[WizOSX]

I just installed OSX 10.1 on the following system :

PowerMac 7600/132 AV
128 mb ram
USB card
9gb SCSI drive

And nothing else. The only things added to the stock 4 year old machine were the USB card and replacing the 1.2 gb drive with the 9gb. I tried a few days ago with the 1.2 gb but I couldn't quite get OSX to finish installing so I replaced the hard drive. I'm typing this and sending it to the forum right now on this setup.

I used Ryan Rempel's UnsupportedUtilityX available on OWC's website.

Has anyone gotten OSX to function on a system this small or smaller. I'd like to hear your results.

There is no doubt that it is not as fast as my Ti550 with 256mb but is still very usable!! I've already installed Canvas 8 and it works quite well.

[Cipher13]

I'm amazed no end by the patience and tolerance some people possess.

That, and how differently peoples ideas of "usable" can vary... OSX is barely "usable" on my G4/400 with 640 megs of RAM.

[MacMonster]

Few months ago, I installed OS X (10.0) on my 8500. The following are the configuration of my 8500:

CPU: 604e/180
RAM: 80MB
HDD: 2GB SCSI
VRAM: 2MB
AV: Yes
PCI-Card: None

OS X was installed successfully, although it was very slow.

[robotmarkVIII]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
<STRONG>I'm amazed no end by the patience and tolerance some people possess.

That, and how differently peoples ideas of "usable" can vary... OSX is barely "usable" on my G4/400 with 640 megs of RAM.</STRONG>

YOu mean responsiveness like?

[waffffffle]

I really wish it were possible to put X on a 603 processor. I am going to put linux on my 6400 next week in order to regain some of it's lost speed and use it as a lean, mean, ftp/afp/web serving/cd-burning/mp3 playing machine. However I would gladly trade the speed for the usability of OS X. Linux is going to be hard. I really love how easy Apple has made OS X (for the unix related-stuff). I love the case-insensitive terminal, and the finder, while still not as good as OS 9's, is so much better than anything in the rest of the unix world. I am jealous of all the 604 owners out there.

[bluedog]

Cipher, I hear you on the usability front. Sheesh a 132mHz machine? They *have* to be joking saying it runs decent. I have a 7600 with a G3/400mHz installed and it runs as a server ok, but as a day-to-day machine just couldn't keep up with everything I'd want to be doing with it.

Then mention only 128MB RAM and it gets worse. I had tried OSX on only 128MB RAM the 7600 machine, after bumping it to 256 it *was* much better. Still you can't call it as usable as other machines. Its like running system 7 on a Mac Classic with 4MB RAM. It works, but its not pleasant.

But in congratulations, I'm glad WizOSX got it installed. Your problem with the HardDrive is likely just the formatted drivers that were installed. If you had reformatted it from scratch with the latest DriveSetup or DiskUtility you would likely have gotten it to work. I've found OSX to be extremely picky with this older hardware. Glad to hear you got it to work. Now if you upgrade the RAM and add a G3/G4 upgrade you'll think you have a dual800 equivalent on your hands!

Enjoy, its a great machine for serving (although linux would do the same with less overhead). I'm tending to lean toward using FreeBSD or OpenBSD as an alternative to OSX *or* linux because of its better security track records.

[Mastrap]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
<STRONG>I'm amazed no end by the patience and tolerance some people possess.

That, and how differently peoples ideas of "usable" can vary... OSX is barely "usable" on my G4/400 with 640 megs of RAM.</STRONG>

Cipher, forgive me but that is as we say in England "bollocks"


X.1 runs fine and dandy on my iBook 600 with 384. It runs better on my dual 800 with1gb I admit but to say it's not usable is nonsense.

You seem to have a real bee in your bonnet about this. Chill man.

[WizOSX]

OK-- let me define what I meant by "usable." When I bought my Ti 550 a few weeks ago the 7600 went in the corner but I really did think I would like it around as a backup machine in case anything happened to the Ti. But I have now moved 100% to OSX and never want to go back to 9. Obviously, if I worked with Photoshop, this system would not be "usable." But I certainly can have two programs like Word and Excel, or Word and Canvas, open at the same time in OSX with the 7600 setup described and produce technical/mathematical documents in an emergency. So it does "work." I thought my experience might be useful to others since I expect others are thinking along the same lines as me right now.