Re: Advice Needed on Optimum Version

Henry Flam <hflam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Recently, a friend of mine who normally operates a Windows machine,
received a free older Mac, a G3, PowerPC 750. The OS that was installed
with the machine is OS X 10.3.9.I've sent him an occasional bit of
software, but I'm not sure what will run on his machine. I told him to
upgrade his OS, but I don't remember what's the best OS for him. Would
he be able to use 10.5?

Definitely can't use Mac OS X 10.5, because it requires a G4 processor.

It is unclear from your description which Mac model he has. The "PowerPC
750" designation just describes the CPU as a G3 processor. That could be
any of about 30 distinct series of Mac models, many of which included
three or more variants.

If the computer has a built-in Firewire port, then it will be able to
run Mac OS X 10.4.

There are a few older G3 models which cannot run 10.4, and some of the
older ones cannot run 10.3 either without some third party hacks.

To find out which model he has, go into "About This Mac" under the Apple
menu, then click the "More Info" button. This will run the System
Profiler applciation.

The first page it shows has a general description of the computer. The
main items of interest are the "Model Name" (e.g. "iMac") and the "Model
Identifier" (e.g. "PowerMac1,1" or "iMac,1").

If it is a very old model then it might be what is affectionately known
as a "Beige G3", which is a desktop computer with a pale grey case (in
three different styles - desktop, minitower, or all-in-one). They can
only officially run 10.2 and earlier. System Profiler won't have a model
identifier string, but might mention a Machine ID as a number (510).

The other item of interest is the CPU speed. Some iMac models came as
part of a series where the slowest model (350 MHz) was missing Firewire,
while the faster ones (at least 400 MHz) included it. Only the faster
models are officially able to run Mac OS X 10.4.

A secondary issue is the amount of memory, hard drive space and type of
optical drive. 10.4 has higher system requirements than 10.3: a minimum
of 256 MB of memory (and I'd recommend at least double that for
reasonable performance). At leat 10 GB of free disk space will be
required to install the operating system (and have enough left to be
safe to use it).

Installing 10.4 generally requires an optical drive capable of reading a
DVD-ROM (a CD-ROM or CD-RW drive is not sufficient), but there are
workarounds.

Getting hold of 10.4 is a bit tricky - Apple hasn't sold it for about 18
months, so you will need to locate a second hand copy, and it can be a
minefield if you don't know exactly which variant you need.

You want the retail edition of 10.4 (black DVD with a big grey X on it),
not an "upgrade" (looks the same but didn't come in a box, and has
"Upgrade" or "CPU Drop-in" written on the DVD), or a "model specific"
variant (grey DVD with a model name on it).

--
David Empson
dempson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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