OS 10.3 on G3

[NRaygun]

I'll be buying a used Blue and White G3 (350Mhz, 128MB) tomorrow.

Is it worth buying and running OS 10.3 on this machine or should I stick with 8.6?

I'm new to the Mac scene.

 

[manly]

In a word, no. OS 9.2.2 wouldn't be a bad idea.
Edit:
What I failed to mention is that Panther would run OKAY w/ 256MB RAM.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Max out the ram and you might be able to use OS X decently, but I wouldn't count on it.

 

[InlineFive]

My 333Mhz G3 can run 10.2 decently quick with 192MB of ram. No doubt since 10.3 is faster it should be usable.

-Por

 

[NRaygun]

So I think the answer is yes provided I have enough RAM.

If I buy 10.3, can I do a clean install and reformat the drive?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: NRaygun
So I think the answer is yes provided I have enough RAM.

If I buy 10.3, can I do a clean install and reformat the drive?

Yes, and I recommend maxing out the ram if you can.

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: NRaygun
So I think the answer is yes provided I have enough RAM.

If I buy 10.3, can I do a clean install and reformat the drive?

Yes, and I recommend maxing out the ram if you can.

Care to justify the expense of 1 GB SDRAM in that box?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: NRaygun
So I think the answer is yes provided I have enough RAM.

If I buy 10.3, can I do a clean install and reformat the drive?

Yes, and I recommend maxing out the ram if you can.

Care to justify the expense of 1 GB SDRAM in that box?

Memory is good. I have 384MB IIRC, and I don't think it is enough. But I have a faster processor.

Other speed increases that are easy and possible: PCI ATA card will DEFINITELY help out the disk transfer rates.

 

[Vadatajs]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: NRaygun
So I think the answer is yes provided I have enough RAM.

If I buy 10.3, can I do a clean install and reformat the drive?

Yes, and I recommend maxing out the ram if you can.

Care to justify the expense of 1 GB SDRAM in that box?

Memory is good. I have 384MB IIRC, and I don't think it is enough. But I have a faster processor.

Other speed increases that are easy and possible: PCI ATA card will DEFINITELY help out the disk transfer rates.

How so? AFAIK the blue and white G3 used ATA. Wouldn't putting it on a pci bus be a bottleneck anyway?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Vadatajs

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: NRaygun
So I think the answer is yes provided I have enough RAM.

If I buy 10.3, can I do a clean install and reformat the drive?

Yes, and I recommend maxing out the ram if you can.

Care to justify the expense of 1 GB SDRAM in that box?

Memory is good. I have 384MB IIRC, and I don't think it is enough. But I have a faster processor.

Other speed increases that are easy and possible: PCI ATA card will DEFINITELY help out the disk transfer rates.

How so? AFAIK the blue and white G3 used ATA. Wouldn't putting it on a pci bus be a bottleneck anyway?

It does use ATA, but I think it is only 33. Bumping it up to ATA66 or ATA100 would be quite useful. If putting it on the PCI bus is that much of a bottleneck, why do promise cards sell so well?

 

[drag]

I've installed OS X on a blue and white G3 before and it works out ok.

RAM is big deal, get mucho grande. Whatever is reasonable to spend for you. Another 256megs would be great.

You can also get proccessor upgrades for it with out to much trouble that will help out. 350megs is slow, but usable if you turn all the Eye candy crap.

Also be sure that it's a good deal. Apples hold their value well from because of the Apple fanatcal market. No apple to slow is worthless or some crap like that and older apples go for outragious prices.

A 1ghz g4 emac with 256 megs of SDRAM is 800 dollars with a student discount, brand new. Or $749 with 128 megs or 800 with 128 megs and no student discount. These come with a 40gig harddrive and a CD burner/DVD player drive. You can always stick more RAM in there (macs can be touchy with ram timings though..). They have 2 dimm slots.

That would be well worth it over any savings you'd get from beefing up a B&W g3. Especially if you don't have a extra monitor for it, since the Emac has it's monitor built in.

But if all you want is a simple cheap computer that is capable of running OS X, then you can do much worse then getting a B&W G3.

 

[mpitts]

I ran 10.3 on a G3/333 iMac with 256MB of RAM and it ran quite well. Much better than 10.2.

Like others have said, if you put enough RAM in the machine it will run 10.3 just fine.

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Vadatajs

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: NRaygun
So I think the answer is yes provided I have enough RAM.

If I buy 10.3, can I do a clean install and reformat the drive?

Yes, and I recommend maxing out the ram if you can.

Care to justify the expense of 1 GB SDRAM in that box?

Memory is good. I have 384MB IIRC, and I don't think it is enough. But I have a faster processor.

Other speed increases that are easy and possible: PCI ATA card will DEFINITELY help out the disk transfer rates.

How so? AFAIK the blue and white G3 used ATA. Wouldn't putting it on a pci bus be a bottleneck anyway?

It does use ATA, but I think it is only 33. Bumping it up to ATA66 or ATA100 would be quite useful. If putting it on the PCI bus is that much of a bottleneck, why do promise cards sell so well?

Old onboard ATA controllers leeched off the PCI bus anyway, so this isn't a concern. However, I again disagree with you. Unless you're talking about adding a very modern, large parallel ATA drive, ATA/33 is not a serious bottleneck.

Again, the bottom line is that SDRAM DIMMs and ATA controllers for PowerMac G3s are not very cost-effective. I totally agree with throwing a 256MB DIMM (or two) into the system, but coming from a value standpoint, it's not an inexpensive upgrade path to Panther.

It's just like trying to run Windows XP on an old P2-350 MHz. It's certainly feasible, but you don't want to drop a lot of money into the project.

 

[colonel]

I have the White and Blue G3, and I using Mac 9.2.2 but I pulled the ATI rage card I m running a Voodoo 5

 

[drag]

It's just like trying to run Windows XP on an old P2-350 MHz. It's certainly feasible, but you don't want to drop a lot of money into the project.

Well actually it's like trying to run XP off of a 500-600mhz x86 cpu. But it doesn't mean much difference nowadays.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: manly

Old onboard ATA controllers leeched off the PCI bus anyway, so this isn't a concern. However, I again disagree with you. Unless you're talking about adding a very modern, large parallel ATA drive, ATA/33 is not a serious bottleneck.

sigh

Why do I bother? Anyways, how many of your machines are using ATA33? Atleast two of mine are, and it sucks. Sticking a $30 PCI card and a bigger/newer hard drive (which half of us have just lying around) isn't expensive, and can be a vast improvement, if you do anything that pulls data off the hard drive. Let the Mac magazines out there that have reviewed PCI IDE cards know that you think it is a waste though. I'm sure they'll care.

Again, the bottom line is that SDRAM DIMMs and ATA controllers for PowerMac G3s are not very cost-effective. I totally agree with throwing a 256MB DIMM (or two) into the system, but coming from a value standpoint, it's not an inexpensive upgrade path to Panther.

But maxing out the ram is worthless? Bull. For a minimal investment I could max out a B&W. I've got a couple of sticks of p100 SDRAM lying around, MUCH LIKE MANKY GEEKS. So for roughly $400 you could max out a B&W g3 in ram and upgrade the disk. Not a major investment, especially if you get some use out of the machine you got for such a great deal. Or, if you have parts lying around, like I do, it would cost far less.

Adding less memory is fine (I recommend no less than 256MB), but if you can (as in, you aren't a poor slacking college student or live in a country where money is something you don't see) MAX IT OUT. I don't' remember saying that either of these suggestions were necessary.

It's just like trying to run Windows XP on an old P2-350 MHz. It's certainly feasible, but you don't want to drop a lot of money into the project.

I'd rather try to give my cat a bath. Plus, I have enough hardware lying around that this wouldn't be necessary.

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: manly

Old onboard ATA controllers leeched off the PCI bus anyway, so this isn't a concern. However, I again disagree with you. Unless you're talking about adding a very modern, large parallel ATA drive, ATA/33 is not a serious bottleneck.

sigh

Why do I bother? Anyways, how many of your machines are using ATA33? Atleast two of mine are, and it sucks. Sticking a $30 PCI card and a bigger/newer hard drive (which half of us have just lying around) isn't expensive, and can be a vast improvement, if you do anything that pulls data off the hard drive. Let the Mac magazines out there that have reviewed PCI IDE cards know that you think it is a waste though. I'm sure they'll care.

I don't think I have any machines with ATA/33 in active service but I am saying unless he's planning on putting an 80GB drive into the G3, I wouldn't drop $60 into a newer Ultra ATA controller when the sustained transfer rate of earlier drives hardly push 33 MB/s. Feel free to suggest a G3-compatible one for $30 (because I wouldn't mind knowing). The popular, well-supported Sonnet Tempo card goes for about $90 retail new.

Again, the bottom line is that SDRAM DIMMs and ATA controllers for PowerMac G3s are not very cost-effective. I totally agree with throwing a 256MB DIMM (or two) into the system, but coming from a value standpoint, it's not an inexpensive upgrade path to Panther.

But maxing out the ram is worthless? Bull. For a minimal investment I could max out a B&W. I've got a couple of sticks of p100 SDRAM lying around, MUCH LIKE MANKY GEEKS. So for roughly $400 you could max out a B&W g3 in ram and upgrade the disk. Not a major investment, especially if you get some use out of the machine you got for such a great deal. Or, if you have parts lying around, like I do, it would cost far less.

Adding less memory is fine (I recommend no less than 256MB), but if you can (as in, you aren't a poor slacking college student or live in a country where money is something you don't see) MAX IT OUT. I don't' remember saying that either of these suggestions were necessary.

Never said it was worthless but to answer the original question, it simply is not very cost-effective to both purchase Panther and 2 or more sticks of PC100 SDRAM DIMMs. If you price it at $400, I would assert most of the people in this thread would agree that it's not a sensible upgrade. Quite obviously, if you have all the spare parts lying around, then it's not an additional investment.

It's just like trying to run Windows XP on an old P2-350 MHz. It's certainly feasible, but you don't want to drop a lot of money into the project.

I'd rather try to give my cat a bath. Plus, I have enough hardware lying around that this wouldn't be necessary.

I understand part of your message is that you'd rather run Panther on that box than OS9, but I am looking at it from a dollars and cents perspective. Maybe you wouldn't pay any price to go back to OS9.

Again, to make it real clear, go ahead and get Panther and 256MB additional RAM in this box, but how many of us would recommend investing $400+ into a 5-year old box? Now if you want to give him the spare parts, then have a :beer:.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: manly

I don't think I have any machines with ATA/33 in active service but I am saying unless he's planning on putting an 80GB drive into the G3, I wouldn't drop $60 into a newer Ultra ATA controller when the sustained transfer rate of earlier drives hardly push 33 MB/s. Feel free to suggest a G3-compatible one for $30 (because I wouldn't mind knowing). The popular, well-supported Sonnet Tempo card goes for about $90 retail new.

I didn't check for stated compatibility with g3 machines, but I did see PCI IDE ATA100 cards for $30.

Never said it was worthless but to answer the original question, it simply is not very cost-effective to both purchase Panther and 2 or more sticks of PC100 SDRAM DIMMs. If you price it at $400, I would assert most of the people in this thread would agree that it's not a sensible upgrade. Quite obviously, if you have all the spare parts lying around, then it's not an additional investment.

If he plans on using the box for more than just trying out OS X, it may be cost effective. It really depends on what the machine will be doing. So suggesting maxing out the memory is not out of line. And $400 was roughly the price of 4 sticks of 256MB PC100 SDRAM and a PCI controller card.

I understand part of your message is that you'd rather run Panther on that box than OS9, but I am looking at it from a dollars and cents perspective. Maybe you wouldn't pay any price to go back to OS9.

Again, to make it real clear, go ahead and get Panther and 256MB additional RAM in this box, but how many of us would recommend investing $400+ into a 5-year old box? Now if you want to give him the spare parts, then have a :beer:.

I'm planning on investing a few bucks into an old Ultra 10. And I'll be happy doing it too. I'm wierd like that.