[olug] [Macintosh] Powermac G3, Ubuntu, and OS X

Adam Lassek adam.lassek at gmail.com
Thu May 18 23:19:20 UTC 2006


It depends on the model. I know certain G3 iMacs support target mode.

On 5/18/06, Matt Anderson <manderso at cs.wisc.edu> wrote:
> Does the G3 have a DVD player?  As of OS 10.4, I believe regular
> consumer copies of OS X Client are only distributed on DVD (according
> to Apple Enterprise Support).  If 10.3 fits your needs, you can get
> that on CD.
>
> Slightly newer Macs (as of a fairly early G4 revision) have a
> 'firewire target disk mode' which lets another computer use the Mac
> as an external hard disk.  I know that the earliest G4 (Yikes!) does
> not support this (as I have one).  The G4 Sawtooth model (immediately
> following the Yikes! model) does support target disk mode (I have one
> of those too).  I don't know if any G3s support that functionality or
> not.  If yours does, you could put it into target disk mode, hook it
> up to another Mac, and install the operating system.
>
> Assuming you don't have a DVD player or target disk mode, I'd say
> your best options are to either (a) install a DVD player or (b) put a
> hard disk into your G3 that had the OS installed on it while it was
> in another Mac.  I think a Mac of your G3's vintage will support
> 128GB or so of space on an IDE HDD (bigger is fine, but extra
> capacity will go unrecognized without third party software) -- this
> is assuming hard disk support is the same as on my 2 early G4s.  I
> don't know what DVD players are compatible (maybe all IDE DVD
> players) -- I haven't installed one.
>
> If you're going to run 10.4, I don't think you'll be satisfied with
> the performance of the machine with only 128MB of RAM.  My personal
> feeling is that 512MB is the minimum for acceptable performance (at
> least for how I use a Mac -- slowdown due to extensive swapping is
> very annoying).  I think my early G4s take PC100 RAM.
>
> If you pay fees to be an Apple developer, you can download software
> from Apple, including the client (and server) operating systems.  The
> lowest such fee I believe is $500, and I think the software is
> configured to expire after a year.  I don't know what the
> installation is like if you obtain the OS in this way.
>
> A nice resource with information about older Macs is Low End Mac:
>
>    http://www.lowendmac.com/ppc/
>
> Good luck...
>
> --
>   Matt Anderson
>
>
> On May 18, 2006, at 2:44 PM, Daniel Linder wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On Thu, May 18, 2006 14:23, Phil Brutsche wrote:
> >
> >> You have a RTU (right to use) for any version of MacOS you like,
> >
> >> provided it will run on the machine.  Some G3 machines won't OS X
> >
> >> period, some G3 machines will only run OS X through 10.2 or so.
> > You
> >
> >> might have to check a couple Mac-specific lists to find out which
> > will
> >
> >> and which won't.
> >
> >>
> >
> >> Since you got the license with the machine, all you need to do is
> > find
> >
> >> someone that will loan you media.  It's not downloadable from
> > Apple.
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks -- I was thinking that was the case (RTU), but my last in-depth
> > exposure to Apples was many years ago.
> >
> >
> >
> > So, anyone have an older OS X cd that they would like to loan so I can
> > make an ISO image of it?
> >
> >
> >
> > Dan
> >
> >
> >
> > - - - -
> >
> > "Wait for that wisest of all counselors, time." -- Pericles
> >
> > "I do not fear computers, I fear the lack of them." -- Isaac
> > Asimov
> >
> > "Soon we will be able to harness the rotational energy from Orwell's
> > grave to solve all world energy problems." -- /. user GigsVT
> > (208848)
> >
> > GPG fingerprint:6FFD DB94 7B96 0FD8 EADF  2EE0 B2B0 CC47 4FDE 9B68
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