[fortney]

Hi,

I decided to update my i-MAC (800 MHz chip) from 10.2.8, but can only buy 10.5 from Apple and this demands more MHz than my chip can deliver.

Amazon has 10.4 through sellers for $279 new. There is a cheaper used version, but I am unsure about that...

Any ideas of where to find new copies of 10.4?

Or, is Linux a possibility? I used up all my programming interest learning DOS in the 1980's and want to continue with the OS X style.

Thanks

F

 

[Uncle Erik]

You might be interested in Yellow Dog Linux:

Terra Soft -- Linux for Cell, PlayStation PS3, QS20, QS21, QS22, IBM System p, Mercury Cell, and Apple PowerPC.

A friend runs YDL - it is stable, fast and you don't have to muck with configurations. YDL is preconfigured for Macs. You can also put Fedora and Mandrake on a Mac, but I haven't used either on one. I do run Fedora on a x86-64 box I built, and like Fedora a lot. Linux is not what it used to be, it is very easy to use today. YDL will install and configure itself. Aside from getting used to some Linux conventions, you won't find it much different than any other OS.

Also, here's 10.4 on eBay:

os x 10.4, Operating Systems, Business Productivity items on eBay.com

Not cheap.

 

[Wodgy]

You can install Leopard on your machine, you just have to change one of the files in the installer package so your machine passes the hardware test. Do a search on how to do this, it's not hard. As long as you have 512Mb RAM (and if you don't, it's unbelievably cheap to upgrade to that), Leopard is a better choice than Tiger at this point, even on an 800Mhz machine.

 

[Jaska]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fortney /img/forum/go_quote.gif Amazon has 10.4 through sellers for $279 new.

Woohoo! I guess I'm sitting on a gold mine with my retail copies of Tiger. Not to mention my small collection of iSight cameras.

I'd look on eBay for a used copy of the retail installation disc. Surely there are many people out there sitting on copies of Tiger they will never use again, and not everyone is into price gouging.

 

[grawk]

You should be able to find the imac specific install disc that would get you all the applications, as well.

 

[fortney]

Thanks for all your help. I think I will try the Leopard on my machine and also the Yellow Dog. I wish YDL had a trial version, but I did not see that one their website. Not a problem really.

F

 

[Jaska]

I don't understand the motivation to try installing Leopard on extremely old hardware. The computer certainly can't take advantage of all the features, you'll lose many applications in the process and may or may not be able to successfully install and run them even if you resurrect them from your original installation discs (searching for invisible disk images or using Pacifist), and so on. I would personally just stick with Jaguar until upgrading to a new computer, unless a retail copy of Panther or Tiger presents itself for a very cheap price.

I used to run various PPC Linux distributions (including many releases of YDL) on my Macs along with OS X for a couple of years, and all I can say is that the best imaginable PPC Linux experience is nowhere even close to as good as Jaguar.

 

[Moocher]

One used to be able to download old Apple OSs via Apple's web site. For instance, going to something like the following 10.4 web site and search for an update which contained the whole system. I don't know if that still works.

Apple - Support - Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

Mooch

 

[Mike Wazowski]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fortney /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi, I decided to update my i-MAC (800 MHz chip) from 10.2.8, but can only buy 10.5 from Apple and this demands more MHz than my chip can deliver. Amazon has 10.4 through sellers for $279 new. There is a cheaper used version, but I am unsure about that... Any ideas of where to find new copies of 10.4? Or, is Linux a possibility? I used up all my programming interest learning DOS in the 1980's and want to continue with the OS X style. Thanks F

Fortney, I just looked it up on ebay for you, typed "os x 10.4 tiger" - looks like you can do a lot better than $200+!
PM me if you get confused there/need help choosing. The only thing you need to make sure is that you are not buying a Tiger disc that came with a new Mac, because those are tied to their respective machines.

Now is, arguably, a "smart" time to be upgrading to 10.4 from 10.2. I have Tiger running on an iMac in the basement that seems to be just like yours. I disabled Dashboard, and 768 MB RAM works great, Photoshop CS3 runs very well, alongside with Bridge, Mail, and Safari.
Tiger was a great release. IMO, Leopard has not added as much over Tiger as Tiger did over Panther (eye candy aside).

 

[TheAvalanche]

Hey, I accidentally bought an emacs version of 10.4 for my powerbook which didn't work. I would be happy to send it to you to try. I used an Ibook disc to update to 10.3, so the emac version may work.

 

[fortney]

I obtained an unopened OS X 10.4 (pre Intel) on E Bay last night for $117 including shipping and insurance.

Thanks again for the advice, everyone.

F

 

[grawk]

$117? Ugh

 

[Mike Wazowski]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fortney /img/forum/go_quote.gif I obtained an unopened OS X 10.4 (pre Intel) on E Bay last night for $117 including shipping and insurance. Thanks again for the advice, everyone. F

fortney, congrats on getting it done! Yes indeed, I noticed there was a surprising amount of interest on ebay when I was checking the other night - no 10.4s were "Buy Now", and while some prices were much lower at the time, there were still days left for bids there. One could've probably gotten a used, opened copy for less, but you've got your piece of mind, I understand.

I wish you a smooth transition! One easy way to do this is to clone your existing Jaguar installation onto an external HD using ShirtPocket's SuperDuper (don't let the name put you off, it is a great free/donationware app, version 1.5.5 is available for Jaguar), do a clean complete Erase & Install of Tiger, then import ("Migrate") your cloned accounts from the external HD through Firewire, as if from an old computer.

Unless you become really fond of it, disabling Dashboard in Tiger will free some RAM. I've done that both on my iMac and PowerBook. There seems to be no clear way to do this from the OS interface, but Marcel Bresink's free TinkerTool will do it easily and is very safe. Once again, you are welcome to PM me for any details.

 

[krmathis]

Guess its time I sell my Mac OS 10.4 package.

 

[fortney]

Update: The software arrived today and the installation process stopped at the very last step -repeatedly- indicating there was an error installing.

Disc Utility and fsck agree that there is a non repairable error in the hard drive and fsck picked up a problem in the 256 DIMM I added several years ago.

The system profiler says, "No firewall devices found."

If anyone has an insight that will not require a large expenditure of money to fix the HD please let me know. Otherwise I will probably stop at this point.

F