scoobyboy

my parents have an old imac 333mhz i think and dad wants to know if it's possible to install my osx install discs i got with my 1.6 g5 on to his imac? will anything need upgrading at all or can i just install and away they go?

Echo

It may not be up to it Mark, how much memory has it got?

corradoboy

IIRC Panther has a minimum 400mhz requirement. If you pop them in and click to run the installer, there should be a bit that states min system requirements. I run it fine on an old G3 400mhz Powerbook, but I think anything less will struggle. A mate tried it on a 266mhz G3 tower and it failed but at 333 you're closer to my 400

scoobyboy

not sure i'll try and find out tomorrow and will post
many thanks

class_A

The discs should work no problem. Apple traditionally haven't been to obstructive when it comes to making backup copies of OS discs and of course there is no serial number or product activation.

OS X will run on that iMac, in the same way that a 3 legged dog runs.... physically possible but not very graceful

http://www.apple.com/uk/macosx/upgra...uirements.html

Here's what will hold you back:

• No AltiVec
• Video card not Quartz Extreme capable
• Slow FSB, limited RAM

Get him to save for a Mac mini. Come the summer he can have a new Mac with OS X Tiger, iLife 05 and 12 months .mac all for about £150 more than the cost of legal copies of the software alone.

scoobyboy

so what will be the consequences of those 3 things will it just be slow or not show images?

class_A

Didn't mean to worry you, it will run fine but will just be sloooowww.

Your best bet is to find some more RAM for it. PC100/133 SODIMM is what you're after. Mac OS X loves RAM, it uses any free memory to cache various things from the HDD to try and improve response times and the "spinning beachball of death"

If he's currently running Mac OS 9 then he'll notice that reliability will increase but responsiveness will drop.

OS X is starting to rely on more modern hardware though. The OS is heavily AltiVec optimised and in Tiger, it will make more use of "programmable" GPU's to render the GUI and various effects (look up CoreImage if you're interested). However, lots of these things will gracefully scale down or switch off according to the hardware in the machine.

scoobyboy

okey dokey then so it will be noticeably slower then? they are both new to macs and this being their first computer they have nothing to compare it to apart from the os9 they are on now. they only use it for a couple of hours each night to just wander around the net they dont use it for anything major. so will they notice do you think?

class_A

Might as well stick it on, it will happily coexist with OS 9 and they can dual-boot by just changing the Startup Disk in System Preferences or Control Panel.

scoobyboy

ok thanks will give it a go then, as for memory on 'cough cough' ebay! theres sodimm memory from a g4 laptop , theres 2 lots a pc100 and a pc133 with 128mb and 512 mb respectively will these fit or does it have to be specifically for an imac?
many thanks for all your help people

class_A

iMac uses standard size stuff so those will be fine. 144-pin PC100/133 SODIMM non DDR, non parity, non ECC.

scoobyboy

right found a 256mb upgrade on ebay so will install that when it gets here.
had to chuckle though when i checked how much it had standard...... 64mb my phones memory is bigger than that lol

Markus

We've got an imac in the US office, not sure what spec, but it's one of the 'fruit' colored ones (think it's the dark blue one) and it's running 10.2 and 10.3 quite happily. It'll be up here within a few weeks so it'll be abused ruthlessley, ie; have panther server and client installed on it. I'll let people know how it performs.

RichB

I tried to install the OS from my G5 on to an older G4 laptop, it wouldn't work for some reason.

try booting off the CD first and make sure you back up etc...

I don't think it's gonna work though :-(

RichB

Sorry to clarify, it *will* run OSX etc but I dont think it will boot from the CD from the G5....

I have 10.3.7 running on my old G3 laptop 333 and it is bearable but not for much more than surfing/mail etc.

Markus

It would not suprise me if CD's from a G5 won't install on an iMac. CD's are probably 'keyed' to work with the specific hardware. Makes sense, as it forces people to purchase a copy of OS X, rather than just using the CD's from another machine.

My current gripe is the dev releases of Tiger being DVD images, bit of a problem when I don't have a machine with a DVD-RW drive. Not a massive loss, just have to wait for the copy from ADC to turn up, but I'm a sucker for making sure my dev machines have the latest offical seeds of OS X on them.

scoobyboy

thanks markus that would be good, got the extra memory today so will install it and see how it goes tomorrow.

class_A

If it won't boot/install properly, PM me and I'll give you some tips

scoobyboy

will do class a many thanks

scoobyboy

you have pm class a