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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > macOS > X.2 vs. OS 9 / Linux on *antique* hardware

X.2 vs. OS 9 / Linux on *antique* hardware
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phatbob
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: central california
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Dec 29, 2004, 06:35 PM
 
I have a rev. A bondi blue iMac, with the original hard drive (4GB) and 288MB RAM. A friend has offered to sell me his OSX disk and an update to X.2.

If I upgrade to OSX, will it be a livable situation? I'm not planning to do anything super intensive-- just some web surfing, email writing, and some quicky web-site development with a text editor and an FTP client. I guess my worry is that the machine will be so slow as to be unusable.

Am I better off staying with OS 9.2.2? I do plan to get new hardware, but it won't be for another six months at minimum.

Suggestions? Comments? Thanks...
     
Tsilou B.
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Dec 29, 2004, 07:12 PM
 
It will probably be fast enough for simple web surfing, emailing and text editing, however, you should really try to get Panther, because Panther's user interface is a lot faster on these old machines.

You certainly won't be able to play full screen videos, use any kind of 3D (OpenGL) application or other "demanding" things in either 10.2 or 10.3.
     
tooki
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Dec 29, 2004, 07:34 PM
 
The small amount of RAM is going to be the worst impediment. Mac OS X runs horribly with that little.

tooki
     
P
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Dec 29, 2004, 09:11 PM
 
I agree that RAM is the main issue, but also consider the HD - it's going to be a tight fit. You can make it work, sure, but I wouldn't recommend it. What do you need OS X for?
     
deboerjo
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Dec 29, 2004, 09:18 PM
 
Originally posted by tooki:
The small amount of RAM is going to be the worst impediment. Mac OS X runs horribly with that little.
I beg to differ. My Mac is a 333MHz iMac with 192MB of RAM. I'm using Panther, OpenOffice under the X11 environment, Firefox web browser, and Thunderbird e-mail, and performance with only 192MB is perfectly fine. 288MB should be great. Less than 192MB gets pretty bad, though, I ran it in 128MB a while.

-Jon
     
SMacTech
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Dec 29, 2004, 10:10 PM
 
I only use a 400mhz Pismo with 192MB of RAM and surprisingly it works well with Safari, iChat and not much more running. Panther is a much more suitable OS for it than Jaguar.

Either 10.3 or 10.2 will definitely be many time more stable as compared to OS 9 and its crash happiness.
     
   
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