install it.
The problem is, I only have iPC Live. Can I install it on this Mac?
Author Updates & Technical Revisions
Follow-up dispatches by @JoesMorgue
Its a G3 runing at 350 Mhz...
The speed is not an issue, I can deal, as I have 5 Winders machines while this does intensive stuff.
Would I even be able to run it?
I have a G4, but I added another SIMM, and it no longer functions. I took that one out. Reorganized them. Reset the MB, removed the battery. Swapped the vid card...NOTHING! I don't wanna mess inside this one (although I swapped out the CD for the DVD in my sig) just in case...
@xXrkidXxGo out and buy a Leopard retail disc. Or.. Well it's up to you.
A Backwards Mac
Right now, it is running Tiger and except for a few programs crashing, it seems to handle it just fine so I know it can do that much.
Where am I missing on Leopard? I know with PCs, newer CPU chips have new commands inside them which is why you can't do some upgrades. What is the difference between the G3 and the G4?
First: With Winders, (sorry) you really can't transplant the HD because VERY FEW machines match hardware, and there are drivers for everything. I didn't thinks it could be done but then again, we are talking OS X.
Second: Is the code bloated? Is there more going on behind the scenes? Will it just be like what I'm seeing now? Like I said, lack of speed I can deal with. My old PC used to take about 18 HOURS to process, then another 3-4 hours to get ready to actually prepare the burn a single layer DVD. (Yeah, we used it to do other things while it was doing that too.) We just accepted it, and tried to start them late at night, so while we slept and most of us were out of the house it just chugged away at it.
@00010Well to put in in English, the G3 is way to slow to run Leopard. The processor is compatible, but the Leopard installer DVD has a requirement of 867Mhz or better to run the Leopard installer, If I remember correctly there is a few ways in Open Firmware to hack an install onto "Unsupported Hardware" or a patched PPC installer DVD you…
A Backwards Mac
What program would I want to get to allow me to install Leopard on this machine? I don't want to try to make a modified disk if I can avoid it.
@Taisto"Leopard can run on older hardware as long as they have a G4 upgrade installed running at the 867mhz or faster, have at least 9 GB free of hard drive space, 512 MB RAM and have a DVD drive. Leopard however will not run on the 900mhz iBook G3 models even though they exceed the minimum 867Mhz requirement. This is due to the lack of…
Well, its back to the original problem. My system is not stable as it is running Tiger. I am getting Tiger, probably Tuesday, and if I can reinstall over (probably with a format) and get a stable HD, I'd be happy. Then there is the issue of what won't run at all…
Synthesized Community Field Notes
7 technical responses curated from 14 original dispatches
Go out and buy a Leopard retail disc. Or.. Well it's up to you.
No the G3 could not run Leopard, you need a copy of Tiger. Which is hard to get.
00010
I have G4 DP500, gigabit ethernet model, and i p****d blood until i found retail 10.4 ppc dvd. It was dead for a long time and last summer i decided to revive it again.
Tiger should work fine i suppose on 350Mhz, if not then 10.3.9 will do the job. I think i have 10.3 installs somewhere, even 10.2 if i remember correctly.
Well to put in in English, the G3 is way to slow to run Leopard. The processor is compatible, but the Leopard installer DVD has a requirement of 867Mhz or better to run the Leopard installer, If I remember correctly there is a few ways in Open Firmware to hack an install onto "Unsupported Hardware" or a patched PPC installer DVD you can make with a new requirement edited in. Or you can install on another Mac and transplant the Leopard drive into the G3.
00010
@JoesMorgueFirst: With Winders, (sorry) you really can't transplant the HD because VERY FEW machines match hardware, and there are drivers for everything. I didn't thinks it could be done but then again, we are talking OS X.
Not true. What 00010 meant is instead of patching OSInstall script to allow installing for example Leopard on PPC<867Mhz, you can use supported machine, install on it and then take the HDD out and put in unsupported machine. Hard drives are pretty much the same, they all use IDE drives. I even used SATA drive in my G4 with simple IDE->SATA adapter. But that's different thing so yes, you can fool the installer by simply swapping hard drives.
I think it ain't possible to install Leopard without having the G4 CPU Upgrade, for example the G3 lacks support for some stuff like AltiVec ↗...
"Leopard can run on older hardware as long as they have a G4 upgrade installed running at the 867mhz or faster, have at least 9 GB free of hard drive space, 512 MB RAM and have a DVD drive. Leopard however will not run on the 900mhz iBook G3 models even though they exceed the minimum 867Mhz requirement. This is due to the lack of AltiVec in the G3 line of processors and the fact that most pre G4 and early G4 systems do not have video hardware capable of supporting Core Image, two technologies Leopard relies heavily upon among others. Leopard can be "hacked" (see below) to install on these G3 and pre 867mhz G4 machines but the system may behave erratically and many of the programs, features and functions may not work properly or at all." - Wikipedia
Well it seems that it is possible after all with a little hacking done, but i don't think it's worth the effort ( stability and performance…ugh ) Tiger is good enough
Sources & Contributor Provenance (7 credited usernames · Thread #5495)
| Username | Dossier Contribution | Dispatches | Active Window |
|---|---|---|---|
| @JoesMorgue | Primary Author | 6 | 2010-02-10 → 2010-02-13 |
| @00010 | Contributor | 2 | 2010-02-10 → 2010-02-11 |
| @milanca | Contributor | 2 | 2010-02-11 |
| @spalek83 | Contributor | 1 | 2010-02-10 |
| @xXrkidXx | Contributor | 1 | 2010-02-10 |
| @Imkantus | Contributor | 1 | 2010-02-13 |
| @Taisto | Contributor | 1 | 2010-02-13 |