[iBook] OSX or not on clamshell G3 366

[david]

On 3/29/05 1:38 PM, "Germain" <affaires at vif.com> wrote:

> Hello to the list,
> 
> I have a brand new and never installed bought copy of OSX 10.0. Should I
> install OSX on my clamshell graphite G3 366, 192 ram, 6 gigs? It's now
> running on 9.2. Would OSX slow down every process? Is there enough RAM? Is
> it worth installing it anyway? The iBook is mostly used for Word, Explorer,
> Entourage and some light Photoshop use? OSX apps I have are: MS Office and
> FM Pro 6.
> 
My first OS X notebook was a tangerine iBook that was slightly slower than
yours and with two exceptions I was quite pleased. I'll get to the
exceptions in a moment.

First, I'd like to point out a few drawbacks on your system. First, at 192
you have the very least amount of memory I'd recommend for installing OS X.
Trying to use it with Office or Filemaker alone would tax it. Forget using
them together. Also, if you intend to use Classic applications...forget it.
You'll want to replace the 128MB sodimm with a 256 sodimm at the minimum -
and while Apple officially caps the RAM below this, it will accept a 512
sodimm. That's what my tangerine model had when I sold it.

Also, with only a 6 gig drive you will pretty much use up your drive space
with OS X, Classic, Office, and Filemaker. If you can shoehorn Photoshop on
it without removing some stuff I'll be surprised. And finally, if you didn't
mistype it - if you have OS X 10.0 and not 10.2 - well, don't. 10.0 just
isn't usable in my opinion. 10.1 was the first version that really was ready
for primetime - barely. Jag, 10.2 was the first release of OS X that I could
really recommend to friends and former clients.

Now, let's say that you upgrade your memory and figure out a plan to make
everything fit on that tiny hard drive. You will be appalled at how slow the
iBook starts up OS X. The good news is you don't have to do it often because
I clocked my tangerine at 2 minutes to get to the Finder and another 3
minutes to load in my startup applications. (That was Jaguar, by the way.)
The second thing that drove me nuts is that visually everything is so much
bigger and OS X applications picked up on that. An 800x600 screen is pretty
small - and Photoshop will drive you nuts with all those palettes. I became
a Photoshop keyboard guru!

Other than this, OS X is quite usable on the Tangerine.

david