[iBook] OS for g3 and g4 ibooks?

howardpettigrew howard.pettigrew at xtra.co.nz
Wed Mar 21 22:51:06 PDT 2012


Can't upgrade either to anything beyond Tiger as even Leopard requires a Intel Chip or G4 better than 867mhz. Snow and Tiger will only install on Intel chipped machines without hacksies. I've come across G4 laptops above 1gig where someone has installed Leopard and they are absolute dogs. If you do install Tiger on the G3, try and shove as much RAM in it as possible as RAM will give both of them a big boost and it is not hard to do - the slot is under a removable panel under the keyboard.
Cheers
H in NZ
Even with a recent MacBook Pro, I've stayed away from Lion so far as I'm worried about how much of my software won't run. The only annoying thing is not being able to use iCloud.
On 22/03/2012, at 11:00 AM, Fred Stevens K2FRD wrote:

> My iBook 900 (G3 - vintage 2003) worked very well on OS 10.4.11 for many years which was as far up as I could go. I replaced the iBook just two years ago with a MacBook Pro 15" which came with OS 10.6 (later upgraded to 10.6.6). I upgraded the Pro to Lion OS 10.7 a couple weeks ago: BIG mistake! Lion royally screwed up my Pro such that most of my "older" applications (my Dragon Dictate was only 6 months old) wouldn't work; I couldn't even get online via Verizon 3G. After a week of contact with Apple support, the consensus was to retrograde back to Snow Leopard 10.6.6 using Time Machine which I did at the Glendale, AZ Apple Store. Not a perfect system: Lion is too much like Windoze with little parts of its OS in bits and pieces throughout the hard drive which don't disappear when Time Machine is applied. Dashboard, Software Update, and several other apps still don't work - too many pieces of Lion still on my HD. In the interim while retrograding my Pro back to Snow Leopard, I 
> dragged out of storage and used my old iBook 900 to get online - worked just fine albeit more slowly. Lion is a black eye for Apple in my not-so-humble opinion.
> 
> The moral of this story is that you're just about right on which OS to use with your G3/G4. I don't think you'd gain anything by trying to upgrade either a G3 or G4. And whatever you do, DON'T UPGRADE TO LION 10.7 (nor this summer's intro of Mountain Lion OS 10.8). If it works, don't try to fix it.
> 
> FWIW, I upgraded a friend's old 1997 Clamshell to OS X from OS 8 or 9 (Classic) via a custom install. I pushed the envelope on that but her Clamshell still works.
> 
> There's always a risk when upgrading operating systems, even on a Mac although I've never had such a terrible problem with previous upgrades, especially on my iBook. So, I'll keep my old iBook around as a backup.
> 
> Fred Stevens
> Prescott, AZ
> MacBook Pro 15" OS 10.6.6; iBook 900 OS 10.4.11; 7300; IIvx; Powerbook 1400 OS 9.x; IIG; IIC
> 
> At 4:47 PM -0400 21/3/12, park wrote:
>> On lowendmac, the recommended OSX for the g3 snowbook is 10.3.9, for the (800mhz) g4 10.4.11.
>> 
>> Is that the feeling and recommendation on this board too?
>> 
>> Many thanks for your input,
>> Toby
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