Tiger on iMac G3?

[angel_benet]

It suddenly hit me- is Tiger going to work on my iMac G3 350mhz blueberry slot-loading mac? Right now I'm running OS 10.3.4 on it, I just haven't gotten around to updating it to 10.3.8 because downloading it will take an entire night and DSL is still not available in my area.

Any thoughts?

[Gomi]

From the Tiger readme:

System requirements

You must have a Macintosh computer with
a PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor
a DVD drive
built-in FireWire
at least 128 MB of RAM
a built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card supported
by your computer
at least 2 GB of disk space available, or 3.5 GB if you install the developer tools"

Built in firewire seems to be the key.

where's your dvd?

[Maccess]

That's an interesting question. Let's dissect the issues involved here:

Tiger may be distributed on a DVD-ROM disk, hence the need for a DVD drive. If there is another way to install Tiger, such as using a USB DVD drive it might work.

Another issue is the lack o FireWire on the Slot Load 350. The 350 uses the same board as its FW equipped siblings but without the FW chipset, hence, Tiger may run on the system.

I would say that the best bet would be to transfer the HD to an iMac Slot Load with Firewire and a DVD drive and install it there, then return the drive to the iMac 350

[Gomi]

the main issue would probably not be the ability to install tiger BUT the actual usability of the system running 10.4. ive tried running both jaguar and panther on early model macs and ibooks with clockspeeds of 400 and below, it was usable but only for rudimentary tasks such as writing in word, messaging with ichat and mail/entourage. firefox was not as snappy and safari was downright painful to use. all this with macs with 256mb of ram.

considering the new technologies making its way into tiger, which is surely going to need more ooomph from your processor, its a safe bet it will work but practically unusable for typical mac work like image editing, audio manipulation, and the creative stuff.

you can cram your imac with all the ram it can eat but sooner or later you'll feel the lag. with the prices of crt imac memory these days youre better off investing in a mini. :wound:

[Edited on 3-26-2005 by HAL9000]

[angel_benet]

Hi,

Thanks for all the replies. I actually moved from OS 9 to Panther simply by removing the hard drive, putting it into a Power Mac G4, and installed the thing. So with the suggestions I've read here, I guess I'm going to do the same thing.

I don't do audio editing or video processing or hard core stuff like that, I use my mac simply to browse, write my book and essays, work on lots of Excel sheets, iTunes, and synching up my iPod.

I'll post feedback once Tiger is indeed out and I've been able to install it.

And yes, I am in the market for a used iBook. :-)

[penmanila]

i'll be the guinea pig when tiger comes out. i use G4s (emac and albook) at home, but out of perversity more than anything else, i've parked my bondi blue (the original!) imac 233 mhz in my office, running on 10.3.8 with 288 mb of ram. works just fine doing office work (ms office 2004) and connected to the office DSL.

on the other hand, there's really no need to upgrade the OS's on these old machines. the whole point of upgrading is to speed things up (like the big boost from OS 10.0 to 10.1, remember that?) and to get the best out of new technologies like firewire and wi-fi (which our old imacs don't have, so why even bother?). upgrades usually mean higher memory demands. our imacs would be positively zippy on OS 9, come to think of it--except that OS X is just so much easier to use, much more stable, and nicer to look at

[elbert]

Don't forget OS and software features, Butch.

At home, we have a Tangerine iBook 300 with 288MB running 10.3.8. I'm glad it can run the latest OS, I don't know how I can live without Exposé (among other things).

If I come to rely on the nifty new features found in Tiger (like Spotlight), I'll probably try to find a way to make it run in the orange toilet seat.

[angel_benet]

and don't forget those cute little widgets. and that automator icon. :-)

[alfa]

Originally posted by penmanila
i've parked my bondi blue (the original!) imac 233 mhz in my office, running on 10.3.8 with 288 mb of ram. works just fine doing office work (ms office 2004) and connected to the office DSL.

same here my G3 266 runs on 320MB RAM and does quite okay on internet browsing via DSL, word processing and spreadsheet. The memory has helped a lot so i'd love to run this thing on Tiger when it does come out as spotlight will really help us speed up our file retreival.

In our windows machines we use copernic desktop to do the search for files and i hope Tiger's spotlight will do the trick for my Mac

[penmanila]

tiger requires built-in firewire, for some reason; that leaves out your imac and mine.