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megasad · 11:26 PM

I recently bought a PowerBook G3 (Wallstreet, 300MHz G3, 192MB RAM, 8GB Hard Drive) for £30 and was wondering about which OS to install.

My first instinct was OS 9, as I'm sure the machine will be more than powerful enough for that.

However, looking on iFixit, it seems quite easy to access the hard drive and so it occurs to me I could take that out, put it in an enclosure. then install 10.4 using my iBook, and then put the drive back in the PowerBook.

What I'm wondering is whether or not this will cause any problems on the PowerBook? Does Tiger have all the hardware support necessary to run such an old machine? I know the latest official OS is 10.2.8, but I don't have those discs to hand.

chris v · Jan 20, 2007, 11:22 PM

1. Not enough RAM for Tiger.
2. You'd burn 1/3 of your drive spave with an install.
3. Does it have Firewire? I think it's a requirement.

I'd go for 10.3

megasad · Jan 20, 2007, 11:30 PM

Originally Posted by chris v

1. Not enough RAM for Tiger.
2. You'd burn 1/3 of your drive spave with an install.
3. Does it have Firewire? I think it's a requirement.

I'd go for 10.3

No FireWire or even USB, it's that old. I do have 10.3 on CDs, but that is far away. I may try it next time I am near them.

I'm leaning more towards OS9 save for one big problem; I can't work out how to get OS9 to connect to my university network. I know the proxy settings and have no problem in OS X or Windows XP, but the one place that seemed to make sense in OS9 (the Internet control panel) doesn't seem to do the job, and I don't know why.

chris v · Jan 20, 2007, 11:36 PM

You can get a pretty lean install of 10.3 if you skip all the extra stuff, like printer drivers, then use something like Monolingual to remove all the extra languages. I've got an install of 10.3 on my iPod that's just a little over 1 gig.

gooser · Jan 21, 2007, 08:41 AM

i suggest 10.3 AND os9. 9 does not take up much space.

TailsToo · Jan 21, 2007, 09:48 AM

I didn't think you could run 10.x without USB

megasad · Jan 21, 2007, 12:20 PM

Originally Posted by chris v

You can get a pretty lean install of 10.3 if you skip all the extra stuff, like printer drivers, then use something like Monolingual to remove all the extra languages. I've got an install of 10.3 on my iPod that's just a little over 1 gig.

Originally Posted by gooser

i suggest 10.3 AND os9. 9 does not take up much space.

Originally Posted by TailsToo

I didn't think you could run 10.x without USB

To elaborate on what I shall be doing with this PowerBook once I've got it setup and runnng; it shall go to my 11 year old sister, so that she can write school work when the eMac I gave to my family last summer is being hogged by the rest of my siblings watching downloaded TV shows and the like.

So, for OS9 I have Microsoft Office 98 and for OS X I have Office 2004, so that's no problem. The main reason for OS X is that she's now used to using 10.4 on the eMac and has never used OS9. However, being 11, I'm sure she'd be able to pick up OS9 quite quickly... I do have 10.3, but the CDs are 5 hours away.

Anyway, hopefully tomorrow the power adaptor arrives (eBayer was kind enough to forget it originally, has supposedly posted it as of last Wednesday) and then I shall see what's what.

Also, for USB, I shall use cheap PCMCIA card.

megasad · Jan 23, 2007, 10:07 PM

As a brief update, I tried booting the Wallstreet into Tiger after first booting into OS 9 and running XPostFacto, but it never got further than the spinny wheel beneath the grey apple, so I gave up on that, have the Wallstreet running OS 9.2.2 very nicely now. If only I hadn't broken the hard drive as I put it back in the machine for the last time. Oh well.