[JonK]

Hi,

I've got an ibook G3 500mhz running OS X 10.2.8 with 320mb RAM and a 10gb HD (half full).
I want to use this laptop strictly to surf, skype and download images from my camera.

I can't load skype unless I have OS X 10.3 or higher.

How smoothly would an upgrade to Panther OS be on this configuration? Am I in for problems?
I've seen OS X 10.3 CD's on ebay and am wondering how I would do the actual upgrade. Do I need full install CD's?

Any help/advice greatly appreciated

jon

[Big Mac]

All machines that meet Panther's hardware requirements run it just fine. However, do note that the class of G3 iBooks you're talking about are prone to failure eventually.

[JonK]

thanks big mac....maybe you could elaborate on that thought....prone to failure in what way? Hard drive failure or jus dead or what?

I just bought this used and could return it if i decide to.

[OreoCookie]

The 500 MHz model is quite ok, the 800 MHz G3 models on the other hand (I went through 3 motherboards!) … 

You should even get 10.3 or 10.4, both are far more usable than 10.2.

[JonK]

thanks oreo!

I will look into the upgrading.

cheers

[steve626]

I upgraded the iMac 500 MHz G3 that my wife uses for web browsing and email, from 10.2.8 to 10.3.9, mainly so I could update iTunes to the latest version for her on her computer. (She likes to listen to my daughter's iTunes songs.)

I bought the Panther install CDs from

AppleRescue | Mac Operating Systems & Technical Manuals

They arrived in 2 days. These are "universal" install CDs ... which you need since many of the eBay Panther CDs/DVDs are for one machine or another, and probably won't work on your model. So getting the universal set is important, and the AppleRescue store is very very inexpensive. The CDs were necessary for me since my iMac only has a CDRW, no DVD drive.

I then made two backups (clones) of the hard disk using SuperDuper (to external firewire drives), and for good measure copied important files to CDs. I also ran Disk Warrior and fixed permissions and ran disk utility to make sure the file system was good. Then I used the CDs to upgrade to Panther from Jaguar using "archive and install while preserving user settings". It took all of 15 minutes. Installing all the updates and security updates to go from 10.3.0 up to 10.3.9 then took another 1-2 hours, however.

Another thing worth doing is to exclude most if not all of the printer drivers during the Panther install since most are out of date by now anyway, plus one can always download drivers for a given printer from the web. That can save you a lot of disk space. You should look into minimizing your install because you don't have much disk space. When done, you will see a folder called "Previous System" that contains some old files from 10.2.8 -- copy this off your drive to some other place to free up more disk space (keep it around for a little while in case you need it). With this archive and install with preservation of user settings, everything was just like it was, except I had a fresh new Panther instead of the older 10.2.8. There was only one thing wrong with the new system -- the login screen didn't show the correct pictures of the users, just a generic plain picture, so I had to re-set that up, took about 30 seconds.

Another thing I did was go through all my applications before the upgrade and check that all were compatible with 10.3 (by looking at vendor web sites, version tracker etc.). Some were not so I deleted them. I also removed all traces of Norton AntiVirus software and a Preference Pane I had installed under 10.2.8 -- things like that don't usually behave over system upgrades. I was very pleased with how easy this was, and how seamless the change to the new system was.

Because you have very little RAM and not much disk space, I'd stay away from Tiger and stick with Panther. My wife's iMac G3 has 1 Gigabyte RAM, the most it can hold, and I'd say that's about the minimum I'd recommend for 10.3.9.

[JonK]

hey steve...wow! thanks or the super detailed response...you answered loads of questions I hadn't even thot of!

just one more regarding the RAM...could I max out my RAM on this ibook at 1 gb if i wanted?

Looks lke panther may be the best bet for this machine given the small disk size.
I'm pretty miffed actually cos the ibook was advertised as having a 30gb HD and I bought it thinking that...imagine my surprise when I went into system profile and found a 10gb!...still dealing with tigerdirect.ca on this issue...hope to get something out of it.

[steve626]

Originally Posted by JonK 

just one more regarding the RAM...could I max out my RAM on this ibook at 1 gb if i wanted?

Looks lke panther may be the best bet for this machine given the small disk size.
I'm pretty miffed actually cos the ibook was advertised as having a 30gb HD and I bought it thinking that...imagine my surprise when I went into system profile and found a 10gb!...still dealing with tigerdirect.ca on this issue...hope to get something out of it.

Could one of these be your iBook:

iBook (14.1 LCD) - Technical Specifications

iBook (Late 2001) - Technical Specifications

Either way, these links indicate maximum of 640 Meg RAM for these iBooks, which isn't bad for Panther. The above links seem to indicate that there is just one RAM slot so maybe you would need to buy one 512 Meg chip and remove the smaller one that's in there. I would have a qualified shop do this, should you decide to upgrade your RAM. I think your existing 320 Meg isn't bad either, but more RAM will result in much better performance. One thing that mystifies me a bit is that the above links indicate that those iBooks came with 15-Gig or 20-Gig or larger internal drives, so I don't understand yours being only 10-Gig. Maybe I haven't identified your model correctly. You might also run Disk Utility to make sure there isn't an unmounted partition of 10-Gig lurking somewhere in your computer.

One thing I should have emphasized is to pay attention to free disk space when installing/upgrading your operating system, because you need to keep at least 15% of your disk free under Mac OS X so that virtual memory and paging works properly. That's why I suggested trying to keep the install trim and delete unnecessary files to free up space ahead of time. I moved all iphoto and itunes files to external firewire drives a while ago for that old iMac we have because it came with only 20-Gig.

[JonK]

hi steve....

I checked disk utility and there is only the one HD present...9.37gb.

Looking at your links I believe I have the 14.1 inch model specs (but mine has a 12" screen) with the 500mhz processor and 66mhz sys. bus. which would max me out at 640 RAM as you said. I did notice the 64mb of the RAM is DIMM0/built-in.

What about putting a new, bigger HD? Waste of time/money on a machine this age?
any thoughts appreciated.

[gooser]

Originally Posted by JonK 

hi steve....

I checked disk utility and there is only the one HD present...9.37gb.

Looking at your links I believe I have the 14.1 inch model specs (but mine has a 12" screen) with the 500mhz processor and 66mhz sys. bus. which would max me out at 640 RAM as you said. I did notice the 64mb of the RAM is DIMM0/built-in.

What about putting a new, bigger HD? Waste of time/money on a machine this age?
any thoughts appreciated.

think about putting a new hard drive in when the other one breaks or you get down to less than 1.5 gb remaing. 10.3 will run smoother on your machine than 10.4.

[gooser]

Originally Posted by steve626 

Could one of these be your iBook:

iBook (14.1 LCD) - Technical Specifications

iBook (Late 2001) - Technical Specifications

Either way, these links indicate maximum of 640 Meg RAM for these iBooks, which isn't bad for Panther. The above links seem to indicate that there is just one RAM slot so maybe you would need to buy one 512 Meg chip and remove the smaller one that's in there. I would have a qualified shop do this, should you decide to upgrade your RAM. I think your existing 320 Meg isn't bad either, but more RAM will result in much better performance. One thing that mystifies me a bit is that the above links indicate that those iBooks came with 15-Gig or 20-Gig or larger internal drives, so I don't understand yours being only 10-Gig. Maybe I haven't identified your model correctly. You might also run Disk Utility to make sure there isn't an unmounted partition of 10-Gig lurking somewhere in your computer.

One thing I should have emphasized is to pay attention to free disk space when installing/upgrading your operating system, because you need to keep at least 15% of your disk free under Mac OS X so that virtual memory and paging works properly. That's why I suggested trying to keep the install trim and delete unnecessary files to free up space ahead of time. I moved all iphoto and itunes files to external firewire drives a while ago for that old iMac we have because it came with only 20-Gig.

steve, ibelieve the 500 models came with a 10gb and an option to upgrade to a 20. the 15's didn't start until the 600 model.

[JonK]

I've upgraded my OS to 10.3.9 and am pretty happy with the performance. I won't upgrade to tiger as panther is good enough for what I want to do. Also purchased a 60gb 2.5" external drive so I'm good to go.
Next I would like to upgrade the RAM. It takes PC133-333 SDRAM. I guess one stick of 512mb is the max for this laptop? It has a 256mb stick and 64mb built in at the moment.