[pwrmacg4]

I've have powerbook g4 (1ghz, 1gb memory) and its sluggish with 1 browser open (opera/firefox) with 768mb free. (spinning cursors)

Is OS 10.4+ too much for it? Should I not upgrade if 10.5 comes along?
Or maybe my cpu is not poweful enough.

I also tried powermac g4 (slightly better) and powerbook (intel core)
which runs much better but it seems to me many features of OS X while nice are expensive to run.

[pwrmacg4]

I do not use most of these features. Maybe I should change to linux? Unless Apple makes a "lite" version?

[peeb]

10.4 is fine for this machine - if anything, faster than previous versions. Powerbooks are PPC machines, so I guess you mean MacBooks or Pros, they should be a LOT faster. A bit more RAM might help you, 1gb is sort of the minimum for 10.4 - take a look and see if you are paging a lot with System Monitor.
This machine won't be a speed demon, but you should be able to browse the web without too many beachballs.

[pwrmacg4]

I tried cache out software, it seems to help. I think my circuit board needs to be replaced, intermittent problems.

[msuper69]

Originally Posted by pwrmacg4 

I tried cache out software, it seems to help. I think my circuit board needs to be replaced, intermittent problems.

If that were true (bad circuit board), you'd be having more serious problems that slowness. I have a 500mhz G4 Powerbook that runs 10.4.9 very nicely. Not a speed demon, but very useable.

[voicebox]

Originally Posted by pwrmacg4 

I've have powerbook g4 (1ghz, 1gb memory) and its sluggish with 1 browser open (opera/firefox) with 768mb free. (spinning cursors)

Is OS 10.4+ too much for it? Should I not upgrade if 10.5 comes along?
Or maybe my cpu is not poweful enough.

I also tried powermac g4 (slightly better) and powerbook (intel core)
which runs much better but it seems to me many features of OS X while nice are expensive to run.

Hi there,
I also have a G4 PowerBook (15") with a 1GHz processor and 1Gb of memory.
I am running 10.4.9 with no difficulty whatsoever.
If you haven't done so already, I suggest you download a wonderful little app called 'OnyX' from here www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20070 and do a little 'spring cleaning' of the system like clearing out Browser caches, cookies etc, etc. Couple this with some simple maintenance like optimization and you will find your PB will run faster. It sounds as though your PB is a little 'clogged'!
As far as upgrading to 10.5 is concerned, I think the 1GHz processor will be far too slow to take it, so like me, you may have to invest in a new Intel MacBook or a MacBook Pro - but that's another story!

[EmmEff]

FWIW, I had an iBook G4 1GHz w/768MB running Tiger (since Tiger was released) and performance was very usable. Your machine is theoretically faster w/better video so it shouldn't be that slow. If you're comparing it to a current model notebook, there's no chance- your PB will be a dog.

[mdc]

My only computer is a 1.64ghz PowerBook G4 with 10.4.9 on it and it's great. I had some slow down recently and I ran all the tasks with Onyx, and reset Safari. Those two things helped a lot.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by voicebox 

Hi there,
I also have a G4 PowerBook (15") with a 1GHz processor and 1Gb of memory.
I am running 10.4.9 with no difficulty whatsoever.
If you haven't done so already, I suggest you download a wonderful little app called 'OnyX' from here OnyX 1.7.9 – Mac OS X – VersionTracker and do a little 'spring cleaning' of the system like clearing out Browser caches, cookies etc, etc. Couple this with some simple maintenance like optimization and you will find your PB will run faster. It sounds as though your PB is a little 'clogged'!
As far as upgrading to 10.5 is concerned, I think the 1GHz processor will be far too slow to take it, so like me, you may have to invest in a new Intel MacBook or a MacBook Pro - but that's another story!

Not sure about that - previous updates have made old machines slightly faster due to optimization - time will tell whether this machine is too slow for Leopard. Having said that, it might be a good time to look at replacing it.

[imitchellg5]

I got 10.4.9 running fine on a 533 MHz G4 with 640 Mb of RAM- yours should be fine.