mgcvk

I have had this laptop knocking aroud for a while and I know it is old and slow, but it would do for the kids for e-mail and internet if I can get it working. I have installed Mac OS X version 10.0.4 from the disk that came with the laptop but that is unsupported and there are no web browsers I can download. It has ancient mac version internet explorer on but that is no good and keeps crashing. An old version of Opera was my hope but it won't run.

I do have two disks for OS 10.4.7 from my i mac but I can't load these as the G3 laptop doesn't have a DVD drive. Will I be able to connect an external DVD player of some sort or can I firewire connect the i mac to the laptop and do it that way? Any neat solutions gratefully received, or is the G3 just way past its sell by date?

Ant

I'm sure if I'm wrong markus will correct me but two reasons the disc won't work from the iMac as it's Only for that machine only and it's based on intel not power pc.

mgcvk

Ah yes, I reckon you will be right. Intel i-mac a bit far removed from G3 I suppose. Looks like I will have to try and source a newer older version of OS X.

Markus

Target Disk Mode should show up the CD/DVD drive on the iMac. Note that you'd want to put the iMac into disk mode NOT the G3 Laptop. If you do it the other way round then the host machine will be the iMac, it'll install on the G3 but I doubt the 3G will boot or won't be too happy as it'll have been configured as though it was the host machine, the iMac and not the G3.

As antc correctly states, the disks won't be much help as they will be machine specific, and if it's Intel then it certainly will not run on a G3. You'd need a retail version of the Tiger disk, which you might be able to source somewhere

Before you do any of that, can you grab the exact spec of the machine, have a look under About This Mac. I want to have a look and see if it will actually support Tiger, have a feeling it might not. I know some G3 laptops could only run up to Panther (10.3), but without the spec I cannot say for sure.

Additionally, don't think of asking about Leopard or Snow Leopard. Leopard would need to be modified (extract an image from the media, hack the installer config to allow it to run on the spec of machine, reburn image / copy it to a disk partition and try to install) and even then, it'll fail due to lack of RAM. I tried the Leopard installer on iBook G4 with less than 512MB RAM and it failed during the install. Once RAM was upgraded it was ok, it's not lightning fast, but ok as a spare test machine in a server / client setup.
10.6, forget it, Intel only, no PPC code in there for the GX machines.

Depending on how much time you want to devote to this, you could possibly get Tiger on the machine and it might be an acceptable speed. You should be able to get Firefox and maybe early versions of Safari running.

mgcvk

Sounds a bit more promising. Running an early version of Safari or Firefox was certainly my ambition as the laptop hooks up perfectly well to my broadband via Ethernet port at the moment. There isn't much info in About this Mac, just PowerPC G3, Memory 320mb.
OS X version is 10.0.4 (Build 4Q12). It is a white machine (iBook) I bought back in 2000 I think. If you can work out the most advanced version of OS X I will be able to run that would be great.

Ant

Tiger download *cough cough* http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3960...Tiger_DVD_(PPC)

Markus

Given the info provided, I'm going to take a guess it's probably the following machine, so it's 2001 rather than 2000.



Based on this info it'll run up to 10.4.11, ie; last version of Tiger.

mgcvk

Thanks both for the info. I'll see if I can make it work.

mgcvk

Only problem I have now is getting the version of Tiger onto the G3 as it has no DVD drive - must have been an expensive option back then. I have tried Target Disking it across but "special permissions" means that some files won't copy and it won't open on the laptop. The individual components of Tiger are too big to split it onto CD's so I will have to try to borrow an external DVD drive and hopefully get it on that way.

Markus

Assume you just have a cdr / iso file of Tiger, correct? Can you not burn that to a DVD and then have the iMac in target mode, fire up the G3, hold down the option key to display the boot manager and whack the DVD into the iMac's drive and see it if appears as a bootable disk in the G3's boot manager screen.
Other option is to create a new partition on the iMac, perhaps on an external disk, and restore the image to that partition using Disk Utility, then try the same steps above to boot from it.

Just copying it over to the G3 would not have helped, it's got to be in a bootable state, so either on a partition of a drive, or on a DVD. The reason is that the installer will need to reboot the machine, and so opened files would be closed.

mgcvk

I'll burn Tiger to dvd and give it a try. If not I think a mate has an external dvd drive so that might just work.

Ant

Can tiger be put on USB markus?

And boot from USB?

Markus

For the G3, no it cannot boot from USB. I think only intel based macs support USB. I have a feeling I stuck refit on a USB key and got my first gen intel iMac to boot from it but I could be mistaken