Panther (OS X 10.3) on a beige G3?

[the_argon]

I am thinking about gettinig a beige G3 (<350Mhz), wondering how it would run 10.3? just for the basics, or is it worth sticking to 9?

Any opinons/experiences would be helpful...

[Radar]

Does it have inbuilt USB? If it does not, 10.3 will simply not install, saying it is unsupported. If this is the case, then I would reconmend getting a PowerMac Blue & White. I bought one last week (Stock spec G3 300 with 17in Monitor, for &#036;399), and one today (G3 350Mhz, 20GB HDD, 512MB RAM, 10.3 for &#036;350 delivered). These are awesome machine that can be had on the cheap, and run Panther fine.

If this is not the case, and it has inbuilt USB, then provided you have enough RAM backup (1GB would be ideal for a slow machine), then it will run fine. I run Panther on my 350Mhz iMac, and it runs quite fast, comparable to 9.2.2 on my 233 PowerBook. Provided you have the RAM backing, and it has inbuilt USB, you are set for 10.3.

[Byrd]

Considering that 10.3 seems to give a lot of low-end G3 and G4 machines quite a noticeable performance boost, it wouldn&#39;t hurt trying it on a beige machine as well. As with all these machines, the more RAM, the better (256MB and above).

You can still install 10.3 on beige G3s and other upgraded PCI Powermacs using the utility XPostFacto, which works a charm:
http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/

... note you&#39;re after the alpha 3.0 version, but that appears to work well by all accounts.

On a side-line, USB cards can be picked up for beige G3&#39;s from any PC store - they&#39;re around 15 - 20 dorrah or something, just make sure OHCI compliant is mentioned on the box, shove it in and you&#39;re away.

JB

PS. Newton turned up yet? I sent it mid-week.

[decryption]

As far as I know, the Beige G3&#39;s have no in-built USB, hence like Radar said, they won&#39;t run 10.3.
You&#39;re better off getting your hands on a B&W G3 tower and running 10.3 on that. It&#39;s still a capable machine.

[the_argon]

Originally posted by bYrd@Feb 9 2004, 05:18 PM
Considering that 10.3 seems to give a lot of low-end G3 and G4 machines quite a noticeable performance boost, it wouldn&#39;t hurt trying it on a beige machine as well. As with all these machines, the more RAM, the better (256MB and above).

You can still install 10.3 on beige G3s and other upgraded PCI Powermacs using the utility XPostFacto, which works a charm:
http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/

... note you&#39;re after the alpha 3.0 version, but that appears to work well by all accounts.

On a side-line, USB cards can be picked up for beige G3&#39;s from any PC store - they&#39;re around 15 - 20 dorrah or something, just make sure OHCI compliant is mentioned on the box, shove it in and you&#39;re away.

JB

PS. Newton turned up yet? I sent it mid-week.

Yeah, it&#39;s apparently waiting for me at home right now

[stevejay]

XPostFacto is killer and you should use it to try X.3.2 on your beige box, you&#39;ve lost nothing if it doesn&#39;t work, and gained a top notch OS (and probably a bit of headroom and speed) if it does.

[TAK]

Well, my iBook 600mhz G3 runs 10.3 VERY SMOOTHLY (way better then 10.2) So as long as you have USB and such, it should work OK on a 350mhz machine. But if you need speed, OS9 is your best bet.

[the_argon]

Great, thanks for the input people, much appreciated.

Not sure wether i&#39;ll go for OSX or 9 (if I even get the machine.) But i&#39;ll definately try them both out.

[jameso]

go the beige g3. I&#39;ve got a beige g3 with a usb card and a firewire card that is next to useless. i did but when i looked into it the video card drivers in XPostFacto wern&#39;t working yet.

maybe in my spare time i&#39;ll run it up with 10.3

jameso

[Cory5412]

I believe that with a G3 upgrade it is possible to run Panther on most PCI PowerMacs as well, of course I&#39;m not about to go do that on my 7300, but it would be interesting to see.

[Currawong]

It&#39;s conceivable to run 10.3 on a beige G3 with a PCI video card installed, but considering the limitations of the machine, it would be more sensible to spend the &#036;&#036; on even a blue and white G3, which would run 10.3 without a hitch, as well as taking more readily available RAM in greater quantities. Considering the cost of PCI cards that are supported by OSX, you wouldn&#39;t be spending much more at all.

Another option is installing Yellowdog Linux on the G3. It would run very nicely, if you have at least 256mb in the machine.

[jameso]

ill have yellow dog too install tomorrow, my first ppc linux box... wish me luck...

jameso

[elvis]

I&#39;m running 10.3 on a iMac 333 and it runs surprisingly well. As I&#39;ve mentioned before, RAM (or lack of it) is the biggest killer for OSX. I&#39;ve got 256MB in that iMac, and it runs well. Less than 128, and it won&#39;t even install&#33;

Jameso: YellowDog is quite nice to install. No MacOS, but certainly just as easy as Mandrake/RedHat on x86.

Being based on RedHat however it is a little bloaty, which can be good for those new to linux and needing all the utilities, but bad for those who want lean, mean, customsied machines. I&#39;ll be sticking Debian on my little iMac shortly to see how it runs, after much success with it on low-end x86 hardware.

[jameso]

Originally posted by elvis@Feb 19 2004, 07:52 PM
Jameso: YellowDog is quite nice to install. No MacOS, but certainly just as easy as Mandrake/RedHat on x86.

I wouldn&#39;t know, I&#39;m in ADB keyboard hell

jameso

[kim jong il]

I&#39;ll read the thread fully later, but if anyone said 10.3 they were giving sound advice. If you are happy with mail and a browser it&#39;ll even do nicely in 192 MB (i know, I&#39;ve tried it. waits for flames anyway). Don&#39;t expect too much however, a 350 is not a weapon but still quite nice and OS X will run comfortably. Don&#39;t be daunted by prophecies of the resource hungry OS X and dreadful performance. It simply is not true. If you have modest expectations you will be very happy. It&#39;s a multitasking OS so odds are on these jokers had 8 open applications while simultaneously rendering a 100 MB photoshop image and thought &#39;oh boy, this is slow isn&#39;t it&#39;.

Once you&#39;ve got the taste for OS X you will probably only use 9.x when you have to. Unlike others, I hate the classic mode within OS X. If nothing else it is visually unpleasant. If I want OS 9 I boot off a OS 9 partition on the HD. I have a friend who loves the classic mode but then, his machine is about 10 time faster than mine too so he would not get the dreadful performance I do.

OS 9 really does not have that much going for it at all, really, anymore; all things considered. This will sound disloyal but it really does crash quite a lot under intense use.

cheers, kim

[jameso]

Originally posted by the_argon@Feb 9 2004, 03:37 PM
I am thinking about gettinig a beige G3 (<350Mhz), wondering how it would run 10.3? just for the basics, or is it worth sticking to 9?

Any opinons/experiences would be helpful...

it would be better to use the OS X Public Beta then OS 9... But 10.2 should do fine. Toss in a &#036;2.50 pci usb card and you are away.

jameso

[alexc]

I wasnt able to get 10.3 running on a Beige G3 2233Mhz using the Xpostfacto beta.

That was a couple of weeks ago.

I just couldnt get it to boot the installer. :/


But it runs 10.2 well enough But it is sluggish at best.

I use it as a router, and its OK for that. But it wouldnt be OK for anything else.

Go for the blue and white. There are loads around.

They usualy have some listed here: http://www.compnow.com.au/specials/

alex.

[Byrd]

Shame about not getting 10.3 go work on your beige G3 alexc, as it probably would have made it usable as opposed to running 10.2. Upgrading the VRAM on onboard 2MB --&#62; 6MB helps video speed, as does a spot of clock and bus speed overclocking.

Is your beige G3 stock configuration? XPostfacto is often picky installing any version of OS X onto &#39;upgraded&#39; G3s - that is, with CPU upgrades/PCI expansion cards/etc. Also, try installing it on a bare hard disk - having existing OS 9 or multiple partitions often complicates things as well.

JB

[mbd]

I&#39;ve heard that you can&#39;t install panther on a beige g3, which is exactly what I want to do at the moment... Does anyone know of a workaround to make it happen? It&#39;s a 233mhz/128mb/4gb system with a 2mb ATI video card, so I reckon the speed increase from 10.2 to 10.3 would be the only thing that might make it worthwhile trying OSX on the machine. If I should just give up now though (with that fairly ordinary video card, for example), then feel free to say so...

[TJOsX]

It can be done using OWC&#39;s XPostFacto. See:

http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/

However, XPostFacto can&#39;t currently run on the built in video on the G3. It can also be quite tricky to get running. I think I&#39;d wait if I were you. I have 10.2.8 on my Beige G3/233 (as you probably do) which runs quite well.