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Hi- I'm brand-new to Macs, having picked one up on eBay for $26! It's a G3/350 'Blueberry' with 198Mb RAM installed. It has OS9 and OSX installed, but I'm sort of leery about having two OS's on a drive- chalk it up to years of Wintel habits! I'm wondering, can I install OSX 10.2 'Jaguar' as a single OS and expect decent performance (for a old machine, that is) or should I stick with what I've got? I believe I've got RAM to bump it up to 256, if that would help any. Also, it's got a small 6GB HD installed- would I need to retrofit a 20GB HD to have any workable drive space after a 10.2 install?
Like I said, I'm a complete noob to Macs- any help or advice is greatly appreciated.
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Installing 10.2 on a G3??
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#2
kerby74 
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Posted 23 March 2007 - 08:54 AM
Yes, you can install 10.2 on that Mac. I have a slower iMac than that that the kids play on and it is running 10.2 As for two OS's... not so much. When you move to OS X over OS 9, OS X incorporates OS 9 as "Classic" meaning if you have software that is not OS X native, you can still run it using Classic (OS 9). They run well and smoothly together that way.
As for replacing the hard drive or RAM... unless you are very comfortable with computers, you may not want to jump right in to that as the compact internal design is not that easy to work with. If you are comfortable with doing that type of work do a google search and you will find plenty of videos and pics that will walk you through the steps. If you do go larger on the HD, OS 9 and 10.2 have a primary partition limit of 8Gb that you have to set and then the rest of the drive can be your "second" drive.
Welcome to the Mac world.
As for replacing the hard drive or RAM... unless you are very comfortable with computers, you may not want to jump right in to that as the compact internal design is not that easy to work with. If you are comfortable with doing that type of work do a google search and you will find plenty of videos and pics that will walk you through the steps. If you do go larger on the HD, OS 9 and 10.2 have a primary partition limit of 8Gb that you have to set and then the rest of the drive can be your "second" drive.
Welcome to the Mac world.
#3
drmbb
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Posted 23 March 2007 - 09:25 AM
Having OS X and OS 9 on one machine is not a problem (whether on one disk, two, or separate partitions). In fact, it's intended that way, since the classic environment in OS X requires a full install of OS 9 to run legacy apps. All my machines have (and have had) both OS's on one drive, ever since OS X 10.1.
Note that OS X 10.2 requires a minimum of 256MB RAM, and more would most definitely be better - 256MB will be limiting in performance (Apple's official requirement was 128MB, but don't you believe it - sure it will install, but don't plan on really using it for much with just that). A full install of 10.2 is also going to be around 3GB of disk space, so once you add your own apps, plus OS 9 (if you keep it, you don't have to unless you plan on running older apps not available as OS X native versions), things will get mighty tight with only a 6GB. Especially as with only 256MB RAM, you may end up with a lot of disk space needed for swap files.
So this is a slot-loading CD blueberry iMac, right? You can put up to 512MB RAM in that machine (and supposedly, unofficially, up to 1GB). At least opt for the bigger drive - you'll need it. Keep in mind though that the ATA100 controller on that machine will not support hard drives larger than 128GB.
Note that OS X 10.2 requires a minimum of 256MB RAM, and more would most definitely be better - 256MB will be limiting in performance (Apple's official requirement was 128MB, but don't you believe it - sure it will install, but don't plan on really using it for much with just that). A full install of 10.2 is also going to be around 3GB of disk space, so once you add your own apps, plus OS 9 (if you keep it, you don't have to unless you plan on running older apps not available as OS X native versions), things will get mighty tight with only a 6GB. Especially as with only 256MB RAM, you may end up with a lot of disk space needed for swap files.
So this is a slot-loading CD blueberry iMac, right? You can put up to 512MB RAM in that machine (and supposedly, unofficially, up to 1GB). At least opt for the bigger drive - you'll need it. Keep in mind though that the ATA100 controller on that machine will not support hard drives larger than 128GB.
#4
JSnyder
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Posted 23 March 2007 - 10:26 PM
Since I'm going to be doing a clean install of OSX 10.2 anyway (yay, I got a set of disks off of eBay today!) do I still need to power up under its existing system and do the firmware update prior to the changeover to 10.2 on a larger hard drive, or will 10.2 handle that in the installation process?
And I've looked into prices on RAM that will get me over and above 256- it's not that expensive, certainly less so than throwing down on a brand-new Dell system coughcough* so hopefully I'll be in business soon.
Of course, this is ALL assuming my eBay G3/350 turns out to be as serviceable as I hope it to be- I hope I haven't lost $26 plus shipping...! Ahh, the joys of eBay computer shopping...
And I've looked into prices on RAM that will get me over and above 256- it's not that expensive, certainly less so than throwing down on a brand-new Dell system coughcough* so hopefully I'll be in business soon.
Of course, this is ALL assuming my eBay G3/350 turns out to be as serviceable as I hope it to be- I hope I haven't lost $26 plus shipping...! Ahh, the joys of eBay computer shopping...
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