So i got an Apple problem, Wanna help?

[Ezikial Anta]

Alright, my drummer of my band, he bought an iPod (Cool!) But, he has an older Apple with only 4GB HD space (Not cool!) Needless to say, due to the fact that it is older, the iPod couldnt work with it. So he purchased Panther (10.3) and tried to install it but- he doesnt have enough room. The computer is a G3 and he is running OSX2. Can you delete or reformat an Apple and then re-install the computer with Panther on it? Or, what are our options here? Can we get an external hard drive and do this? Can we reformat?

[JackAxe]

Only 4 Gigs. *vomits* :eek: Let me guess, he has a G3 233 with only about 2 megs of VRAM and 32 Megs of RAM?

Upgrading that computer or one similar to run OSX is a lost cause. It's just way tooooooooo slow for OSX.

He's already spent $129 on the OS, add another HD, more RAM and a USB card and that's about half way to the price of a Mini.(Or pretty much money in the gutter.) OSX runs way to slow on G3. And just for rerference, the base Mini is at least 10-20 times faster, if not more then his G3 and for ripping MP3s or any other format at least 50-100 times faster. At least this is how one of those systems feels speed wise when compared to pretty much all G3s. :o

So tell your friend to save his money for a Mini. The software alone that it comes with is worth more then the price of the system, because of what it can do.

<]=)

[madmaxmedia]

G3 is actually not too slow to run OSX, but your other specs (HD and RAM) make it much tougher. As far as G3 iMacs go, the slot loading models are the minimum I would recommend for OSX due to much better expandability-

http://www.lowendmac.com/macdan/04/0910.html

It's not fast by any means, but I briefly had a slot-loading iMac with Panther and it ran OSX pretty good. No Expose effects in GPU, but overall ran nicely for an old machine. If someone wants to do basic web/email/iTunes/Office on a super-limited budget, you could do it with one of these.

You can get these for really cheap, although as JackAxe mentions you may as well get a Mini instead!!!

If I saw a slot-loading iMac at a garage sale for $75-100 or so, I might be inclined to buy one just for nostalgia's sake. They are still very nice looking machines, and completely silent (no cooling fan.) Throw in a $40 HD and some cheap PC100 RAM and it would usable as well. They don't compete with my PB though- ;)

[JackAxe]

But no AltiVec. *vomits* Without it ripping in iTunes would rely on just the G3, Quartz also takes heavy advantage of it. :)

What's sad, is that the iMacs on that page have more power then the Beige G3 mentioned above. :D Beige G3's only used PC 66 memory and that system probably only uses UDMA 33, which would be a slug for OSX load times. :)

I did try OSX on my friend's 900 Mhz iBook and it wasn't bad. But because of the AltiVec thing, Mini, Mini Mini. :D

<]=)

[Ezikial Anta]

Alright thanks guys, ill tell him his options.